How To Break Up With A Manipulator

If yous're struggling with a manipulator, you need to know how to beat one.

No one likes to be manipulated. And still, somehow manipulators always seem to find victims.

Hither'southward the affair to empathize up front: manipulators prey on your vulnerabilities. This means you're going to have to be tough if you desire to fight back.

Today I'd like to accept you through a six-step plan to trounce manipulators. Recollect of this as a strategic program, your tactical guide to fighting dorsum.

Step i): Recognize How Manipulators Work

The beginning step is to recognize what you're dealing with.

The key characteristic of the manipulator is that they always know what's all-time for you, even if you don't.

This is what makes them then difficult to beat. They frequently do a good task of imitating a mentor, guide, or trusted friend who only wants what'south all-time for y'all.

But surprise, surprise, what's "healthy" is always good for them.

A manipulator who is any good at what they practice will learn about their victim – quite ofttimes in the context of a "friendship" or family human relationship.

Unlike a real friend or a loving, supporting family fellow member, however, a manipulator will use that noesis to effectively command that person.

This works all-time on people who take vulnerabilities that tin can be exploited by the manipulator.

That's what happened to me.

Later growing up in an emotionally abusive religious household, I struggled for many years with low, a lack of self-esteem, and social awkwardness.

Then, forth came this couple, a man and a adult female who were a bit older than I was. They were willing to accept me under their wing. Nosotros'll telephone call them "Juniper" and "Henry".

I'll summarize by saying that Juniper was a manipulative control freak. Henry was a completely cowed doofus who seemed to do all the work.

The globe is total of worse manipulators than Juniper. She wasn't terribly bright, and her ambitions were limited to say the to the lowest degree.

All the same, I immune her to exercise more influence on me than I should have because of my particular combination of vulnerabilities.

Spoiler alert: our friendship eventually imploded. On the plus side, I beat a manipulator.

Footstep 2): Pass up the Manipulative Narrative

Now that yous know what you're dealing with, you accept to pass up the manipulative narrative.

The key, of form, is agreement that the person who is trying to manipulate yous is doing and then for their own ends, not yours.

They desire you to be a version of you that they find easy to control.

In my case, my friend Juniper and her hen-picked husband actually had some practiced life advice. Because of this, I found it harder to see through the times and situations in which she acted in a manipulative fashion.

Over time, though, I discovered self-improvement, and that nudged my values toward personal responsibility.

I've always been contained-minded, and I found myself rejecting more and more than of the things people around me – including Juniper and Henry – believed reflexively, seemingly without question.

You may have a smarter and more sophisticated manipulator than Juniper was (it's absolutely not a very high bar to clear).

Yet, even a very smart and very sophisticated manipulator is going to sell you a narrative that will ultimately be all well-nigh them.

One time you realize you're being sold self-serving bullshit, y'all can adopt the mindset to beat out a manipulator.

Stride 3): Recognize Leverage When You See Information technology

Leverage isn't always equal, but information technology's still leverage.

Your manipulator will no doubt endeavour to use some form of leverage over you.

This could be your job, your family life, your circle of friends, or money one of you owes the other.

Pretty serious stakes, correct?

The affair to understand is that even if your manipulator seems very powerful, the fact that they're trying to control you means you even so take something they desire.

If yous know what your manipulator wants from you lot, then you know the leverage yous have over them.

Do yous owe them money? That'due south plain leverage they take over you, and you'll desire to remove that equally soon equally possible.

But owing someone money also gives you some leverage.

Say they're trying to bully yous into paying them dorsum at a time when yous tin can't beget it. Your leverage is that you need to be alive and in expert condition to earn the money to pay them back.

Yep, information technology's an asymmetrical situation, but your leverage will assist you to beat a manipulator in the battle of wills.

I mentioned before that I grew up in an uber-religious household with a lot of emotional abuse. Equally a consequence, I internalized the message that I was sinful and worthless, constantly at gamble of displeasing an all-knowing and wrathful God.

Oddly plenty, this God really wanted me to obey my mother… who was emotionally abusive and a religious zealot.

In that state of affairs, I felt pretty powerless, and I was. As an developed, I tin see that my mother wanted something from me: obedience.

If y'all know what your manipulator wants, y'all know what your leverage is.

Stride iv): Stand Up for Yourself

Yous'll have to stand up for yourself to trounce a manipulator.

Yous know what your leverage is, and that means you can use it.

Ready? Okay, here's how to remove any manipulator from your life: stand upward for yourself.

Yeah, you're going to have to exist careful nearly how y'all practise information technology, and the situation matters rather a lot.

For instance, take my old friends "Juniper" and "Henry". Most of her manipulative behavior had to do with some combination of drama and simply being controlling, entitled, and unreasonable.

At present, that worked on me considering I was a socially awkward, out of shape loser with no conviction who was clueless well-nigh the world.

What changed?

To simplify a complex story, my values changed. I embraced personal responsibility and self-improvement, and I became more self-assertive and more critical of the narratives that I saw in the earth effectually me.

This meant I couldn't exist an unquestioning sheep. I couldn't believe whatever the masses effectually me believed: the sense of entitlement, the victim complexes, the failure to take responsibility.

Juniper had a victim complex, an unfortunate legacy of her own awful, abusive childhood.

A conflict was inevitable. Similar nigh manipulators, Juniper couldn't stand up independent thought.

Y'all run across, a person who thinks independently tin run into through a manipulator. They won't accept the manipulator as their arbiter of what is right and incorrect.

My former friend couldn't handle what she called "a difference of morality".

The truth was that she was a parasite and an insecure, needy person who was afraid considering I was no longer the weak, unconversant person she had in one case controlled so easily.

Footstep five): Be Calculating & Careful

Manipulators are ruthless past nature, willing to do what it takes to control you.

Sometimes you may exist able to avoid them or leave the situation in question.

Other times you may have to fight.

If y'all have to fight a manipulator, a calculating and careful mentality can practice wonders for you.

A calculating mentality will help y'all assess your options, the risks, and how to best proceed.

Existence careful will help to keep you from going off half-cocked.

My falling-out with Juniper and Henry took the class of her attacking me in a peculiarly kittenish and nasty way on a Facebook post I fabricated on my own contour.

The nature of the attack was beyond incertitude designed to intermission me. She wanted to humiliate and shame me.

I recognized what was happening, and responded to her as calmly and rationally as I could.

It wasn't easy, just I kept my cool and if anything, erred on the side of existence mild and understated.

If I had it to do over again today, I would either merely block her or exist more than forceful in my argumentation.

The part that I'm still proud of is that I kept my emotions turned downwards, and responded in a perfectly reasonable and civil fashion.

I was calculating and conscientious. It didn't salve the relationship, of class, only that wasn't the outcome I was after.

What I wanted was to bear witness that I would not be intimidated or cowed, and that I would exist the bigger person. And on that score, I succeeded admirably.

Footstep half-dozen): Make a Clean Break

If you lot want to crush your manipulator, you're going to have to make a clean break.

A manipulative dominate may never change their ways. What they will understand is a two-week detect with the explanation that you have some other chore (a meliorate one, just yous don't demand to say that – it's implicit).

Similarly, a manipulative friend or family member may never modify. If their manipulation is severe and harmful and they won't listen when you ask them to change, cutting them out of your life is probably for the best.

At present, you need to empathise that there will be ramifications, and y'all need to accept them as part of the toll of a clean intermission.

Falling out with my friends Juniper and Henry had consequences. I lost a social circle of shared friends and acquaintances that I had relied on for a number of years.

Certain, I kept in affect with a few people, only most of them were closer to my estranged friends than they were to me. There was a good reason for this: most of them had values and behavior that were closer to those of my onetime friends than they were to mine.

Over time, I've come to empathise that it was for the best. Yes, it was shitty, but I've come up to realize that I'g ameliorate off without them.

Equally far as I'thousand concerned, these former friends have called to be inferior people. I am ameliorate off without Juniper's insecurity-driven manipulative beliefs, emotionalism, and drama-mongering.

I've too realized that they were not the kind of people I would desire to innovate to my girlfriend. My life is so much amend because I beat a manipulator.

Instead, I've been able to introduce her to wonderful people who take remained in my life. She's introduced me to wonderful people in her life, and we've met and befriended others.

Conclusion

Knowing how to shell a manipulator is all about agreement what manipulators are, what they do, and how to protect yourself and fight back.

As nosotros've learned, manipulators are human predators and parasites. They survive as manipulators by preying on people'south vulnerabilities.

The 6-step program we've discussed today will help you to beat them. Yous'll be wise to their tricks and using a few of your ain.

For more tips, watch this dandy video past masked YouTuber Nameless about how to manipulate a manipulator by recognizing leverage and existence ruthless if you have to be. It'south full of fantabulous advice.

In truth, you're probable to notice that confidence and a little calculated cleverness is most all you demand to figure out how to beat a manipulator.

And the more y'all seek excellence in all things, the more confident you'll exist. By following the Promethean path of personal development, you lot'll become wiser, more experienced, and better able to stop a manipulator in their tracks.

Source: https://prometheanliving.com/lifestyle/how-to-beat-a-manipulator-6-steps-to-fight-back/

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