Signs Of Emotional Manipulation | HuffPost UK Life

Emotional manipulation isn’t always obvious. Instead of big explosions or clear-cut moments of harm, there’s typically a sense of covert control through subtle patterns and interactions that leave you feeling confused and anxious.

“It has to do with unspoken rules and expectations,” licensed marriage and family therapist Alexandria Tillard-Gates told HuffPost.

“Emotional manipulation can be present in intimate relationships, friendships and all types of family relationships. Often we experience emotional manipulation in our formative relationships and we don’t realise it until later in life.”

At the extreme end of the spectrum, there are malignant narcissists who use emotional manipulation to get what they want with no remorse or regard for other people’s feelings. But emotional manipulation is not always fully intentional.

“Sometimes it is not as calculated or nefarious as it may seem. It may be that this person just has immature forms of communicating,” said Dr. Sue Varma, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University Grossman School of Medicine and author of “Practical Optimism: The Art, Science, and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being.”

But regardless of intent, the impact can be deeply destabilising.

“Emotional manipulation is when our nervous system gets needlessly triggered,” said licensed marriage and family therapist Spencer Northey. “It causes us to feel unwarranted anxiety based on distorted input. It unmoors us, dissociates reality, makes our emotions storm, makes us feel younger than we are, more responsible than we should be, or both.”

The process can be subtle, but there are ways to identify it. Here are eight signs you may be experiencing emotional manipulation.

“When we are being manipulated in a conversation or conflict, we often feel something very strongly, but the other person denies our experience and refuses to accept that their behaviour could have caused our experience,” Tillard-Gates said. “Often the abuser lies in order to avoid responsibility. This causes us to question our feelings, experience and even our recollection of events.”

This pattern is better known as gaslighting ― a common form of emotional manipulation in which someone systematically lies or distorts reality in a way that makes you doubt your lived experiences and perceptions of things that occurred.

“When humans get together, it’s normal to have occasional misunderstandings about what happened or what’s going on,” Northey said. “Healthy dynamics work collaboratively to figure things out. There is usually an ‘aha!’ moment where the realities merge ― ‘oh, NOW I see where you’re coming from.’ Emotionally manipulative dynamics double down on the divide and rigidly avoid that coming together by insisting on one reality.”

The result of these rigidly incongruent realities is that the other person’s experience and feelings in response to it gets invalidated and denied. Over time, this can seriously erode trust in oneself.

“Emotional manipulation can show up as someone questioning your love or loyalty as a way to avoid or defuse conflict,” said Zainab Delawalla, a licensed psychologist and associate teaching professor in the department of Psychology at Emory University. “For example, if you are trying to set a healthy boundary of your friend not texting you late at night, they might respond with ‘you must not care about me.’”

The emotional manipulator shifts the focus of the conversation away from your valid expression of a concern or need and into the territory of forcing you to prove your care and commitment.

“In close, healthy relationships, there should be room for mistakes, which can be taken at face value and discussed so that both parties feel heard and understood,” Delawalla said. “If these conversations often lead to one party having to constantly defend and justify their loyalty, it is a sign that there might be some emotional manipulation.”

In addition to derailing conversations, this behavior can also lead you to do things to “prove” your affection ― even things that might conflict with your own needs, like buying special gifts when you don’t have the budget to spare.

“Emotional manipulation can take the form of shaming somebody, making them feel guilty, making them feel responsible for your feelings,” Varma said. “It’s often subtle and goes unrecognised for some time.”

These unhealthy dynamics rely on guilt, shame and a sense of obligation to coerce people into doing or saying what the emotional manipulator wants.

“In a normal conflict or miscommunication, both parties are eventually able to identify a similar recollection of events, understand how their behaviour could have impacted the other in a way they might not have intended, and empathise with each other’s feelings and experience even if they don’t totally agree,” Tillard-Gates noted.

In lieu of two people working through conflict together, emotional manipulation involves one person subtly ― or not so subtly ― placing blame to make the other feel like they’ve done something wrong and pressured into compliance.

“If they can make you feel so good, they also have the power to make you feel so bad,” Varma said.

She pointed to “love bombing” as a common tactic of emotional manipulation, as someone showers you with excessive compliments, attention or affection early on in your relationship. This creates a situation where your sense of self-worth becomes tied to their praise and affection.

“The problem is you become addicted to the highs,” Varma explained. “The point is you have become emotionally dependent on their approval. You feel enmeshed with them, and they control you and your emotions.”

So you find yourself chasing these positive interactions, even as the relationship becomes destabilising. When they later criticise or dismiss you, then you tell yourself it’s your fault.

“It’s normal to experience big emotions in response to big things happening in the here and now ― positive or negative,” Northey said. “It’s less normal or realistic to have a big emotional response just from communication.”

She emphasised that these feelings are real and valid, but you should ask yourself if they arise in response to an idea that is not consistent with reality. You might feel intense anxiety, fear or even euphoria, but when you step back, the situation itself doesn’t quite justify that level of emotion. Instead, the feelings stem from distorted messages and perceptions.

“For example, if you feel the joy and safety of a devoted long-term commitment just from someone’s flattery,” Northey said. “In this case, it’s the communication, not the reality that’s eliciting this big emotion. Or on the negative side, you feel the big emotion of loss or threat just from how someone is talking to you.”

If you’re constantly monitoring your words, tone and behaviour to avoid conflict, that’s another warning sign.

“You are afraid to talk to that person about your feelings,” Varma said. “You are afraid of confrontation, and you walk on eggshells.”

Delawalla also pointed to walking on eggshells in every interaction as a red flag for emotionally manipulative dynamics.

“This interferes with your ability to have open, honest communication, which is a foundational element of any close relationship,” she said.

“Healthy conflict and normal miscommunication stay grounded in the present and in mutual consideration for each person,” Northey said. “Even when facing a disagreement and big emotions, healthy conflict continues to respect everyone and everyone’s perspectives. It is free from crossing into other people’s realities by telling someone how they think or feel.”

Instead of asking how you feel, an emotional manipulator might make statements like “You’re jealous,” or “You’re overreacting because you hate me” ― which overrides your perspective and replaces it with their narrative.

“So many of us do this all the time!” Northey said. “We need to stop normalizing it, even when the intentions are benign, such as saying, ‘you’re mad at me’ as a bid for connection. More pernicious forms of this include accusations, name calling and punishing reactions.”

She added that this behavior strips you of your agency to explain yourself and be seen. It’s another dismissal of who you are and your own experience.

“An emotionally manipulative person feels their target out,” Varma said. “It can start with a small joke at your expense, or canceling plans on you at the last minute ― just to see how you respond. And they escalate from there.”

Unaddressed, those behaviours intensify. The emotional manipulator isn’t necessarily being super calculated, either.

“Some people are just not good at taking responsibility for their actions,” Varma said. “This could be the person who makes a snide comment and when you call them out, they say, ‘What are you talking about? I was just kidding.’”

This makes it difficult to push back, assert boundaries or even talk about conflict.

“You never feel that your issues with them are being resolved,” Varma said. “You end up feeling inferior, less than, and you end up second-guessing yourself.”

If these patterns feel familiar, first shift your focus away from trying to decode the other person’s behaviour and toward understanding your own experience.

“The safest way to navigate relationships is with the belief that the only person you can control is yourself,” Northey said. “Therefore, the best signs to look for to avoid being manipulated come from looking inward to understand yourself, not looking outward to try to assess another person’s behaviour.”

That means paying attention to your emotional reactions and identifying your needs.

“Your needs likely include a need to feel trusted and trusting, need to feel supported, need to be understood, and more,” Northey said.

If you feel consistently anxious, confused or unheard, there’s a good chance those needs aren’t being met. You’ll then want to determine how to change this. That might first involve communicating directly.

“Be clear in your communication and tell them how it feels when the conversation derails into you having to justify your love, loyalty or commitment to them,” Delawalla advised.

It’s also important to be realistic about what communication can accomplish, however. If you’ve already expressed your needs multiple times and been met with defensiveness, dismissal or more manipulation, you may not be able to change the dynamic.

“Unfortunately, it is very rare that you can convince someone who is truly emotionally manipulative that they should change,” Northey said. “Attempting to change someone you believe to be emotionally manipulative is a manipulative game in and of itself. So, just stop playing.”

Instead, focus on strengthening your own sense of reality and connection to protect yourself from further manipulation.

“If you already know what feels [like to be] seen and loved, you’re less likely to fall for a fake version of that through love bombing,” Northey explained. “If you already have a reliable system for checking reality, you’re less likely to fall for gaslighting.”

You can also reach out for outside perspectives in these situations. “In an emotionally manipulative relationship, our spirit or intuition often signals that something is off or doesn’t make sense,” Tillard-Gates said. “However, we sometimes overlook this if we have been in a similar relationship in the past. A good way to check ourselves is to get a second opinion from someone not involved in the relationship, such as a therapist, a friend, or even a stranger.”

Surround yourself with people who engage in healthy connections and promote emotional safety. You can break toxic cycles and create more positive ones.

• Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
• Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
• CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
• The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
• Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.