Have you ever been manipulated by someone?
Manipulation thrives on control and influence. The manipulator tricks his victim into trusting him so he can get what he wants. When the manipulator is in control, he appears confident and powerful, and his tactics to manipulate you are very subtle.
But what happens when the manipulator realizes that he can’t fool you?
One thing is for sure: he will be less confident and cunning. He will use more intense and obvious manipulation tactics in a desperate attempt to trick you.
While he may never admit that he is trying and failing to manipulate you, there are some signs that you are outwitting him.
Today, I am sharing some specific things that a manipulator does when he realizes that he can’t fool you, to give you an idea that you are free from manipulation.
Let’s get started.
1) They will try to manipulate you
When the manipulator realizes that he can’t fool you, he will try to make you doubt your perceptions and question your understanding of things. This is known as manipulation, and it’s a tactic that manipulators use to distort reality and confuse you.
Manipulation usually involves denying something happened, or claiming something didn’t happen, to confuse you and make you question your memory, instincts, and decisions.
It’s like when your friend borrows your favorite necklace and when you ask for it, they deny borrowing it, raising questions about your memory. Or they twist the truth by claiming that you promised to make dinner reservations for your friend’s birthday even though you never made any such promise.
It’s a very serious manipulation tactic and indicates that the manipulator is struggling to deceive you because they are now doing their best to control you.
It’s a clear sign that you’re not easily fooled by more subtle methods.
2) They will openly try to distance you from friends and family
Have you been friends with someone or in a relationship where they tried to isolate you from your friends and family?
They will suggest that your social circle doesn’t understand your relationship or claim to be interfering, essentially trying to turn you against them.
Isolation like this is typical manipulator behavior, but when they realize they can’t fool you, they become desperate and more determined than ever to force you to cut ties with your support network.
Instead of being subtle and suggesting that your friends and family aren’t good for you, they take it to the next level and refuse to “let” you see them.
When a manipulator starts to realize they can’t fool you, they become desperate and this is where their true colors start to show, so beware of obvious attempts to control your behavior such as trying to stop you from seeing your friends.
3) They’ll make you feel guilty
We all know what it feels like to feel guilty about someone, right?
In the past, I had a “friend” who manipulated me. Like most manipulators, she always wanted everything her way. At first, when I didn’t realize the manipulation, I agreed to anything she wanted. I would even cancel or reschedule other plans to prioritize hers.
When I realized what was happening, I started to resist. If she asked me out on a Friday night, I would say, “I can’t do it on Friday, let’s do it on Saturday instead.” She didn’t like being told no. I noticed that she was deliberately trying to make me feel guilty if she couldn’t get her way with me.
She would say things like, “If you were a good friend, you would come out tonight, but I guess our friendship isn’t that important” or “If you were any fun, would you come over tonight?” The guilt trips were usually meant to insult me or suggest that I was a bad friend.
The problem is that when manipulators realize that they are losing their power over you, they have no choice but to up the ante.
As we saw with my “friend,” when she realized that she could no longer fool me so easily, she had to try a new tactic; the guilt trip. This is a typical tactic of a desperate manipulator and one to watch out for in your relationships.
4) They will play the victim to make you look bad
Manipulators love to play the victim, so this is very important.
In the early days of a friendship or relationship with a manipulator, you may notice that your new friend is the victim in every story they tell you. However, at this stage, you are still blind to their games, so you feel sorry for them and assume that they are dealing with some bad people.
Does this sound familiar?
The problem is that when you start to see through their tactics and realize they can’t fool you anymore, they start playing the victim differently. Now, instead of telling you about all the bad people in their lives, they tell other people bad stories about you.
They’ve started to realize that they can’t control you and to save face, they’ll twist the truth or make up stories about you to get your mutual friends on their side.
Playing the victim to make you look bad goes hand in hand with the next thing.
5) They’ll shift the blame onto you
Have you ever been blamed for something that wasn’t your fault at all?
There are different ways a manipulator can shift the blame onto you, as explained in Psychology Today;
- Suggest that you can’t handle being joked about: “Why can’t you handle being joked about?”
- Pretend you made them do it: “I just did it because…”
- Blame your shortcomings for something: “You always/never do that…”
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Blaming others is a classic manipulation tactic, but when they start to realize they can’t fool you, it becomes more than just them avoiding responsibility. They want to make you feel helpless and force you to blame yourself, a last-ditch attempt to regain control.
“I’ve found that blaming others is also motivated by a need to strip the target of a sense of agency… Inevitably, it will revert to another old learned behavior: self-blame,” says Paige Streep, author and expert on verbal abuse and narcissism.
If you have a sneaking suspicion that someone is trying to manipulate you, and you notice that they’re trying to blame you to make you feel inadequate, that’s a clear sign that they’re having a hard time fooling you.
6) They’ll Give You the Silence
Ah, the silent treatment, an old favorite of manipulators. Is there anything worse than completely ignoring someone you care about?
No, there’s nothing worse, and manipulators know it.
When a manipulator feels like he’s lost control and you’re no longer as easy to fool as you once were, he doubles down on the things that worked the most in the past.
He ignores you because he thinks you’ll eventually get what he wants if he stops talking to you, as you did in the past.
But this time is different: this time, he’s giving you the silent treatment and you don’t call him 20 times or send multiple messages without a response. You don’t give him any reaction. Now what?
When a manipulator tries to regain control of you by ignoring you and fails, he knows he’s lost control and can’t fool you anymore. There’s only one thing left for him to do.
7) They’ll Quit
When a manipulator realizes he can’t fool you, he’ll simply withdraw in a last-ditch effort to get your attention.
Remember, manipulation only works if you are emotionally invested in your relationship and trust them. Without these essential ingredients, a manipulator is completely helpless.
They will try everything they can to control you, but once they have exhausted all options and realize that they can’t fool you with their tactics, they will withdraw to see if you will pursue them.
This is exactly how I broke free from my manipulative girlfriend.
In her final attempts to regain control over me, she tried to play the victim with me and our mutual friends. When I didn’t do that, she started ignoring me and my attempts to communicate and when that didn’t work, she completely withdrew. But I didn’t pursue you, so that’s where it ended.
Final Thoughts
Do you see some of these things from someone in your life?
When manipulators realize that they can’t fool you, they lose their strong, confident façade. They begin to reveal their desperate, insecure nature, and they will do anything to control you.
The good news is that if you see some of these desperate attempts to regain control, there’s a good chance they’ve realized they can’t fool you and will soon leave you alone and move on to something else.
It’s very difficult to spot and break free from manipulation, so if you can, that’s a credit to you.
