5 Subtle Red Flags For Manipulative Behaviour in a New Relationship

New relationships are undoubtedly one of life’s most exciting experiences. But regrettably, they can also be fraught with danger.

Statistically, far more relationships fail than succeed. And a very significant percentage of failed relationships actually end in complete and utter disaster. They leave a trail of devastation and pain in their wake.

In the worst cases, that they can span decades.

Almost always, however, these impending failures leave clues. Both the minor washouts and the life-altering disasters. And everything in between.

These clues are sometimes referred to as red flags.

They very often start small, and can be tough to spot. And they escalate over time.

But if you stay alert enough, and avoid getting too emotionally swept up in the whirlwind of your new romance too quickly, spot them, you absolutely can.

It can save you months, years, or maybe even decades of heartache as a victim of emotional abuse and manipulation.

Here, then, are five subtle red flags to watch out for that may indicate the early stages of controlling or manipulative behaviour in a young relationship.

1. Violating Your Boundaries

Manipulators come in all shapes and sizes. Some are cunning and stealthy, while others are bold and aggressive. Both are very dangerous, for different reasons.

Overt manipulators and control freaks are of course fairly easy to spot. They rely not so much upon their cunning and cleverness, but rather on targeting weak, vulnerable victims.

If that’s not you, you won’t have a bar of them. Once they show their colours, you’ll quickly move on.

If you are weak and vulnerable though, then unfortunately you’re probably in for yet another dose of misery that made you that way in the first place.

A cunning, crafty manipulator, however, will test your boundaries in very subtle ways. It can be something as seemingly innocent as keeping you on the phone longer than you want, or offering you a drink and continuing to insist when you refuse.

He’ll make it seem very harmless and playful, like it’s just a funny game. Even affectionate. He might chuckle and tease you to keep the situation light and fun.

Nothing serious. Just him being playful.

If you stand your ground and refuse to cave, he loses the game. He’ll do so very gracefully.

He’ll need to, so that he can live to play again.

The whole incident will be laughed off, often by both parties, and more often than not his little test will have gone unnoticed.

But in time he’ll be back with another little test of your boundaries. Like any good predator, a cunning manipulator knows that success can be a numbers game. Perseverance pays off.

Once he’s won a game or two and tasted success, however, he’ll know he’s on a winner. And of course the next game will push the stakes just a little bit higher. The next boundary he tests and breaches will be just a little bit more serious.

While you keep giving in to these harmless little encroachments over time, they’ll continue to escalate. Often imperceptibly so. Until one day, you wake and find your self a full-blown prisoner of a manipulative control freak.

You’ll no doubt look back wondering how you let things get to that point. You’ll think back about the red flags you may have missed. But you probably won’t come up with any.

Almost like gaining weight, it will have been a gradual and subtle process, with no one indiscretion in particular standing out.

The cunning manipulator doesn’t so much overstep your boundaries, as erode them away gradually over time.

2. Isolating You

One of the most powerful tools a manipulator can use to control his victim is isolation. Make no mistake, isolation is a weapon, and a very powerful one at that.

Being isolated from your loved ones and your support base can easily leave you vulnerable to being manipulated, controlled, and even abused. So it’s a precarious position to be in.

It’s therefore extremely important that you first and foremost identify any attempts at isolating you in a relationship. And secondly, that you oppose them all assertively.

Here are a few examples of ways in which a new partner might try to isolate you:

Unless you have a history of harm or abuse at the hands of a dysfunctional family or destructive, untrustworthy friends, there’s simply no justification for any partner wanting you to disassociate from your loved ones.

And there’s absolutely no need for a couple to be an island unto themselves in the world.

Any loving and well-meaning partner should not only approve of, but actively encourage, you to nurture as many supportive, wholesome relationships with loved ones as possible.

But why would a partner possibly want otherwise? There are a many possible reasons, for example:

The list can go on and on.

The important thing to remember is that no matter what the circumstances, no matter how exciting and passionate a new relationship may be, it can never exist in isolation if it’s to be in any way healthy. A healthy relationship will never require you to give up part of your identity, your history, or who you are.

3. Creating a Power Differential

Like isolation, a power differential is also a weapon within a relationship wielded by one partner to achieve control over the other.

And the reasons for wanting that control are the same as those I just mentioned above.

The modus operandi of someone wrangling for a power differential is to elevate his standing in your eyes as much as possible, while diminishing yours as much as possible at the same time.

Here are a few examples of ways, some subtle and others not so subtle, in which he might try to achieve that:

The reality is, however, that many relationships actually have a natural power differential.

One partner may be the dominant or only income earner, for example. One might be more educated. One may have accomplished far more in life, and hold a higher standing in the community. Or one may be the more organised and responsible of the two, and therefore take on the role of looking after all the finances and important issues in the relationship.

In a healthy relationship however, the partner with the greater power will not only refrain from leveraging that power for their own benefit, they’ll go out of their way to minimise its importance and influence.

They’ll see and treat their partner like an absolute equal at all times.

They’ll seek their partner’s opinion and value their input on all matters, even if they’re far less qualified.

They’ll treat their finances like they belong equally to both partners, even if they’re the sole income earner.

And so on.

You can rest assured that anyone who actively works towards creating a perceived power difference early on in a relationship is eventually going to use it as leverage against you in some way.

It’s important that you realise when this is happening to you as soon as possible so that you can avoid wasting your time in a doomed relationship.

4. Emotionally Manipulating You

There’s a common rule in relationships that says you should always focus on what someone does rather than on what they say. Actions speak louder than words.

But this can be very misleading.

Because the fact is, actions aren’t always more honest than words. Like words, they too can be faked.

Love bombing, for example, is a psychological weapon where a manipulator tries to influence someone through contrived demonstrations of attention and affection.

It’s more commonly seen early on in new relationships, and is actually considered a form of emotional abuse. Importantly, it makes use of both manipulative language and behaviour for its effect.

So if words can’t be trusted, and actions can’t be trusted, how can you possibly tell whether you’re being emotionally manipulated?

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy.

But there are a few clues. And they all involve trusting your gut. Your instincts.

The first clue is being smothered with excessive attention, gifts, and flattery early on in a relationship.

Now, is it possible that a new partner is so into you that they simply can’t control their enthusiasm? And they just awkwardly but very innocently just overdo things?

Yeah sure, it’s possible. But you need to watch them like a hawk.

Like I said, trust your gut. Do they feel genuine, or are they just laying it on a little too thick?

If things get to the point where you actually start feeling indebted to them, or overwhelmed, consider that a red flag. It could be your internal B.S. detector trying to nudge you.

Ask a trusted friend what they think. Quite often, things are clearer from the outside looking in.

Another clue is what’s called incongruence. That’s when things don’t quite fit together. When something’s out of place.

When words don’t match with other words that are spoken (lies), or they don’t match with actions, or when actions don’t match with other actions, that’s incongruence.

Fake actions are hard to keep up consistently with no lapses. The same goes for lies. Both are very energy intensive. So people who partake in these very often slip up. They momentarily drop the act, or just plain screw up.

And when they do, you need to notice.

Your gut will tell you that something’s out of place.

Imagine that one dark, rainy night your car break down on the motorway. Stranded and afraid, you reach out to your new knight in shining armour to come rescue you.

After all, what else is a damsel in distress to do?

However, your new beau – you know, the one who worships the very ground you walk on, and struggles to draw breath whenever he’s not in your heavenly presence, doesn’t take your call. Instead he responds by texting you the number for the towing service.

That’s incongruence.

And incongruence is always a huge red flag.

So dejected and desperate, you ring your lifelong bestie next. And of course, in no time she’s there. Like you, she has no idea what to do. But she’s always got your back, and she knows that together you knuckleheads will figure something out, and laugh about it hysterically later.

You’ve always known you can rely on her, and that she’ll always be there for you.

And now, here she is.

That’s congruence.

By the way, did I mention you should avoid letting anyone isolate you from good people in your life?

The third big clue that you’re being emotionally manipulated is that you feel like you’re on an emotional rollercoaster.

Many manipulators are very skilled at sensing when they’re beginning to push you too far. They can feel when they’ve emotionally toyed with you, gaslighted you, or raised your suspicions to the point where you’re just about to push back. Or crack.

And they’ll know that they need to back off.

In politics and in war, this skill is called brinkmanship. As the name suggests, it’s the art of pushing someone right to the brink, but not past it.

At that point however, a manipulator won’t just back off. He’ll actually change tack.

He’ll start winning back your favour and your trust. Through gifts, attention, or both.

He’ll convince you that all the doubt about him, all the suspicion, all the mistrust, was just in your head. It wasn’t warranted in the least.

He won’t do it directly with words, but through smothering. It might be just a little or possibly quite a lot.

He’ll know what to do. What will work best on you.

Then, once he has you well and truly won over once again, he can relax and start taking liberties again. Until at some point, you once again find yourself at the brink.

And so the cycle continues.

But make no mistake, the manipulator’s goal isn’t to torture you emotionally. After all, it’s not about you. It’s about him.

It’s about using you and the relationship for his own selfish purposes, whatever they may be. He just understands that once in a while he’ll need to calm the waters to be able to keep up his ruse.

Whenever you feel like you’re on an emotional rollercoaster in your relationship, this is most likely what’s happening. Avoid allowing positive emotions to negate the negative ones.

Instead, ask yourself what caused the painful, negative feelings in the first place.

Because they’re really not supposed to be there.

5. Guilt-Tripping You

Guilt-tripping is essentially a form of emotional blackmail. It’s another tactic that manipulators like to use in a relationship as a weapon to gain and maintain power over their partner.

Like most forms of manipulative behaviour, guilt-tripping can often start so small that it goes virtually unnoticed. But it can quickly become so egregious that it develops into a particularly crippling form of emotional abuse, especially against empathetic people.

Guilt-tripping is particularly commonly used when a relationship ends.

After years of abuse, betrayal, and destructive behaviour, manipulators will typically play the guilt card to portray themselves as the victim in the very relationship they single-handedly destroyed.

Here are some both subtle and not so subtle examples of ways in which you could be guilt-tripped by a manipulative partner:

Any normal, well-adjusted adult should be more than capable of coping with everyday disappointments without needing to vent to and guilt-trip their partner or anyone else over them.

Guilt-tripping others is a clear sign of emotional immaturity at least, and emotional manipulation at worst.

The fact is, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of subtle red flags to watch out for in relationships.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to be aware of them all.

Even more challenging is recognising red flags in a brand new relationship.

Because it involves someone you’re as yet unfamiliar with. Both their personality and their history are still complete mysteries to you.

But not only that, they’ll also have an agenda. Or at least a desired outcome. Everyone does in a new relationship.

Usually it will be honest and righteous. But sometimes it won’t.

So you need to be on guard.

It takes time to get to know someone new. Time and patience.

So a new relationship should be approached somewhat like a screening process. Because that’s exactly what it is. By all means enjoy the process, but just be sure to engage your head as well as your heart.

Keep your eyes open.

Listen to your gut, and trust your instincts.

But also always keep in mind that old saying, that “love is blind”. Emotions cloud judgement. And the stronger the emotions, the more difficult it is to see things clearly and objectively.

That’s why it’s so important to have a “wing-woman” – someone close to you that you can talk to and trust, and whose judgement is solid.

She’ll often be far more able to detect red flags in your budding relationship than you will. Not because she’s wiser or smarter than you. But because unlike you, she won’t be emotionally attached.

So she’ll see things more clearly than you.

Open up to her about your relationship. Tell her everything – the good, the bad and the ugly. The great stuff as well as your doubts and concerns. With her support and clarity you’ll be far more likely to spot red flags before any real damage can be done.

Did I mention you should avoid letting anyone isolate you from good people in your life?