30 Covert Emotional Manipulation Tactics: How Manipulators Take Control In Personal Relationships

by Adelyn Birch

If you feel confused because someone tells you that they love you but they don't act like they do, judge them by their actions alone. You will have your answer.

You might be a victim of gaslighting if you apologize often, have trouble making decisions, have changed significantly over the course of the relationship, feel you're in a constant state of bewilderment, or have become reclusive and withdrawn.

How someone responds to your emotions and perceptions will indicate how much they respect you, how much they care about you and your feelings, how capable they are of empathy and intimacy, and how much they are trying to change or control you.

Intimacy is based on trust, understanding and vulnerability. People who become emotionally intimate do so by taking the risk of being emotionally vulnerable with their partner, revealing their true selves and feeling emotionally safe afterward instead of feeling judged, mocked, invalidated or rejected.

Intensity, on the other hand, involves drama, anxiety, uncertainty and fear. It's all about push-pull, hot-cold, high-low.