Six signs you might be in a manipulative relationship

By Nwele Euphemia

Manipulation is the skillful handling, controlling or using of something or someone. A manipulative person knows how to twist words, play on emotions and otherwise manage a situation in a sneaky fashion to get what he/she wants.

We come across stories of ladies in a marriage relationship with a cheating spouse but they blame themselves for their husband cheating on them, we also see situations where you allow your spouse.

You see people who are convinced that they cannot amount to anything without their spouse because of the degree of words their partner has fed them with. Truth is that manipulation exists all around us, in the family, in schools, amongst friends and even in the market place.

But I will be focusing on marriage relationship manipulation. Manipulators only get away with their acts because they were allowed to, and also due to ignorance and fear developed overtime. You can only overcome what you know of.

Most times, it is difficult pin pointing if you are in a manipulative relationship, so I haven put together some signs that shows you might be living with an emotional manipulator:

• They take reality away from you: they convince you that an event did not happen when you said it did, and they insist they said something they didn’t say, making you question your faith in yourself, making you assume you were wrong about things and that you were only imagining things.
• They twist your guilt to their favour: they make you feel guilty for a mistake you tell them of, and even when you fail to tell them they still make you feel guilty too. They use your mistakes against you, so you feel indebted to them.
• Victimization: they always play the victim card; they trick you using their words into believing that they are the victim of a situation.
• Alignment: their words and action do not corelate there is always a question mark, they are word sweethearts, always telling you what you want to hear but they never follow through with their words.
• Always willing to help: they present themselves as good Samaritans that would come to your rescue.
• They use your weakness against you, they know you so well that they can easily have you do whatever they want and get away with it, they see your weakness as a strength to act upon.

Seeing the above signs, if you have an emotional manipulator as a partner you shouldn’t hesitate to distance yourself from them emotionally and physically, because they would only end up destroying your life.

You need to realize their tactics so that you know when they are trying to be manipulative and you can call a halt to it. Because no one can manipulate you without you knowing you should be able to know and avoid giving consent for them to manipulate you. At most you can recommend them to get help, but still beware of them.