r/Manipulation

So essentially, I began to get intimate with this guy in February. He visited my house for the first time and I realized he was in contact with a guy who tried to assault me. I’ve told him if they want to be friends that’s fine but I’m out. He said he’d block him but fought me several times on it.

There was alot of me blocking him, him reaching out through a mutual friend to give a half assed apology, ect.

But second to last time I did it, I realized he’d had the guy who tried to assault me on Roblox and unadded me.

The last time I blocked him he blocked me so I couldn’t see who he had added and whatnot, stating it “always caused issues” gaslighting me and shit.

I asked him, once again for an explanation on his behavior and he sent this:

“Pretty much I just was tryna figure out what happened between you two. It's two conflicting stories and the screenshots I saw literally didn't help. At first I was just fine but the screenshots his friends showed me i dunno. I didn't mean to get irate when you asked me to block or whatever but it genuinely was so fucking annoying after awhile mainly cuz you acted like everything I did was fully intentional. Like sorry that he's one of my 10,000 followers on an app I don't use at all but you made it seem like I kept track and was evil for it when it just was soemthing i wasn't thinking about. It made me feel odd considering what I knew. I don't want you to think I don't believe you or your story it's just a weird situation for me after seeing how you talked about the interaction afterwards. My friends were telling me just now I can't know your reaction for sure but when I told them they did agree it was odd. Maybe it's how you coped? I shouldn't have judged it. Sometimes I do things just to see what you do. I wanted to know if you truly did search for more issue when we had a falling out or if it was just a coincidence. Like when you got mad you go off on my statuses (even when you had me blocked at the time) and I know now. So that's why I just have to go back to walkingon egg shells. With (guy who tried to assault me) I don't care for him, he only followed me cuz I wanted to see if you were gonna dig around for something to get mad at. You can say I'm evil. It's wrong I know but i just hated the whole situation. I don't understand it. But now I do, and it's why I havent been resisting or whatever you wanna call it. I just was skeptikal is all. You can block me over this and that's fine. It's over now but you're gonna blcok me and I won't try and come back to you this time. Iam sorry for it as itt caused more issues. I do love you but you're gonna hate me and that's fine. Just don't kill yourself/“

I called him out on this message several times. He kept apologizing but it was/felt disingenuous and I called him out on it too.

I really want to belive he will try to do better, I still have feelings for him and I hate myself for it, please, I need a non emotionally driven opinion. People are leaving me over my attachment to him and he’s starting to ruin my life by proxy. Is he really so hopeless?

I mean everybody in friend group when you talk to them like super friendly ALONE but when they are it the group they are like SUPER toxic and mean for no reason. Is this rare? Or is it in every friend group? Thanks for every answer tho 😊

I’m working on something that tries to explain confusing relationship behavior in a way that actually matches how it feels in real time.

At any stage—early dating, in a relationship, or even later—what were the questions going through your head when things didn’t add up?

I’m less interested in the full story or what you noticed being off, and more in the actual questions you were asking yourself.

Thank you in advance. Things are better when they use feedback from the real people inside them, and I really appreciate your input.

I’m going to try to be concise. Been with boyfriend for 10yrs, become close friends with his male best friend for about 7yrs. The male best friend entered into newer relationship, really wanted us to get along with his girl. Her and I start hanging out, few times a month. I’m given compliments and told she always wanted a friend like me.

We both enjoy research and debate. We get into a debate over health. I try to have a general convo while she makes the conversation about me and her opinions on my lifestyle. (Which I’m fine with and unfortunately engage in) this leads to me calling out what she’s doing in a very direct and uncomfortable way(for her). She end the text conversation saying I was attacking her and she was right and I just need to know I’m wrong. This is where things get wild? The next day the male best friend reaches out to my boyfriend they need to talk. They talk and my boyfriend was blind sided bc he had no idea what was going on but was left feeling they agreed their girls needed to talk to resolve this. However, the next morning boyfriend is at work, I wake up to a text from her demanding an apology saying along the lines “I don’t know if you realize this but you are xyz… blah blah” includes many screen shots, says I need to review my screen shorted behavior and immediate apologize or we cannot be friends anymore.

A lot happens here- I don’t apologize bc I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. I express the need for an in person conversation bc I’m confused.

I tell her I’m trying to understand and she ends with this is the consequences of my actions and blocks me.

The male best friend just vents about how wrong I am when I try to reach out. I remove him due to the intensity he was hitting me with. Within the week he texts my boyfriend asking what he thinks of the situation. Boyfriend is working but says he doesn’t know what happened and will review everything.

He reviews everything, texts him they should meet up (late at night). Boyfriend wakes up to best friend removed him from every single social media platform without a word or conversation.

They proceed to vent to entire friend group about situation, including screen shots of me being uncomfortably direct about calling her out during the “debate”.

It’s bee two years. The best friend ghosted boyfriend without conversation.

I’ve never talked to anyone in person about this. My boyfriends best friend and I never had issues a could always have deep convos and go to each other for advice. I had no problem modifying our relationship if needed, however this was allEXTREMLY abrupt with no communication. A ton of third party bullshit.

I’m left feeling confused and lead on.

Is this a classic example of triangulation ?

Also. The best friend and his girl still talk with my boyfriend’s younger brother. His younger brother has heard it all. Recently talked to me about it. He doesn’t even realize they strawmanned my entire position to where it’s hard to even talk to the brother about it due to his one sided understanding. (The brother is still chill and accepting- I just feel it’s too much to explain to had him truly understand bc I would have to show screen shots which I think is ridiculous)

This is a lot. Sorry if it’s confusing an not as concise, seems like a lot for no reason 😪

Buckle up, cause this is a long one. So I dated this girl from December to early March. Things were good until they weren’t. We broke up because I couldn’t get over her past(found out she was with a lot more people than myself). Still very much cared for her and wish her the best. Deep down she is a sweet person. Or so I thought. During the breakup and the proceeding month and a half, I had to “break up” with her 3 different times. She spammed my phone frequently sending me long emotional messages and called me weak and said I needed to mature. Lots of things. She wanted to meet up to say our goodbyes/exchange things(we both didn’t have a lot of stuff at each other houses) multiple times. I said it’s a bad idea and I would be happy to mail her things to her and that she can throw away mine. This eventually progressed into me going no contact for about 3 weeks and she would still text me about every other day or so. Things calmed down and she didn’t reach out for a week. She texts me saying she needed a favor from me. I asked what it was and she said she wanted me to go to a wedding out of town with her because “she didn’t feel safe going alone”. I said it’s a bad idea because what do you think will happen? It would rehash everything and we’d both be starting from ground zero. Anywho I don’t respond because well, we’ve been broken up for a month. She texts me the next day saying “pleeeeeassseee” and that we can just go as friends and she’ll even get me a separate hotel room. And “we can just go then you’ll never have to see me again it’ll be fine loll”. I thought that was silly and to be real I was a bit offended to I ignored the message. The next day she texts me saying she is pregnant. This news was very strange to me considering the last time we had sex(and she was on birth control) she had a period 1 or 2 days later. She said she’ll just deal with it alone like per usual and that I’m a POS and she’s really freaked out how I’m being so inconsiderate ignoring her. I obviously engaged and asked her logistical questions. Asked when she found out, hey she thinks that, etc.. We have gone back and forth essentially playing chess with our words and I asked her to send me a picture of the test. She said it was verrrry faint for 3 days in a row and she thinks it’s a chemical/miscarriage and she shouldn’t have even told me. I saw picture of all 3 and they are quite faint and not getting darker. I told her I’m going with her to the OB. To see what’s going on. She sent me her OBs address and it wasn’t a real OB. She said she called and they’ll call her back. I sent her a few different places,including free clinic, and she kept being super dodgy and giving excuses as to why she couldn’t get an appointment ASAP and it would have to be 2 weeks from now. I said no worries we’ll go to an ultrasound place this weekend and I’ll pay for it I can book an appointment right now. Long story short she said she is now going to the wedding(that she told me she wasn’t going to 3 days ago) and that it wouldn’t work for her schedule. We have an appointment booked at a pregnancy clinic close to her house to see the ultra sound on Thursday. I’m worried, it obviously could be mine and I am happy to step up to the plate and be present in this child’s life but based on her behavior and the escalation of everything idk if she’s just doing some last ditch effort to stay connected. Or maybe it’s someone else’s(she told me she moved on quick from her last relationship) and she’s trying to pin it on me. I don’t know I’m a bit shook up but the weirdest part is the last time we had sex was Feb 28 and it was April 15 when this all happened. The tests would read much more visibly pregnant at this point. I’m trying to figure out if she’s telling the truth. All of her behavior has led up to this point in escalation and I’m someone concerned she’s very unstable. I know this is out of left field but something in my gut is telling me something’s not adding up. I obviously left out all the little details, be aware that they all are leading me to believe something is up. She is now avoiding conversations with me after begging me to talk to her. It’s all very strange to me. Any help or advice from someone who’s been through a similar situation would be awesome.

My narcissistic ex-boyfriend won't stop rewriting history, but what he doesn't know is that I have a backup—photos, videos, and screenshots of all our conversations. They could expose the circus of lies he's told, but only if I decide it's enough.

I was about 14 maybe 13 and this girl I knew manipulated me for months till we slept together and then she said it was just to get back at her boyfriend. Then when I was 15 she apologized for it and asked if she wanted us to date I said sure. A couple months go by it's going good but I catch her cheating on me so I leave her for that. Then she tells me in math class she missed her period and that she might be pregnant so I get back with her just for her to get mad at me for going to a football game without telling her and while there I catch her cheating on me again so I tell her if she really is pregnant I want a dna test. Well she gave birth to a boy and we did the test and it wasn't mine. But I just feel disgusted with myself now that I was so easily used for nothing more than pleasure. But I also feel like my feelings are invalid and that I did deserve what happened to me. So are my feelings in the wrong or am I normal for feeling this way

I constantly feel like I’m playing a version of myself instead of actually being myself.

Around people, I get overwhelmed. I mask being funny or interested, even when I’m not. I fake laugh just to keep things comfortable. And because of that, I end up feeling disconnected from myself in most social situations.

It feels like my neutral personality is “too much,” so I adjust to be accepted. But when someone does understand me, I instantly feel overly connected like everything I’ve been holding back just drops at once.

I also notice I connect way easier with “weird” people. Normal interactions just feel draining.

At the same time, I don’t think masking is completely bad. Sometimes it feels necessary. Being fully authentic all the time doesn’t work either, because people aren’t always genuine. Showing too much of yourself can backfire.

But thinking this way has also made me feel like I’m not really enjoying life or being myself.

For example, I visited someone today, and their neighbor is someone I used to be close with. I brought them food to break the tension between us. But I felt guilty, because part of my intention was strategic not just “being nice,” but also making things easier for future interactions.

I don’t think that’s wrong. I’ve been too independent my whole life, never asking for help, so I’m trying to change that. Still, I didn’t feel like myself.

I felt like I had to act soft, maintain eye contact, and behave a certain way. I even felt weirdly submissive just because they were receiving something from nice me.

They were just enjoying the food.

But I felt embarrassed for even being nice.

So I don’t know.

Do you guys mask to stay balanced?

Or do you only act like yourself around certain people?

I work in an office that handles commercial contracts. My two bosses, a married man and woman, manage projects involving approximately 10,000 people. They have daily meetings with these people, about twenty people a day. Since working here, I've felt like a completely different person.

Thanks to my bosses, I've learned to communicate, but it's getting scary because I'm slowly becoming like them. They're very good at persuading; they care deeply about their image and how the company's name is carried, how to exert influence, how to make sure everything goes smoothly.

But now let's get down to the fact that these are people, and they do it in their lives too (they're married), and they treat their friends in that very persuasive way, too. At this point, from my initial "meeting" with them, where I thought they were incredible people because they also have so many friends, I've also noticed some negative qualities, like gossiping a lot about others, having temper tantrums, and setting boundaries for others but not respecting their own.

Do you think this is all toxic and manipulative, even though these people support their families and have long-term friends, and it's actually all genuine? What do you think?

I also hear them talking "good" of others, but that actually sounds like they're doing cold readings..

How do you know the difference?

i'm 19 and i've been living in this suffocating situation for about 4 years now and i genuinely can't tell what's normal anymore so i'm just gonna dump everything here

every single conversation at home ends with me being wrong. it doesn't matter what it's about. my sleep schedule, my music, me being online, my beliefs, friends i make online, news i bring up. it always somehow circles back to me needing to understand something or me being naive and the world outside being dangerous and everyone wanting to take advantage of me. and it's never one person at a time. it becomes all of them at once taking turns cutting me off mid sentence and i'm just standing there for hours not being able to finish a single point i wanted to make. if i go quiet it gets read as me agreeing. if i push back i'm being disrespectful. there's literally no move that works.

some of the specific stuff that comes up constantly - being told i'll get kidnapped or trafficked for being online at night, my atheism somehow getting linked to terrorism, any source i bring up being called propaganda while mainstream tv is apparently fine, being told to go gym then being denied supplements even though i'm vegetarian and already have deficiencies, my music and headphones being constantly policed, my sleep schedule being treated as suspicious, every online friendship immediately being suspected

the thing that makes it worse is they're genuinely not well. memory issues, going in circles, forgetting conversations we already had. when i bring up actual treatment i get shut down and they go for alternative remedies instead. and when i finally win an argument it ends with "you're right it's just my brain right now, but i'm older so i'm still right anyway"

the only time i actually feel like myself is with my headphones on. that's it. that's the only real peace i get

i have a plan to get into a college away from home and i'm working toward it but the financial dependence makes me feel completely trapped and four years of this has genuinely destroyed my confidence

like she even once said to me how she owns me as she gave birth to me and I belong to her and whatever I do is for them as they are doing stuff for me now so I should be grateful

has anyone been through something like this and come out the other side. how did you stay sane while still stuck inside it

is there any tactics or anything that can help me here

I do not care if it's dark immoral or whatever I just wanna feel like I control myself and my decisions

So my coworker is a loner in his 40s. We got along well but he was a bit clingy sometimes. He asked me a while ago to cook at my place and I refused. I kept the contact limited to office and public spaces. He went with me to Mass because I attend regularly. The Easter came and my hometown is 5h by train away from my job. He has no family, the grandma and uncle he used to live with died. So he said he wants to celebrate Easter with my family. I was in doubt but he said he already booked the hotel so I agreed upon taking him with me to mass at my hometown and a few meals with my parents and me at our house. The first day the train was delayed and he missed mass yet he still wanted to come to my house to eat. I said it was too late and we see eachother the next day anyways. So then he started to cry and send me voice messages of how desperate he was. I calmed him down. The next day he showed up at mass and had his eyebrows shaved off and an injury in his face close to the mouth. I said why he did it and he said he had an emotional outbursts. The next days he kept going to mass with me but was not nice towards the priest assistant and threw a coin at him. I said it was not ok and he wanted to come to my house anyways for the food. He then left the dinner table and came back with a piece he broke out of the toilette. I was so angry and my father drove him to the train. I haven’t headed from him since. Then I was asking a woman I know by name if she knows him well from the time she worked with him and she told me he did cut off the straps of her designer back and did regularly hide her keys and phone from her but people called her crazy for accusing him. That was a reason why he was place in my office which is next to the one of the woman. What is this situation ? I need advice

I had a close friend of 2 years recently convince my girlfriend of 3 months to join his open marriage with his wife. As I found out more and more information I started feeling like this was a deeply unethical situation and that there was possible manipulation or lovebombing but I'm struggling to distinguish what is and isn't as I seriously trusted my friend, B, before this.

We were all apart of a larger friend group, B encouraged me to date F(my ex) and we hit it off great and got along very well! I wasn't aware at the time but B had been pursuing F as well, although he downplayed how much. I initially didn't have a problem with him being interested in her as we were not exclusive yet and we were just feeling things out.

Eventually, F And I become exclusive, and he immediately starts telling her that he wants to be with her. He tells her how about how hard it is to not be with her and how much he desires her. I later found out they sexted a week after us being exclusive, breaking a boundary I discussed with them. She tells me she isn't interested in being with them/polyamory, and wants to focus on me. We have a few talks periodically about it discussing boundaries, my semi thinking on it but wanting to focus on building something between us first, etc.

Eventually she tells me that she thinks she needs to try to be with them. We have a 3 day long conversation (phone/calls/etc) about it and trying to discuss it before she starts to show me a cascade of what I see as red flags about him, and their ideas of non-monogamy. This was after 3-4 conversations of her telling me she just wants me, cares about me, isn't interested in being with B, but that meeting his wife changed that for her.

He tried to move her into his house with them after 2 months of them knowing each other (while she was dating me), tried to get matching tattoos while she was with me, tried to pay my college tuition, jumped from just wanting to sleep with her, to having feelings, to loving her for two years and choosing not to pursue her during her last relationship. B was taking cat allergy shots (hes allergic and she has cats) while we were dating and before he fully brought up moving her in. Once we broke up after she asked me to be poly with them, she cried at the idea that B tried to break us up and panicked that she fucked up and he "broke her boundaries" but she chose to call him and he convinced her otherwise. He and his wife then told someone in the group they "took and earned her". She's chronically ill, and after meeting his wife one time she felt very seen, because his wife is also ill and they spent a bunch of time bonding about it. The guy has also claimed, a few different times, that he doesn't really feel empathy for people and just does his best to sympathize. B would message her often about how hard it was not getting to be with her, and ask if she regretted choosing me.

She described wanting to be my priority, an 85-15 split of time between us (I didn't full ask what this entailed but it just set off alarm bells). She said she liked being able to gush about me to B (they were fairly close) and said she could have kept doing that if they were together. Wanted to be able to talk about any of her insecurities with me, gush about them a bit, etc. She wanted to eventually move in with them or at least close by and be able to share spaces. She also wanted to vet anyone I met on my end, through constant updates about how I'm feeling about new potential partners and wanting to meet anyone I wanted to sleep with and waiting until I had her okay to sleep with them. She described it as people "needing to be someone she can be friendly with". F told me that her therapist suggested trying polyamory to soothe certain anxieties she had, and despite being unsure about if she actually wanted or needed polyamory if she started thinking about it this much she "had to try it".

I'm struggling to cope with what happened, It was a short relationship but it ended so abruptly and I feel like the wind was knocked out of me by losing that friend. They have been completely ousted by the friend group but that makes me more worried about about the potential unicorn hunting isolation happening to my ex. She has VERY few friends and clung to previous abusive relationships because she was desperate for friendships and as stupid as it is I am genuinely concerned for her.

What is this forever virtual thing???

hi, I met a 30M at work. he works in HR and I'm a doctor in the same hospital. he's a catholic and associated with a ministry. I'm a different religion. Hindu.

he initiated the texts... constantly texted me and I didn't understand why he would want to talk to me being in HR. anyway, I responded to the texts since they were consistent and I gradually began liking talking to him. he would flirt too and compliment me. the strange part was he seemed very interested but never asked me for coffee.

I asked if we could grab coffee. he declined but continued to text me constantly. I didn't understand what he was playing at.

he said he'd never dated anyone in his life...slowly, none of his stories seemed consistent.

I thought he just needed time to warm up to the idea of dating?! I don't know why I was making excuses for him.

but what came next, confused me even more. please help me make sense of this. mind you he kept complimenting me incessantly throughout.

So eventually

He said he'll enter the arranged marriage market when they've finished re-building his family home in his hometown, which would take atleast another year. then he said his family wanted to introduce him to a match.

So I asked him if he saw the lady's picture then. He said why would I? I will only get interested if she's sensitive, beautiful like you....

in the beginning before we even got close, he said he had a crush where he was doing his MBA. But that girl left and got married to someone else. she gave him enough time to step up and find a job or get settled.

he would share videos of his church sermons etc and ask me if I go to a temple...and if I perform pooja on festivals.

after a few weeks...he began sexting.

Then he revealed he had an ex-gf of 6 years...who is looking for matches herself. And this happened exactly after the sexting. I felt cheated.

Before then it was the cousin he liked...the nurses...the matches....never an ex gf!!! How did she magically appear?!

Nothing makes sense with him.

Then I stopped talking to him and blocked him for a week. I said if he still had feelings for his ex while sexting me, I can't have that on my conscience especially if he hopes to get back with her.

So after a week he says he's not at all in touch with her and she may have gotten married. He said the same thing again when I asked after two weeks just to confirm.

Then we got into a fight about not meeting. I told him I felt like a virtual p\\\*rn machine and someone without a face. I asked him how come he has no desire to meet me after being so intimate on text and calls? So we met for dinner. and when he met me...he said his ex-gf is still not married and he's trying to tell his father about her....

he still won't meet me and says he's scared someone will see us.

what does he want?!

Not sure what I’m asking….red flag? Not ok? Or am I over thinking?

Husband of 10 years, we’re always attempting conflict repair. It’s an ongoing issue, he’s a classic avoidant with whilst not necessarily intentionally manipulative, manipulative all the same. I share hurt - he sees it as an attack.

Last night the attempt of repair went south. I’m usually pretty regulated but it just felt hopeless last night and I ended up hysterically crying. The pain and frustration was too much.

I was hyperventilating and couldn’t bring myself back down, but instead of co-regulating or showing empathy, he said we will talk tomorrow night coldly and went to bed.

I was left me crying and hysterical by myself. I wasn’t doing it for attention, I’m genuinely heartbroken and with hurt that has accumulated over the years. He could also hear me, just tuned a blind eye.

Should he have spent 5 minutes helping me calm down, regardless of lack of repair or what happened during conflict? it’s not unreasonable to expect him to stay is it? I’ve definitely lost myself through all the “crap” that I don’t know what is valid or truly overthinking it now.

A business-related discussion has to take place between two parties. Person A tries to handle this by bringing up rational, quantitative arguments. Person B responds by saying that Person A’s stance is not actually about these arguments but is caused by a lack of trust.

Person B basically turns the entire conversation into a monologue/therapy session about the root cause of mistrust and trauma, knowing there is a good chance the other person might have trauma based on earlier conversations. In the end, Person A leaves the conversation feeling like they are the problem.

The status quo is that no decision has been made, but it looks like Person B is getting their way.

One more thing: Person B keeps saying that they trust Person A, and even more so that they trust in life. They also keep referring to themselves as “pure” and say they have no intention to f*** anyone over.

Is this a known manipulation tactic? How do you deal with something like this? Would it be wise to just walk away from the deal?