Signs That You Have Someone Manipulative In Your Life

Back in my high school years, I have always thought that the most important key for a relationship to work is chemistry. You know, having a mindset of a highschool-er is still very immature and shallow.

Then again, over the years, I realized that compatibility is what defines the relationship. Of course, you would expect attraction is there in the first place but is it stable and sustainable? That's when you know how crucial compatibility is.

Compatibility involves open and aligned communication, problem solving skills, fair emotional discussions, sharing the same goals and values, and of course mutual respect to each other.

But what if all of these traits are overshadowed with manipulation? You know, when you get to know each other, that's when you discover their bad attitudes and that's okay. Nobody's perfect. All of us have flaws.

However, you should know when to get out of the relationship when your partner is already being manipulative. Here are the signs:

Always portrays "paawa" effect and self-pity

They certainly know how to change your decisions by self-pitying. One good example for this would be an extravagant partner who doesn't know how to handle his or her finances and when they run out of it, they'll portray that scheme. They'll provide you manipulative and convincing reasons to get you and because you love them, you'll help them.

That sounds petty huh? But if it happens on a regular basis, you should know when it's time to save yourself.

Lovebombing

This is self-explanatory. What they normally do is they'll be overly affectionate towards you, shower you with extra sweetness and then disappear.

Have you met someone like that? It's not necessary as a partner but someone you know who did this to you. It's about manipulating your emotional attachments to them and they'll leave you hanging. One famous Filipino term for this would be "pa-fall or paasa".

Badmouthing his/her exes

Come on, this is a red flag. If you meet this type of person and eventually become lovers, this person would certainly do the same against you.

What these people do is that they will share how awful and tragic (overly described but that's how they do) it was for them in their past relationships. They would share the negative experiences they had during those relationships. They will condition your mind and portray that they're the victims when in fact it's the other way around.

Self-centeredness

When you're in an emotional discussion with this person, they would never consider your side. They'll ignore your sentiments and all they do is to establish a good example of them by saying, "ako kase ganyan, ako kase ganito" without knowing the entire context of the discussions

Growing a healthy and non-toxic relationship would be so challenging if you have someone in your life like this. It's hard to make them understand and compromise with what's happening around.

"Joke lang"

Manipulative people would often tell you offensive words and when they see it affected you so much, they'd tell that it's only a joke but they actually mean it. That's straight manipulation.

Or what they do is that they'll make "parinig" to you about things and if you react, they'll say I didn't mention a name when it's clearly about you to begin with.

Gaslighting

This is a form of manipulation where the person bombards you with their sins, tries to make up for it and when they don't get what they want from you, they'll blame you of why they did that.

Cheating would be a perfect example for this. The guy cheats on his girlfriend, the girl soon finds out about his activities, he owns up his mistakes (which I never truly believe it's a mistake), tries to reconcile with his girlfriend but she refuses to because it devastated her big time, and the guy will now convey how stone-hearted the girl is by demanding forgiveness and preaching that nobody's perfect, and that everyone commits sins.

Having a relationship with this kind of person is no good for you. It usually leads to a burnout instead of longevity. We commonly look for chemistry but we fail to determine compatibility with each other. Being able to co-exist in harmony is where you both can learn and grow at the same time.

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Thanks for reading.

Keep safe everyone!