How To Deal With Manipulative People
We’ve all been around manipulative people, whether they be strangers, friends, significant others, or even family. Manipulative people will make you believe certain things or do things that you don’t actually want to. So how should you deal with someone who’s manipulative? We’ve got five suggestions that might help.
- Identify Their Behavior As Manipulative
It’s hard to effectively deal with a manipulative person if you haven’t clearly identified their behavior as manipulative. So what exactly does manipulative behavior look like?
A manipulative person knows how to twist situations and people into their favor. They will create scenarios where it is helpful to them and not others. For example, a manipulative person might create a lie in order to benefit their image.
Manipulative people also tend to blame others for their problems. They tend to take advantage of other’s emotional nature, using other’s vulnerability in their favor. They don’t really seem to care about other people’s emotional wellbeing, as long as their own hands appear clean.
2. Pay Attention To Warning Signs
Once you identify potentially manipulative people, pay attention to the way that person talks to you about other people. Eventually, this person could talk about you in the same way, causing problems between the two of you. Compare their words and their actions. Do they match up?
3. Confront Them About Their Behavior
If you suspect that someone is being manipulative, it may be worthwhile to approach them directly.
“I would confront them,” EHS Janessa Gonzales says. “It’s important for them to acknowledge what they are doing. Sometimes people do things without knowing why they do it.”
4. Be Careful Of Being Too Forgiving
“Manipulative people use their strengths and resources to put you down,” says Eastside senior Tamia Cox. For her, she was manipulated by a former best friend. “Time and time again, he would hurt me and then come back to apologize just so he can use me as a backup plan whenever he’s in something deep. Eventually, his true nature came out and he made me seem like the bad guy in the situation.”
5. Be Willing To Let Go
While communication can be important, it is also important to know when additional conversations won’t improve the situation. Remember: you can’t change another person. And if the other person isn’t willing to make that change, it may be time to take the high road and get yourself out of that relationship.
Do you have any experiences with manipulative people? What suggestions would you pass on? Let us know in the comments below.
