ERP 172: How to Deal With Manipulation In Relationship, Part II
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Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 172, “How to deal with manipulation in relationship, part II.” If you missed episode 171, I’m gonna encourage you to listen to that episode. I offer the first two tips that I’m sharing out of six, and I also read a listener’s question that I’m responding to.
When we’re talking about manipulation, I started off the conversation distinguishing between the attempt to have influence over or influence on someone, and then the attempt to be persuasive. There are definitely times when we want to have influence, or we may wanna be persuasive, and yet manipulation is the act of trying to get someone to do something consciously or subconsciously. Where this gets problematic is where one person is entering into the field of someone else. They’re trying to control them, coerce them, guilt trip them, have power over them, and it is problematic. It can even feel really toxic, as this woman was talking about her experience with her mother, that she deems emotionally manipulative and has experienced a long-standing pattern of this.
The other thing I talked about is the types of manipulation, referencing an article by Preston Ni, and there are several different types of manipulation. Then I offered the first two tips of how to deal with manipulative behavior. To shortly recap here – number one is identify the manipulative behavior. It can be crazy-making to feel this tension, to feel this discomfort, or even feel annoyed, or this icky sensation and not know why. One of the recommendations here is to take time to identify the interaction, maybe even through the way of journaling or writing, that helps really objectively look at the play-by-play, so that we can see a little more clearly what might be going on and where the manipulation might be occurring. There’s a lot more that I said about that.
The second tip that I offered was focus on your power, strength and goodness. Unfortunately, one of the things that people typically experience in response to chronic manipulative behavior is feeling a lack of self-esteem, a question around self-worth, and real cloudy confusion around knowing one’s rights. So if you missed, that, I wanna encourage you to check that out before listening to today’s episode.
If you will, join me in taking a moment to set intention. As I set the intention for the empowered relationship podcast, I wanna invite you to set your own personal intention. As you tune into this episode, perhaps take a moment to check in. What is it that you’re hoping to experience, or feel, or learn? Just take note of that, welcome that and hold value for that. For the Empowered Relationship Podcast, I really wanna claim that the episodes are all in the interest of us growing ourselves and our relationships, so that we can improve the quality of our connection. And really the landscape we’re talking about is long-term intimacy here, partnership and romantic connection.
I’ve also heard many people talk about how these principles support them in other relationships. Really so much of what we experience in the world is relationship, and I do think these principles do translate.
As we may be confronted with difficulty or hardship, that we look at that as an opportunity to grow ourselves, to learn something new, to see new possibility, and maybe have a new experience that was maybe beyond our field of awareness or previous field of awareness.
Today, as we talk about manipulation, just recognizing some of this is really difficult and challenging, so some of these circumstances we may not be able to change, but we can take control and we can change how we respond and how we react. We are up-leveling our awareness, our skillfulness, and increasing the capacity for more intimacy, more connection and more positivity in relationship.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can find them at DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find all of the episodes listed there. Again, today’s episode is 172, “How to deal with manipulation in relationship, part II.”
Let’s get started with today’s episode. Tip number three of how to deal with manipulative behavior – work on differentiating. Differentiation is a term often used in psychology. Dr. Bowen, using Family Systems, coined this term, I believe, and it really has to do with being able to know yourself, identify yourself different from someone you’re relating to that you’re in relationship with.
He often talks about the developmental process of late adolescence, where a young person is exploring who they are, identifying how they wanna be in the world, separate from their family, and there’s usually a process that occurs in how a young adult is managing that and doing that, and there’s different versions of this, and he talks about the importance of going through this developmental phase of differentiation. You can’t just be who your parents want you to be. There’s this growing up part of feeling who you are and knowing who you are, and that does sometimes require questioning what you’ve been taught, or what your parents believe with what you’re experiencing, and maybe you might choose other options that you’re seeing in the world.
Dr. David Schnarch is a psychologist that I have really found to be super-helpful with this principle of differentiation. He applies it to couples. He’s written several books – Passionate Marriage, Resurrecting Sex, Intimacy and Desire… And when I looked up his definition of differentiation, I found this really great article and I’ll make sure to put it on the show notes. He is describing differentiation as the ability to balance our needs for autonomy and attachment. Differentiation is a scientific process that occurs in all species. For humans it’s about becoming more of a unique individual and a solid person through relationships with others.
In this article he shares what he describes as four points of balance, and I’ll briefly describe them. If you’re interested in engaging with this further, I recommend checking out the book Intimacy and Desire, and checking out this article.
The first point of balance is having a solid, flexible self. He says “Many people lack a solid sense of themselves. They have no real identity of their own.” This is tricky, because in relationship we often wanna feel that union, that togetherness, that closeness and connection, and sometimes what happens naturally is we wanna please, and we favor that bond, but we often will compromise our own needs, our own preferences, and when we do that over and over again we can run the risk of losing our sense of self.
The second point of balance – quiet mind and calm heart. Being able to soothe your own mind and heart. This is about being able to handle your own emotional inner world, and this is where it contradicts a lot of the attachment research. When I talk about the importance of being able to turn towards your partner for connection, and being able to comfort one another, and that bond, and that security being really the utmost priority – that is absolutely true. And yet, where people get really stuck is when they’re reacting; that strong, strong reaction that often feels like that fight, flight or freeze, that threatened arousal state. When we’re in that high arousal, it can be very difficult to be regulated enough to create safety with a significant other… So sometimes it is important to get calm and get regulated, and we can do that sometimes with our significant other and sometimes we need a short (at least) 20-minute break to calm down to then re-engage.
The third point of balance – grounded responding. This is responding versus reacting. Both of these points – quite mind and calm heart, and third point, grounded responding, is something I had to learn and really was confronted with in my previous relationship. This is the relationship that I talk a lot about around what got me into studying relationship principles and eventually getting me into the field of couples work and studying it professionally and devoting my life’s work to the field of couples and intimacy.
This would have been about 17 years ago. I was in a Masters program, counseling psychology, and had been working with youth in the field of psychology, and I was in relationship… And I feel that we both in that relationship felt a deep, profound connection that we were thinking was gonna be long-lasting. And yet, after several months of being together in relationship, and enjoying that romance phase, that honeymoon period, we then entered into conflict. I would experience him to get upset, or feel issue with something related to me, and maybe even take criticism or judgment or feel concerned about something, and when I would hear him describe what he was upset about, it didn’t match my experience or what felt true for me, so I would react to him. I’d feel defensive, I would try to explain, and we would go in this endless cycle; it would be hours of going back and forth, trying to resolve it, to really no avail.
I felt he was anxious, and I would respond with anxiety, and my attempt was to try to get him to understand. If I explained enough, he would get where I was coming from and all would be resolved. And as I said, this never worked. So this would spin us, it would escalate our conflict, without any resolve.
So the two points here that I really turn towards in reading — I think at the time it was Passionate Marriage; I read a lot of other books that were extremely helpful… But as I worked with this differentiation, I had to learn he was upset, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to tolerate some of that discomfort of him being upset with me, but not lose my balance, not lose my sense of self-esteem, and learn how to regulate myself, my own reaction to him, my own fears, my own anxieties, and also learn how to affirm myself and find my ground, find my truth, so that I could be more regulated and more solid when we would try to come back.
Now, when I started practicing this towards the end of our relationship, it did start to work, yet there were other circumstances that separated us and eventually we broke up… But these principles were working, and I learned how powerful it is to disengage from some of this problematic interaction. And as we’re talking about manipulation, disengage from reacting to the manipulation to find what’s true, find what’s real; as I said in tip number one and tip number two – identify the manipulation, so identify the negative cycle, and number two, really recognize your worth, recognize your esteem, your value, your intention, your need, your rights… All of that. Then that can give you a more solid foundation to get grounded here.
Okay, going back to David Schnarch’s last point of balance – meaningful endurance. This is what I was also referencing here – tolerating discomfort for growth. Again, it’s not to be a punching bag and to absorb a lot of toxicity; that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about being able to tolerate some of the tension, to find this balance, so that you can respond rather than react. Sometimes when we can’t tolerate the conflict or the tension, we just react to try to get some level of relief. Then we feel really crappy afterwards, because maybe we said or did something that is not what we mean at all. It was just that reactivity.
Or perhaps we cave and we shut down, but that doesn’t feel good either. Both of those are real reactions. So if we can tolerate some of the discomfort of the tension, it will allow is some space to identify the problematic interaction, or recognizing our space, our sense of self, our worth, and getting that groundedness so that we can respond will help us feel better prepared to respond again in a more skillful, more mindful way.
I remember when I was in my young twenties, doing this differentiation work with my mother, and I remember processing with a support person – it might have been a therapist or a coach, I can’t remember… And based on our work together, she was recommending me to work with the statement “I am not my mother.” And while this seems really obvious that I’m not my mother, what was really helpful for me was recognizing the space between my mother and myself. Now, the background of this is my mother and I have been really close all through growing up, and I’m a pretty empathetic person by nature, and my mom has described some of her challenges, some of which was growing up in a difficult environment in her family upbringing, and there were many things that she shared with me and talked with me, so there was a lot of open communication. And what that meant though is at times my empathy – I would be so connected to her experience and feel impacted by that that I would often respond based on her needs, and again, not recognizing my space or my needs. So as I was learning to differentiate, it was helpful for me to look at what was my mother’s and what was mine, and recognize who I am, separate from my mother.
This really helped me get some healthy distance and space around knowing who I was as an individual in relationship with my mother, even with the empathy, but I could recognize, again, the space between what was hers and what was mine, and it was really important work for me.
Visualizations can be a helpful tool here as well. One thing that could be recommended is imagining a bubble around you. So if you’re around someone who has this tendency to use manipulative behavior, then you can imagine a bubble or a shield almost protecting you, so any of these attempts to pull at you or get you to do something that you can just feel it bounce off of you, and that you have this protected space.
An article that I came across quoted Dr. Dan Neuharth, a family therapist based in the Bay Area, who wrote “If you had controlling parents”. He commented:
“I can’t tell you how many clients have said when they were in their twenties or thirties, “You know, when I looked at my dad I realized I’m a foot taller than him, and it was a revelation, because I felt so much littler.” So being able to reverse that and recognize “Oh, I’m starting to feel small right now, but wait a minute, I’m not” can be helpful. That’s the point of it. That’s how people manipulate – they make you feel small because that gives them more power.”
This reminds me of Dr. Susan Heitler in the episode talking about dealing with depression. One of her suggestions was really imagining yourself growth and getting stronger and bigger, and it’s this visualization technique as you’re faced with a life difficulty or a bump in the road, as she says, that sometimes we feel small in comparison to that issue, or challenge, or circumstance. One of the things she’s recommending is to visualize ourself strong and empowered in this situation just to see if anything shifts. It’s similar here; in response to someone who is engaging in that manipulative behavior, again, we might need to pause to kind of disengage, recognize what’s going on, feel our power, get our balance and differentiate a little bit.
Tip number four of how to deal with manipulative behavior – set limits and boundaries. It can be helpful once you’ve fleshed out manipulative behavior or an interaction that feels really uncomfortable for you, you can think about it ahead of time, almost game-plan. As I mentioned in episode 171, I had a family member that I would go to visit, and it often felt really difficult to leave after the visit. She wanted me to stay a lot longer… Even if it was a solid visit, she still wanted more, and I just felt this push-pull, and it was always really challenging. So one of the things that I would do is I would game-plan what I could say, and I’d have options to pull from in setting limits and boundaries with her. It’s almost like having an agreement with yourself. “If X, Y and Z happens, then I’m going to do this.” Or “If this continues to occur, I’m gonna do this.”
A couple that I’ve been working with for a while – they have made such great strides. He’s like “I don’t even recognize our relationship anymore.” And when they first sought support, they were really in a challenging place and questioning if they should get a divorce even… So he’s at a point now after they’ve done so much great work and they’re really in a solid place, and now he is embarking on setting some limits and boundaries with his parents. Now, he also does individual work and he’s been getting support around this issue… And he feels his parents are very opinionated and speak negatively about his wife, and pretty much has criticism and commentary about any aspect of his life. And it’s had a huge impact on him, and it also interferes with his sense of closeness and connection with his parents.
He would love to have a relationship with them, but it has been strained in the last several years as he’s been beginning to set limits. So if they are complaining or expressing concern or stating a worry that has to do with his wife, or his family, he’s shutting it down. He might say “I hear you, and I’d like to change the subject.” Or “I wanna talk about something else.” Or “I’m not enjoying this interaction. Let’s move on.” Or perhaps hanging up the phone. “I’m gonna hang up now. I’ll call you next week.” Or “I’m not feeling comfortable” or “This isn’t working for me.” Or even in person, it could be “Please excuse me, I’m gonna go to the rest room.”
Having these statements ahead of time that you can pull from help you feel like you have things to turn to when you might be confronted with something that feels really uncomfortable and you might not know how to respond. So thinking about it ahead of time will give you some sense of power and knowing you have limits and boundaries that you can uphold.
Another thing to consider is utilizing time as a resource. People who engage in manipulative behavior will sometimes have a tendency to put you on the spot. They expect an answer from you right away, almost to maximize the pressure and control over you in the situation. You might remember a time where you have experienced a pushy salesperson, where they’re trying to use time as a pressure point, and the call to action or whatever it is that they’re wanting you to do to close the deal; they make it compelling and they give a sense of urgency. The short window, “It’s only available now” or “It’s only available for the next hour.” That’s utilizing time as a pressure to get you to make a decision faster.
In response to that time pressure, it can be helpful to say “Let me get back to you” or “I’d like to check my schedule. I’ll call you later”, and give yourself time to evaluate the pros and the cons of the situation and consider whether ot not this is something you really wanna do, or if there’s an aspect of it that you do wanna do – perhaps negotiating a more equitable arrangement.
Another important aspect of setting limits and boundaries is developing the ability to say no, diplomatically, but firmly. Speaking the truth, hopefully with some tact. This is something I worked really hard to get comfortable with, because as just a young woman in my 20s, 30s, I just found it very difficult to say no, and I would often give and do things that maybe I didn’t feel 100% about, and just was a little out of my integrity… So I worked really hard at getting comfortable with saying no. And no be honest, my no’s aren’t just simply no. It’s something to the effect of “I have a lot of things that I’m committed to right now, it’s not gonna be able to work.” Or “As much as I’d love to, I can’t say yes right now.” Or “I can’t do it this week. How about the following week?” This is more true for people that I really care about and value, and really hear their request and wanna meet them; I wanna be able to show up for them. Sometimes if it’s a no for me, I will offer up an alternative, and then we can negotiate on something that feels like a win/win.
Likely, if you’re contemplating how to deal with manipulative behavior, it’s someone that you care about, otherwise you wouldn’t deal with it. So if you’re caring about somebody who uses manipulative behavior, you wanna be in your integrity, you wanna feel like you can show up for them in a way that works for you and is equitable, but also not get sucked into that manipulative dynamic where you lose touch with where you actually stand.
When you begin practicing asserting a no and setting a boundary you may notice that you’ll get some initial pushback, and that they’re not really liking the boundary and the wanna get what they’re used to getting from you… So they might use different tactics, they might turn up the volume on the manipulative behavior in an attempt to get that reaction out of you. So the encouragement here is just to stay with the no, stay with your boundary and be consistent.
If over a period of time it’s still not shifting the dynamic and the person is still engaging in manipulative ways, you may choose to have a conversation. Now, I would recommend getting support to do this if you don’t feel safe. I wouldn’t encourage you to go into a more open dialogue and express vulnerability around “This is what’s happening for me when we’re interacting. This is how I’m feeling”, and if they’re not behaving in safe ways, I wouldn’t encourage you to open yourself up to further harm. So what I’m recommending here is in a real calm way, away from any stressful situations, being able to talk about the interaction and your experience, and it’s possible that they haven’t been very aware of it. By raising the awareness, it might help improve the dynamic.
Again, getting some good support with this would help – asking to go to a coach, asking to work with a therapist, where someone who is skilled may be able to facilitate.
Earlier I referenced a couple that I’ve been working with, and that the husband is going to be having a conversation with his parents about what he experiences as manipulative behavior, and he is getting individual support to do that, and prepping for that conversation. He’s hopeful that in this conversation that he can be tactful, bring a sense of love and goodwill, and address what he experiences and hopes that they will understand, and maybe have a sense of awareness and be open to shifting their interaction… Because he’s got two kids, and he’d love to have them more engaged, he would love to have more of a relationship with them, and he’s not willing to do it by the old ways; he’s really wanting to create some new interactions with them, and I’m hoping this goes well.
Truth is it may not go well. It’s a huge risk, and he’s definitely aware of the risks, and he’s willing to do the risk; he really feels like it’s important for him to do it, it’s important for him to advocate for his wife and his family, and at the same time he recognizes his parents may not wanna shift. In that case, he will have to have some distance, and really uphold his boundaries and limits around the engagement, depending on their behavior and they manipulative tendencies.
This brings us to tip number five, deal with grief and loss. This is so challenging, I get; and when we are needing to create some distance and separation to take care of ourselves, and setting those limits and boundaries sometimes we’re faced with perhaps this person is not willing to engage in ways that feel healthy… And therefore there’s a limitation on the relationship.
In the past I have done a fair amount of work working with youth, teenagers, adolescents in different capacities, one of which was with a family support program where there was parent coaching, and there was also mentors for the teenager. These are for families that were really struggling in that adolescent phase, but it could also be the parents that were having challenges, it could have been the teenagers that was having challenges, and the whole family system was impacted. I’ve done both parent coaching and mentoring.
I remember when I was a mentor there’d be several occasions where the teenager was lamenting and complaining and really at a loss of how to deal with their parent/parents, and really wanting them to change, and taking issue with some of the ways in which they relate, and set boundaries or don’t set boundaries, those types of things. And we would work with the whole family system. At times, there would be a point where I could recognize “What if your parents aren’t gonna change?” and it was a new question for them, because they were really hoping that their parent(s) would hear them, consider them, and be willing to shift and perhaps come to a new agreement and make change. And when I pose that question, “What if your parent(s) don’t change? What if they’re never gonna change?”, it invited them to think about “Okay, well what am I gonna do?” So on one hand it was really empowering, because it gave them some sense of ownership and agency around “Okay, these are the cards I’m working with, and what is it that I’m gonna do to take care of myself, or to help myself experience something in a more positive way, given the circumstances?”
On the other hand, there’s also grief. Grief and loss, that what I’m hoping for may not be realistic, may not be feasible, and I’m working so hard to try to get what I want, and it might not be something that’s gonna be able to happen. Perhaps they’re looking at friends that really are close with their parents and enjoy spending time at home, and invite their friends over, and feel supported, feel understood, and like I said, have a bond with… So there’s grief and loss around this.
Recently I’ve been working with an old client, and she’s just asked for a couple of sessions as a check-in, as she’s kind of been dealing with a difficult circumstance with her mother, in fact. She’s experienced a lot of what she would call manipulative and toxic behavior, and has not felt like her mother has been able to show up for her… And just how to deal with her, as there’s an upcoming visit, and just how to negotiate that.
One of the things that she’s faced with, as she’s worked with a lot of the steps that we’ve been talking about and her mother isn’t willing to get support, go to therapy, isn’t willing to acknowledge her behavior or the interactions, or her daughter’s feelings, that my client is faced with “I have to set limits and boundaries. I don’t see any other way around this.” And my client is actually embarking on motherhood, and as she looks at just what she had hoped for, to have her mother’s support during her pregnancy, through the birth of her child, and through raising her child, to have her grandmother involved. It’s a huge loss, it can be heartbreaking.
For the listener that posed this question, I can assume that she’s perhaps thinking about long-term partnership with her boyfriend, perhaps marriage, and a wedding, and how does she negotiate that with her estranged mother? There’s a lot of grief and loss with that. The bonding time, the mother and daughter shared specialness, the closeness, the laughter – all of that seems up in question and may not be available.
If you’re interested, I have a couple episodes that I produced on how to deal with grief and loss, so I encourage you to check that out if you’re dealing with this loss and grief of a loved one that you’re having to set a boundary with, and recognizing and learning to accept that there’s some real limitation, and that you may not be able to have what you really long for or hope for in the way of relationship.
The last tip that I have to offer you, tip number six – hold a mirror. Now, this has a little bit of confrontation involved, so I do encourage that you do this in the cleanest, clearest way, otherwise it’s likely you will get caught in a reactive cycle that’s not gonna feel good. So doing some of these other tips that I recommended – identifying the manipulative behavior, recognizing your strength, learning how to set boundaries, learning how to differentiate, and also dealing perhaps with some of the grief and loss will assist you in doing this a little bit more skillfully.
In another article by Preston Ni, titled “How to recognize and handle a manipulative relationship”, he encourages this idea of holding a mirror. This is something that I really appreciate, because it’s super-helpful to basically reflect back what the person is asking of you. Essentially, you are putting the focus back on them by asking probing questions. He writes:
“Inevitably, psychological manipulators will make requests or demands of you. These offers often make you go out of your way to meet their needs. When you hear an unreasonable solicitation, it’s something useful to put the focus back on the manipulator by asking a few probing questions to see if he/she has enough self-awareness to recognize the inequity of their scheme.”
Here are a couple of examples. If someone asks you something that seems like a really big ask, or it doesn’t seem reasonable or inequitable, you may be able to say something to the effect of “Does this seem reasonable to you?” Or “Does what you want from me sound fair? Do I have a say in this? Are you telling me or are you asking me? So what do I get out of this? Are you really expecting me to X, Y, Z (the inequitable request)?”
When you ask these questions, you’re holding up a mirror, so that the manipulator can see the nature of his/her request. Hopefully, when you hold a mirror, the person that you interacting with that uses the manipulative behavior at times will recognize perhaps the inequitable nature of his/her request, and they will back off or perhaps re-negotiate the way that they’re requesting something of you.
I have had really good success with this technique of holding a mirror, and now when I do this, I’m actually doing it from a very neutral, non-blaming way. I have done a lot of the previous steps. I feel grounded, I’m not reacting, I want relationship with this person, I care about them, so the way that I’m holding the mirror is really with love, and trying to seek clarity. Almost as if to say “Are you asking me this? Am I hearing you right?” Or “Let me look at this a little bit more with you.” And often times, the person that I’m interacting with will recognize, and they’ll back off and they’ll be like “Oh, I see, I see”, or “I didn’t mean it like that”, and we can talk about what seems fair, and it’s a little more transparent and explicit.
Let’s recap the six ways of how to deal with manipulative behavior:
1) Identify the manipulative behavior through the way of writing out the interaction and really trying to get clear.
2) Focus on your power, strength and goodness.
3) Work on differentiating.
4) Set limits and boundaries.
5) Deal with grief and loss.
6) Hold a mirror.
I hope these tips have been helpful for you as you’re negotiating relationship, possibly considering how to deal with manipulative behavior, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. Again, you can contact me on my website, which is DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Contact and you can find the various ways to reach me there. Again, you can find today’s show notes on the same website, DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast and you can find 172, “How to deal with manipulation in relationship, Part II.”
Thank you for listening. It’s always a pleasure to share this time with you, and until next time, I hope you take great care.
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