“Weaponized Incompetence”: 30 Relationship Manipulation Tactics Women Are Warning Others About
Interview
Sometimes, the rose-colored glasses one wears while in a relationship make it difficult to see certain things clearly. Things that can be quite damaging to the relationship or the person themselves. That’s because the so-called red flags become far less visible when looking through love-filled eyes, but significantly clearer once out of the relationship.
Members of the ‘Ask Women’ community recently opened up about the far-from-romantic situations their previous partners have put them in. The user ‘neonroli47’ asked them about manipulation tactics they have experienced in a relationship that they wanted to warn others about, and the women were more than willing to share. Scroll down to find their answers below and make sure to pay attention to the warning signs they point out.
Bored Panda has reached out to the OP and they were kind enough to answer a few of our questions. You will find their thoughts in the text below.
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Picking fights on days/during events you are excited for.
My ex always did this. Every Christmas, Easter, birthdays (except of course his birthday), holidays etc. was miserable thanks to him.
Be weary of people who subtly put down the little things you enjoy. Say you have a song that’s your favorite. If they don’t like it, and they don’t just say, “Eh, it’s not for me, but I’m glad you enjoy it,” but they say, “I have no idea how you could find that enjoyable, honestly,” or anything harsher that shows their utter disrespect for your hobbies or what you enjoy — this is the first step in slowly making you feel like everything you enjoy is just embarrassing and making you lack confidence in yourself.
This goes for the books you read, the clothes you wear, how you like your hair, the sports you play, the workouts you do, the type of dog you like, the pictures you like to hang on your wall.
Basically, I’m saying watch out for people who just put down your hobbies without attempting to actually engage with you about what you like/dislike about it.
"It was just a joke"
If it didn't make me laugh, it wasn't a joke. See, because jokes make people laugh. Any questions?
The OP told Bored Panda that the reason for posing the question to the Reddit community was simple—they wanted to see what a collection of manipulation tactics-based experiences would look like.
Out of all of them, there was one that surprised the redditor the most: love bombing. “It's concerning to see how this changes later. I think this shows quite a bit of machiavellianism,” they pointed out.
A really common one is if he has a double standard for how you express disagreement with each other.
I work with a bunch of very blunt engineers and a bunch of very diplomatic administrators, so I tend to reflect the style of the person I'm speaking to -- if your method of expressing disagreement with me is to say, "No, it's Y," when I said it's X, then that's how I'm going to speak when I disagree with you. Engineers don't want to hear a bunch of flowery speech, and the administrators would like to be reminded we do actually possess diplomatic social skills when called for. It works.
But in dating, it's a litmus test for problem men. The ones who seem the most reasonable, where it would take you years to find out they're faking an entire personality to sucker you in, often fail right out the gate with this one. Pay attention to it. They'll be direct or even blunt when expressing disagreement with you, but when you reflect the same style back at them, they get upset in some way, such as acting like you're attacking them or picking a fight. It's a dead giveaway that no matter how good an actor they might be, any pose of being a reasonable person is just that, an act.
Agreed! Most of these 'strong' manly men who apparently want a strong woman cannot actually handle it.
Men who refuse to wear condoms, and especially those who throw a nasty hissy fit when asked - they’re scary, they’re selfish, and reproductive coercion is sadly very common from men who wind up to be a***ive. If you ever encounter this, whether in a relationship or in a casual fling, please protect yourself by noping out of having him in your life.
"a***ive"? Is this a new word? Please BP, stop censoring any word, just like we're children who can't cope with reality.
The OP shared that what they would want to warn others about is a person who is cruel about something their partner does, which they themselves don’t like, making mean comments instead of communicating it calmly. “People like that ultimately make you feel alone in the relationship,” they said.
isolating you from your friends and family
It really doesn’t matter if the person is fully aware of how manipulative selfish and unfair they’re being, or not. It doesn’t matter if they have a history of trauma (don’t we all??) and you understand why they are the way they are and you feel sympathy. It doesn’t matter if “they said they’ll change”. (They won’t really.) What matters is they are hurting you and you don’t deserve it. You deserve a healthy relationship with open communication and both people trying their best by the other bc they love each other, both people fully invested. Trying to make someone realize they are treating you badly and to stop, over and over again, isn’t that.
This! I have so many patients who spend so much time "empathizing" with their victimizers. True they have X (mental illness, bad childhood, addiction, whatever) that absolutely does not make it OK! People feel like they're being a "good person" for having extra understanding. Really they're just living in denial and setting poor boundaries. It's never OK for someone to abuse you.
U/neonroli47 pointed out that the so-called red flags might be difficult to notice when there are feelings involved. “I think when you like someone, there can be a bit of weakness in that. That is expressed through only looking at the fact that you like this person and noticing only the good things they do, seeing the bad things as simply something to be overcome.”
I haven’t dealt with this in a relationship, but anyone who implies you’re a prude for having whatever sexual boundaries are good for you, is trying to manipulate you out of having those boundaries.
In general, if anyone ignores your boundaries of ANY sort, or tries to talk you out of having them, they’re going to be stressful AF to have in your life. My life immensely improved when I began cutting out anyone, old college friends I was still close to, partners etc, who behaved this way.
This should be number one. Too many people these days act as if having weird kinks is the norm and will put others down for wanting to have what they derisively call "vanilla sex". Anyone who doesn't want to play along with being choked, spat at or whatever else they want to do is labelled a prude.
Gaslighting. To keep it short: I was with the sweetest boyfriend ever, but then one day he started acting like a completely different person. It made me feel anxious, but I completely believed it was all in my head. I even went to therapy, and every time I asked him if something was up, he'd say I was imagining things and that everything was fine.
I'll leave out the details because we're not supposed to derail, but turns out I was 100% right, and let him drive me into madness and depression for 3 months before realising it. Trust your intuition. If you feel something is off, and your partner waves it off, that's not ok.
You didn't 'let' him, you are not responsible for the fact that he abused you.
“I think that kind of mentality gets you stuck in unhappy relationships,” the redditor suggested, referring to only seeing the good in the person you like. “So, I think you need both your head and your heart. Love someone fully, but also keep your head on straight about if they're properly valuing you and not gloss over the bad things they do.”
Goalpost moving. Feels so s****y jumping through hoops for promises of something they actually never intend to give you, and they get to sit back and get all the benefits of having you without having to do anything for it.
My narcissistic father did this ad infinitum; my life was a game designed to ensure I could never win
Feeding you breadcrumbs and when you try moving on, he starts giving you pieces of the loaf and acting like he changed, only to start feeding breadcrumbs again after he knows he got you.
We call this "stringing you along." Women do it to men all the time too.
Love bombing is real.
They will eventually manage to alienate you, or think they have, from your friends and family.
They will try to financially control you and sell your possessions.
"Im a mess, you deserve better" while looking at you with puppy eyes and doing nothing to be what you deserve.
If they tell you they're a mess and you don't deserve them, believe it. Move on!
DARVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It can sometimes feel hard to distinguish this from a situation where both sides have legitimate grievances, and are trying to both explain why they feel the way that they do (which is healthy in a relationship) but I’ve found that a key difference is that in healthy relationships the other person is actually willing to hear you out, or try to empathize with your side. When it’s DARVO, in many cases they’ll accept no middle ground, no ‘we both messed up,’ just pure ‘I’m the victim and everything you did against me was wrong and evil.’
My ex-husband would do this. Once I caught in to what he was doing, I'd tell him, "We'll talk about after we finish the discussion about this." He hated it because I wouldn't allow him to go off on his tangents about how much I sucked, when the truth was that he was a lying, cheating, abusive prick.
If your gut feels off, as in, he loves you and is the sweetest man you have ever met, but you always feel lonely and struggle feeling loved by him, then stop listening to all words. Keep a diary of actions. Then ask yourself if that is how you wish to be treated. If the relationship is doing what you want in life. Usually it isn't. Too many men say pretty things while you feel awful inside about how things are actually going. Pretty lies to smooth things over so nothing ever changes, gets deeper, proceeds further, gets more real
When he / she / they say they were going to do *insert cute thing* for you but didn’t. Whether they realize or not, it’s breadcrumbing and tricks you to think they actually did do that thing.
Example: I was going to bring you flowers the other day but I didn’t
Trying to hurt you emotionally to “teach you a lesson/show them you how they felt” when you do something to hurt them on accident, even if you’re already clearly sorry about it and didn’t realize. Worst part about my first relationship.
Teach me a lesson? And what exactly would that lesson be? Do I get grades on my lessons? Yes, I'm afraid they do that too. Ruuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnn.....
Pretending they don’t know how to do basic things so you do them as a once-off again and again until it becomes habit and you realise that they didn’t want a girlfriend and rather a mom…
I would upvote this one more if I could! So many men just want mothers they can have sex with :(
Being really thoughtful and helpful to your family. But not being the same with you. And when you ask for it, they call you needy.
It helps them keep up appearances.
Also, triggering you into an argument around family. Usually by doing the opposite of what you agreed upon in private. So, no one is aware that they've set you off.
It makes you look unreasonable and, like you're overreacting as your family doesn't have the full context.
But they end up looking like a white knight.
Projection.
If they randomly start accusing you of stuff despite them having no proof or even reason as to why they are accusing you of something then it means that they are 100% doing it themselves. They want a reason to blame you to explain why they are doing what they are doing. Having doubts and insecurities are normal but if it’s a constant thing after giving reassurance then it might be time to start putting on your running shoes and get out of there.
Using therapy speak to their advantage.
I would try to talk to my ex about certain things he did that I found hurtful and he managed to turn it into me “disrespecting his boundaries” because he didn’t want to talk about it. So I just never got to talk about things that bothered me.
Also when I asked questions like “why don’t you come and visit me anymore?” or “why don’t we go on dates anymore?” He told me I was “gaslighting him” into thinking he was a bad boyfriend.
So many men will do anything other than be accountable or own up to things - so using therapy speak to make it seem like they are a victim is a sneaky tool they use.
(Would like to add that this is the same guy who would constantly try to have unprotected sex with me, no matter how many times I told him I didn’t want to and for him to stop asking. Yet I was the one who disrespected boundaries. 🫤)
"So many men will do anything other than be accountable or own up to things" -- not just men. So many *people* will do anything other than be accountable or own up to things. Edit: looking back, I see the context of this whole thread was from women's perspective so it's fair that this person focused on men. That sentence alone really bothered me because it's not a gender specific issue. I can also see that many other posts here were written in gender neutral terms, and I really appreciate that.
Taking control of finances, making large purchases without your input, suggest you work less so they can take care of you without you having access to the finances that you would be reliant on. Asking you to put something in your name for them or co-signing anything for them.
-The "You are totally right for calling me out my bull so I'm just gonna ask "why do you hate me? To shut down the argument"
-The " I'm gonna tell you everything you want to hear then do none of it"
-The "making a big song and dance about doing the bare minimum so I'll be happy about it and not realise its the bare minimum"
And finally the famous
-The "Fine I just won't eat" line when I refuse to cook on day 100 of me cooking.
As an adult I should have dumped this sorry excuse of a male so much earlier, I also should have allowed him to go with out eating, clean cloths ect because I wasn't responsible for his basic adulting.
Never. Again.
Him not eating wouldn't bother me a bit. I'd just buy myself a bunch of frozen meals he doesn't like, or cook a bunch of food he hates and eat that while he starves.
Going days without talking and blaming you for not texting him bc apparently you are the one who has to initiate everything 😑
If you're the one who has to initiate everything, you're not in a relationship, you're in a performance--you're their puppet, who's supposed to ask "How high?" whenever they demand that you jump.
I had an ex who used to ask me to tell little lies that would make me look bad to other people to help him stay out of trouble or avoid embarrassment. It sounds awful written out like that but at the time it was always something minor where it seemed important to him and wasn’t a big deal to me so whatever. For example once we went with his family to a restaurant where they had belly dancers performing. Before we got there he said his family loved having the belly dancers go to him and it made him really uncomfortable. He asked me to wave it off by joking that it would make me jealous. Weird but fine, I did it in a joking way, everyone laughed, he avoided belly dancer induced embarrassment, life moved on. *Months* later, after he’d emotionally a***ed and cheated on me causing me to dump his a*s, he used that as an example to his family about how I was jealous and controlling and that’s why he had to break up with me. 🤯 Like damn he really planned that well in advance! I never even suspected, but looking back the pattern was very clear. So if your partner ever wants you to make yourself look bad so he can avoid something, even if it seems super petty, just don’t. It’s probably perfectly innocent but then maybe they’re secretly a manipulative mastermind.
I have been in a relationship where I was stalked, hurt, harassed and threatened for a long time. I will give you some things I noticed from the beginning. Just don’t be like my dumb a*s and make up an excuse because you think you are too harsh or whatever! - weird reaction when you say “no” - discussion about non-negotiable things - saying they will harm / end themselves - will make everything extremely intense in the first months (actual healthy people will just want to get to know you) - make you feel like you can’t leave them already a week or a short time period in - talks bad about exes - mirrors you (healthy people will disagree with some things you say/ share their own views + won’t have every single thing in common) - lies about very small things - talks negative about your friends or family or will encourage negative talk about them when you are venting - isolates you - will only talk about how you make them feel / how special you are / all the good you do for them (don’t bring anything to the table themselves) - be aware of when you feel something is off and follow your intuition. Don’t make excuses for them. - tells you others think you’re overreacting too - has weird tantrums - makes you feel like you have to over-explain yourself or hint them about every single thing you’re doing in your day (healthy people will not ask you every minute what you are doing when you just met them) - talks bad about their friends - everything is everybody’s fault and they are the victim. You are the only one that can save them mentality. - will say you don’t care about them / you don’t love them / anything of that range when you are setting boundaries. - makes you feel as if you can’t say certain things because you know they will react aggressively (example: when you’re telling them you’re hanging out with a certain friend group doing something fun and from then on they start to ignore you, talk agressieve, straight up guilt trip you for doing something fun, etc) - will make you feel like you are the bad guy for doing completely normal things or setting boundaries.
Note: this post originally had 65 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Using children as pawns. Ex always told me if I left I would never see our son again because he would have no problem proving I was mentally unstable and an unfit mother. My free attorney provided by the Women's Shelter told me it was one of the more common threats used by manipulators and abusers, and the judge heard it time and time again. Makes me wish I'd been brave enough to leave earlier.
I'm glad you're out now, and I hope you have your son with you.
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Hello. Lady girl woman type here. Why are these supposed to be about what men do to women? We ladies need to step up and say that we have done or seen done many of these same negative behaviours by other lady-girl-women. The article should be focused on the behaviour being done, not by the gender of the doer. Come on BP, quit trying to play us off after each other. Or is this the article that comes right before the one on how much Americans suck? Do an article on the negative things that American MEN do and this would be your new dream article. Golly day, BP, bring back the old BP! 😖
"I hate you, you always know when I'm lying...!" OK, my fault, sorry...
Using children as pawns. Ex always told me if I left I would never see our son again because he would have no problem proving I was mentally unstable and an unfit mother. My free attorney provided by the Women's Shelter told me it was one of the more common threats used by manipulators and abusers, and the judge heard it time and time again. Makes me wish I'd been brave enough to leave earlier.
I'm glad you're out now, and I hope you have your son with you.
Load More Replies... Hello. Lady girl woman type here. Why are these supposed to be about what men do to women? We ladies need to step up and say that we have done or seen done many of these same negative behaviours by other lady-girl-women. The article should be focused on the behaviour being done, not by the gender of the doer. Come on BP, quit trying to play us off after each other. Or is this the article that comes right before the one on how much Americans suck? Do an article on the negative things that American MEN do and this would be your new dream article. Golly day, BP, bring back the old BP! 😖
"I hate you, you always know when I'm lying...!" OK, my fault, sorry...
