Manipulation in a relationship is when someone wants to control how another person feels, thinks, and behaves. They hide their true intentions and keep you in their trickery until you learn that you’re being manipulated in the name of love.

What is a manipulation in a relationship?

Imagine everything was wonderful until this person came, you were not mentally or emotionally exhausted all the time, and you were wonderful with people and happy all the time.
But now all you see is a sad and depressed person in the mirror, you hate who you have become, and you have been distant from your loved ones too.

You have given your heart to this person but this “one” seems to be busy dismantling your mind and emotions and getting ready to throw your heart in the garbage the moment you are empty. As per research, people with narcissistic nature are the ones who are manipulators, they find the target who seems naive and believe others easily. They do more than damage to a person, if stayed in the relationship for a long time.

How to avoid getting manipulated?

The simple answer would be to get away from them as soon as you realize that they are only using you and controlling you. It becomes hard to evaluate whether you’re being manipulated or not but it’s not always as hard as it seems. Take help if you need to get out of that unhealthy relationship.

Let’s learn about these 5 most commonly used method in a toxic relationship to gain control over you:

1. Guilt-tripping

It is when your partner intentionally tries to make you feel guilty and awful about the choices you make. Guilt tripping is a technique especially used by narcissists to manipulate their partner by preying on their emotions. They present the whole situation as if you are running from your responsibility or you lack feelings in the relationship.

You need to evaluate such incidents to find out if you’re being manipulated using this technique.
The best way to deal with it is setting up some healthy boundaries to make it clear what you will not tolerate and a brief conversation is appreciated rather than playing blame games.

2. Passive aggressive behavior

The most commonly used behavior in a toxic relationship by a partner is to manipulate you into feeling sorry and creating doubts that you hurt them with anything you do.

Communication is said to be the only way to express your feelings. However, when your partner uses other means to express their aggressive feelings rather than by talking. It’s called passive-aggressive behavior.

Now the question is why this behavior from the, it’s because they got their way through it once, and they expect it to work on you every time.

For example:
-Ghosting for days;
-leaving your message on read but not responding even they’re online;
-Silent treatment;
-Respond to you with sarcasm or implicit insults, etc.

These rigid underlying issues like anger and resentment of your partner can harm you emotionally and mentally, without a question.

Your confidence level goes down, you start to believe that you are not good enough and probably deserve to be treated this way.
And gradually your behavior and your presence in the public look so dull and vague that nobody wants to connect with you, so you’re basically left without guidance and the person you have around is your partner.
Someone’s hidden aggression and resentment towards you changes your emotions when you stay in contact with them, the heaviness of not being able to change their behavior makes you feel incompetent.

Being angry once in a while is okay, it’s common, harmless arguments fights are usual but if this is a continuous behavior that you see every now and then. You need to be serious about it and take the right action for your betterment.

They show no emotions towards you or respect your feelings, they say it but don’t mean it and it’s possible that this relationship has no meaning to them.

3. Gaslighting

Another ultimate weapon to mess with your brain is gaslighting, and is mostly used by an abusive partner to make sure you stay in their influence and see them as an ideal partner. The technique is they are always right and if they have done something wrong, you’re wrong to blame them for their actions because they did it because of you.

They gaslight you to make you doubt your own sanity, making you feel you’re mad or stupid, making you believe that you’re a bad influence on them and you make them do terrible things. They put the blame of their failures on you.

How can you find out if you’re being gaslighted?

You may feel dazed and confused after the conversation with this person and start to think there is something wrong with you. And you blame yourself for their problems as if you added more in their life, you feel responsible for their depression and sadness.

People who use gaslighting are typically pathological and habitual liars who frequently display narcissistic traits.

People with narcissistic nature never bring good in a relationship instead will damage you to the extent you may never want to have a relationship again. A narcissist never changes to a humble and kind person but they act very well to get into your head, the more you feed your emotions to them, they grow more, they want more until you’re exhausted.

You begin to lose your identity and dignity with passing time. This behavior cannot be changed, it’s a part of their mind and they refuse to lose it.
So better would be to lose this person. You deserve a better and happy love life and they are not letting you have that. You should never feel guilty for making the right decision by leaving them and getting out of this toxic relationship.

4. Withholding information

All of the three behaviors that I mentioned above are intentional by an abusive partner in an intimate relationship. Now coming to this, holding back information habits should not be seen as a behavior if it’s harmless to your health or relationship. For example; your partner went on a dinner with his/her bunch of friends but you were not informed, it’s totally harmless, not important information. Now let’s say your partner went on a dinner date with someone who has an interest in him/her, this is a concern.

5. Love bombing

You must be thinking love bombing should be seen as a good gesture of deep love. A love bomb is a type of emotional manipulation in which a person “bombs” you with excessive amounts of affection, attention, flattery, and praise in the beginning of the relationship or after an argument to capture your interest and gain control over you.

In the initial stage they would pay such attention and pretend they are the one and will love to the moon and back, and once they have you it will all be taken away the next moment.

Especially if you’re with a narcissist, they occasionally discuss wedding plans to ensure you think that they are committed to you. They are able to take advantage of our desire because we all dream of getting married and having a family with someone who would understand us and will treat us right.

How to avoid getting manipulated?

You should know that the way to get into someone’s head is through the heart. They start from gaining attention then attract and win trust so that you let them in your life and that’s when they get into your head and start the game of manipulation.

Disengage from arguments that are torturing you mentally;
Get out of the relationship if any of these behaviors are frequent.
Break up if behavior is not changed even after talking it out.

Love exists and it can be a true love if you find a genuine person, don’t wear your heart on your sleeve. Before you even start to develop feelings for someone, find out everything about this person as much as you can.
Don’t fall for a fraud.