The Well-Meaning Manipulator
You also can’t use prayer to force someone to do the right thing. You can pray they have opportunities to see the light but you can’t pray away their agency to choose.
We’re all for freedom to choose when it opens up options for us. But when someone is using those manipulative and coercive tactics to open up options for themselves while closing options for you, it’s not so fun anymore.
When someone high pressures you to make a choice you aren’t ready to process, it doesn’t feel so good, does it?
It’s Easy to Overlook Signs of Manipulation
It’s interesting how we overlook the signs of manipulation and coercion when we have the ability and strength to make our own choice regardless of what the other person is saying. For example, a manipulator might try to guilt trip you into doing something, but if their guilt-tactic isn’t something that works on you, you may not even notice what they’re trying to do.
Eventually a master manipulator will escalate his force until he pushes you into a corner you cannot retreat from. And then you discover that this person you thought loved you all along really only wanted you for power.
Prayer at this point may afford you a way of escape or it may not. Prayer can give you comfort and hope but prayer will never take away the choice of the manipulator. Agency must play out that Justice may be served.
5 Steps Master Manipulators Use to Mess with Your Mind
In my experience, master manipulators use a 5-step process to mess with your mind. Master manipulators only move to a succeeding step if absolutely necessary because previous ones alone aren’t working sufficiently:
- lie
- make an excuse
- shift the blame
- guilt trip you / create a diversion
- confess a portion of their deception and offer fake remorse.
… Rinse and Repeat… cycle through as needed…
Actually “create a diversion” can be used at any point along the path and deception generally continues through the whole process because if the master manipulator must confess, it will only be to a portion of the story… never the full truth.
In fact, this is how they get you. They confess something voluntarily without you even asking — like they’re being so truthful with you they’ve confessed this “thing.” But it’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s really a whole lot more to it. But they lie, twist and make that little revealed “tip” not seem as bad as what’s really going on underneath. Because they’ve voluntarily confessed, you assume they’re being completely honest with you, when the full truth is a massive deception. Their little confession just snowed you.
Master manipulators generally do not change their stripes. So if you suspect you are in the clutches of a manipulator, get out while the getting is good. Love never was and never can be force.
