Toxic Manipulation
Throughout my relationship I have been gaslighted and manipulated by someone who gaslights and manipulates themself. Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. Manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through indirect, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.
I was also baited thoughout my relationship. Toxic, manipulative and abusive people have all kinds of tactics that are used to control the people around them. Baiting is when someone deliberately acts in a way so as to elicit either an angry or emotional response from the person that they’re interacting with. This is often used between two people where one wants to start an argument, and uses baiting in order to do so.
I am a sports reporter/analyst for a small start up sport analytics company based in LA. I am always on the road and traveling from place to place to different sporting events. I think the traveling/latenight and partying made him insecure, but this does not mean I deserved to be manipulated. I am still honest and upfront, I work long hour and he knows that.
At the beginning of my relationship, I was cheered on for being an independent women, who was strong and s***. As the relationship grew his feelings started to change.
Back to the manipulation
He use to do things to get a reaction out of me and it drove me insane. Imagine someone telling you, get whatever you want! You can do what ever you want, then when its time to action the thought there’s an issue. He knows I love sports, and he has a lot of connection so he set me up with his contacts and I was hired. Now I am excelling at the job and he wants me to quit.Manipulation always start with guilt. If they can convince you to feel guilty for your actions (even when you’ve done nothing wrong), then they know you’ll be more willing to do what they say. Why tell me I can go out with my girls whenever and its really not okay to you. Men do this all the time, and most women just fall into the trap. Manipulators are ironic in the sense that they spend quite a bit of time making you feel as if you can’t think for yourself but then turn around and make you responsible for all of their emotions. My husband use to feed me all these ideas about how I was wrong and the relationship would be better if I was home more.
The craziest example of this toxicity I can think of was when he wanted to spice up our s** life, which was very stupid on his part because everything was fine to me. We went on vacation and he said” lets do the “hall pass” thing. “Find someone you want to have s** with and ill find someone as well and we’ll all have s** on the beach. A hall pass is an agreement between people in a romantic relationship that one or both of them may have s** with other people. I start talking to this guy and I tell him the situation and we head to the beach to meet my husband and the lady he met. We all talked and mingled a bit before any thing happened, and out of no where my husband snapped when he saw the other man grab my a**.
We then started having a full on argument infront of our company. He said “ you went out and got this giant person , which is the opposite of me, this is exactly what you do on your so called business trips right?, you interview all these tall athletes, I didn’t know you liked them. This is why you love your job huh?”. That whole thing was about his insecurities with my job. He was projecting his feelings and thoughts onto me. He was insecure and nervous about the situation and he wanted to project that same energy on to me but I was for it, but I didn’t deserve to get screamed at, this whole thing was his idea, he got me my job as well. Every situation that we’re in is because of him.
Manipulative partners want to be able to control you and what you experience, and outside relationships can be very threatening to their desire to define your reality. I feel really bad for him, everything that he is going through is because of himself. I am not his robot and he’s playing with fire, not just with me but with life. He asks me questions like “have any of these athletes or execs ever tried to f*** you on these trips?”, “Have you ever wanted to f*** any one on these trips?”. This is baiting at its finest, me saying yes to anyone of those questions will spark an argument, and me not saying yes will cause concern. I cannot win at all, but lately I have been being bold and truthful, which has cause some fear in him. My answer is now yes! People need to hear the truth.
On our way back home from vacation, he asked me if I was really going to go through with the hall pass thing back on the beach and I said “yes”. He was pissed, I could see it in his face but whatever. This was a big step for me! All that “what would you do in this situation” stuff is over, I do not mind hurting his feeling. I do feel for him, because one of these days he is going to put himself in a bad situation with me or himself that he can’t get out of, YOU BAITED ME AND I HOOKED ON, plus he knows I have a high s** drive.
The main point of this story is to stop saying you’re okay with things that you’re really not ok with, don’t try to manipulate someone to do something and then get scared when they do it. I feel like the more and more someone asks you questions, they are trying to manipulate you to change your answer. If your a jealous type, say-so, do not try and project your insecurities on to your partner so they can be small like you. If you’re afraid say that. Men come off as this strong emotional type then when its time to step up to raise a child or take care of a family and in my case- swing they chicken out because they wanted a different reaction. I feel like some men get turn on by seeing their women struggle or get scared, they want their women to run to them and say they fucked up I need you. But if say you’re going to hang out with a guy friend 1-on-1 they will s*** their pants.
I dont know what our future looks like but the next time I feel manipulated, gaslighted or feel like I am being baited to do something by him. I am actually going to follow through with it. Next time I am on a business trip and he starts asking me crazy insecure question or brings up a crazy s***** fantasy of his. I am going to challenge him to keep his word. The said part is I know him and if I follow through or do something because of him he will break, but I grantee he will watch the way he approaches me in the future. We’re really going see what he is about, and at the end of the day he brought this on himself. I will bring his ideas and thoughts to life.