Feeling manipulated can make you feel very uneasy. Why is that?

Well, the uneasiness often stems from feeling that you are being encouraged to engage in doing something ‘immoral’ and against ‘ your better judgement’ such as cheating. In society, we learn that cheating is wrong but this relate to a whole range of things.

If you feel that someone is manipulating you just NAME THE GAME.

Spot the manipulation and repel it by simply not engaging (disengaging from it) or ‘outing it’ by telling the person that you are feeling manipulated.

Note that I am not suggesting that you tell them that they are manipulative or even that they are manipulating you because they may not even be aware they are doing it and they may well see this as a personal attack leading to the need to defend and so on.

You might say; ” I don’t know whether you are aware of this or not, but when you do (or say) A,B,C it makes me feel X,Y,Z. I am sure that this is not your intention. Can we talk about it”

I would suggest that you focus on telling them how their behaviour makes you feel will hopefully give you both a chance to discuss how to avoid this happening again (if they care for you)

So, you make them aware that you are aware so that you and they can go onto to focus on how to avoid this behaviour again and improve things.