Decoding Genuine Love: Distinguishing Genuine Caring Relationships from Manipulators

Published on: May 23, 2023

by Art Florentyna

Personal Development Coach

Healthy and genuine love is a profound and all-encompassing emotion, demonstrated through actions and behaviors that show care, respect, and consideration for others. In healthy relationships, mutual respect is paramount.

Narcissists, consumed by their obsession with power and control, view relationships as battlegrounds where they must emerge as winners, dominating and conquering others. This warped perspective leads to toxic dynamics where empathy, compassion, and genuine connection are replaced by manipulation, exploitation, and emotional abuse.

For a manipulator, love must be unconditional in one direction, while being conditional in the other.

What is Manipulation?

• Manipulation is an attempt to sway a person’s emotions or thinking to get them to act in a specific way.
• It’s a way to control another person so that this other person meets the manipulator’s perceived needs or wants, often at their own expense.
• It is exploitative and is an attempt to seize power in a relationship.
• Can be done consciously or unconsciously by the manipulator.
• This behavior may have been learned during childhood (if the child had emotionally unavailable parents or a dysfunctional home), it could be genetic, or it could be a case of ‘too much love’ (and they grow up feeling that they are entitled to get what they want, when they want it).

The following list depicts common manipulation tools and tactics that are commonly used:

1. Creating an Intense Emotional Connection

• High Intensity: This type of relationship can move very quickly. It can be intense, passionate, may feel electric or like “a dream come true”. This sudden positive and intense attention can cause a surge of positive emotions to override the logical side of the brain.
• Love bombing: They may overwhelm you with loving gestures to lower your guard or make you feel indebted. Examples include being overly generous, arranging over the top romantic outings, excessive attention, giving gifts, expressing lust, and creating “magical moments”. They do this because it becomes nearly impossible to create boundaries with them or to say no. Love bombing is done to break down your natural guard and allow them into your life.
• Mirroring: I like what you like, I move how you move. You are put on a pedestal: “Tell me everything about you”. They study their target to find what they yearn for, and then they give it to you. Example: Validation.
• You are put in their debt: They lie for them, they cover for them, they do extra sacrifices for them, so the target becomes indebted. It becomes “morally wrong” to say no to the manipulator.

2. Playing on Your Insecurities

• Fear of being alone: “Nobody will love you more than me. Nobody knows you better than me. You will not find better than me. I know what you need. I know how to take care of you.” Fear will keep you loyal to them, even though they are abusive.
• Unresolved guilt: “After all I have done for you, you are so selfish.” ” If you loved me you would….” “You don’t love your family”.
• Unresolved shame: “I’m going to treat you as inferior. I’m going to treat you as non-valuable.” This feeling of not being good enough drives a person to do anything they can not to feel that anymore, and so they may actually give the manipulator what they want so that they can get rid of that feeling of shame.
• Antagonism: Playing with your vulnerabilities to make you react and then accuse you of reacting for no reason. A person can manipulate you through any unresolved wound. They will exploit that unresolved area inside of you.

3. False Accusations

• “Oh, so you think you are better than us. You don’t value your family. All you think about is yourself. You don’t think of the needs of others.” None of this is true, but they will spin it in a way to make you look terrible.

4. Lying

• Manipulators may bombard their victims with lies. When they’re caught, they may deny the lie or cover it up with another lie. This is to create self-doubt in the victim. If you try to address the lie, they change the subject.

5. Mislead with Flawed Logic

• For example, “Family stays together (even though there has been abuse)” or you can learn to love me again if you really tried.” They do this to keep control over the person.

6. Play the Victim

• They attempt to make you feel sorry for them to get what they want. “I can’t eat or sleep. I am worried sick.” (This can be legitimate if you are not well, but if you are setting boundaries and doing well, and all of a sudden they tell you that they are worried, it’s a way for you to feel sorry for them).
• “I have been praying for you. I have no reason to live if you leave me, the world is against me. Everyone is out to get me. Nobody loves me. I am all alone in the world.”
• Silent treatment, withholding love.
• Crying, acting sad, moping around.

7. Trickle In

• Try to infiltrate into your life through something very small, like for example a ride. Then they will call again and ask for something bigger, like help with a time-consuming task.

8. The least You Can Do

Ask for something ludicrous. Like, “We should go spend the weekend in a hotel.” If you say no, ask for something smaller… “ Fine, at least let me take you out to dinner”. “Well if you can’t do that, can you at least do this???”

9. Aggression, Intimidation, Threats

• Use threats of violence - threat of suicide, or threat to hurt loved ones.
• Passive-aggression - showing anger in a way that doesn’t appear angry

10. Nagging

Ask, ask, ask until they wear you out and finally give in.

11. Begging

“I’ll do whatever you want.” But very often things go back to the way they always were as soon as you get comfortable.

12. Create a Crisis

Example: You create a boundary. All of a sudden, you get a phone call: “something terrible is happening, come quick.” So you come and the crisis makes you forget all the boundaries.

13. Propose a Compromise

“Okay, we won’t date anymore, but let’s at least stay friends or go for coffee.” (But then the love bombing cycle starts)

14. Triangulation

Example: Set a boundary with an abusive mom, all of a sudden you get a phone call from dad, “why are you mistreating your mom.

15. Recruiting (Flying Monkeys)

Other people in that circle call you only knowing the manipulator’s version of the story and berate you. Or they reference Google to prove you wrong (get documents from the internet to prove whatever they are saying).

16. Ongoing Criticism

Regular criticism until the person begs them to stop and gives in.

17. Sudden Disrespect

Relationship seems respectful until they don’t get what they want. Then all of a sudden they become disrespectful. Say words they would never say to anyone else.

18. Bargaining

“I’ll do this for you if you do this for me.” But they will generally not keep their promise.

19. Blackmail

Holding a secret about you and threatening to use it against you.

20. Gradually Wearing You Down

Gradually begin to mistreat you, shame you, disrespect you until your self-esteem gets lower, and you feel like a failure, and as they wear you down gradually, they increase your shame. They weaken you until you feel like you are no good and can no longer make decisions for yourself.

21. Gaslighting

Gradually getting you to doubt your perception of things, your memory, your ability to think accurately. So you give all your power to your manipulator because you don’t trust yourself anymore. “It didn’t happen that way’.

22. Deflect Issues With DARVO

Deny (D): The first step involves outright denial of the wrongdoing or refusing to acknowledge any responsibility for the alleged behavior. The manipulator may reject the accusations and act as if they are baseless. Attack (A): In this stage, the manipulator may counterattack or shift blame onto the person confronting them. Instead of addressing the issue at hand, they redirect attention by attacking the credibility or character of the accuser. Reverse Victim and Offender (RVO): The manipulator then reverses roles, portraying themselves as the victim and the accuser as the offender. This inversion of roles aims to garner sympathy, deflect accountability, and turn the focus away from their own actions.

Consequences of this Behavior:

• They love people as long as they get something from them. There is no possibility of a healthy relationship.
• No room for authenticity, growth, trust, intimacy, connection.

In navigating the complexities of love and relationships, it’s essential to recognize the stark differences between healthy, genuine love and the manipulative tactics employed by those consumed by narcissism. Genuine love thrives on mutual respect, understanding, and care, while manipulation seeks to control, exploit, and dominate. Understanding the signs and tactics of manipulation can empower individuals to protect themselves, maintain their boundaries, and foster relationships built on authenticity and trust. Awareness is the first step towards breaking free from the cycle of manipulation and creating spaces for genuine connection and growth.

Published on: May 23, 2023

by Art Florentyna

Personal Development Coach