The Sneaky Phrases Toxic People Use to Manipulate You

Stop letting them pull your strings. If you notice someone saying these things to you, it’s time to walk away.

Our relationships are electric, charged with energy and emotion that can move to impossible highs and heartbreaking lows. The quality of our relationships depends on the quality of the people we pick to be a part of them. Pick healthy partners or friends and you get a healthy connection. Pick mean-spirited, malicious, or manipulative people and terrible results ensue.

Bad relationships don’t always look bad, but they always feel bad.

If you feel insecure, overwhelmed, or terrified in the connection you share with someone, it’s important to look at the way they communicate with you.

Do you feel heard? Do you feel like the other person listens and shares their feelings and true intentions with you? Or do you feel you’re having your strings pulled? Does it feel like the other person is using their words to avoid accountability? To make you feel smaller than you are?

Pay close attention to the words that are being used around you and against you. When tangled with a toxic person, they could use subtle and sneaky phrases to make you feel insecure and less important than you truly are.

The sneakiest phrases toxic people use to manipulate you.

Words matter, and certain phrases can hold a lot of power over our beliefs and the way we feel about ourselves. That’s why toxic people use their words to manipulate and control others. They don’t have to put their immaturity or their twisted desires on display. Phrases like this wield just as much power over your emotions and your psyche.

“I’m not doing this.”

There’s a lot more under the surface of this sly, manipulative phrase. At first, it can appear like the person saying this is fed up, walking away. And they are, but there’s a deeper meaning when used in the heat of an argument by a toxic person.

For example, the toxic person saying this to their partner in a fight isn’t only saying, “I’m not doing this argument, conversation, etc.” they are also saying, “I will not do this relationship if you’re going to act like this.”

Toxic people use phrases like this to hold their relationships and partners hostage. It’s an ever-lingering threat. Simultaneously, they avoid dealing with serious issues and they curb your behavior by subtly threatening to walk away from you if the issues are pushed.

“You never…you always…”

For some, this phrase is an obvious red flag, but that’s not the case for everyone. So many people make the mistake of using phrases like, “You never…or you always.” Instead of focusing on their own needs or experiences, they center their negative feelings on the other person.

This type of absolutist language creates oppositional thinking, and that’s exactly what toxic people like to do. When they declare you are “never there for them,” or you “always hurt them,” you become the problem. There’s no room for humanity in that kind of unfair declaration of character.

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

Telling someone that their issue or their feelings is “no big deal” is always a major mistake. It’s minimization, which is gaslighting. If someone says that what you feel or need is “not that big of a deal,” they are telling you that your experience is less important than theirs.

Playing that card, they can avoid accountability… but they’re also able to manipulate you as well.

If you buy into the lie, then you’re shut down. You’ll let them walk away and you’ll drop the confrontation entirely. Should this happen consistently over time, you may find your confidence taking a big knock.

Believing that what you feel, think, or want is “no big deal” will change the way you meet your needs, and what you expect from the people around you. Phrases like this have the power to change your behavior in really painful ways.

“I have a right to…”

This is a phrase which can be used by manipulative people to stonewall you and to end any shot at accountability. On the surface, it seems like a fair statement to make. We all have a right to our own thoughts, or own feelings. Manipulative people use this phrase differently. They intend to put someone else on the back foot with it.

Once someone throws the “I have a right to feel hurt…” or “I have a right to be angry,” there’s no disputing it. They’ve declared their rights. If you push back against that in any significant way, it will be seen (and projected to the world) that you’re attacking some part of their indelible human rights.

When used in a healthy way, this can be an incredible statement of boundaries, but in the hand of a manipulative person, it becomes the end of the argument. From that moment forward, any push-back you give will cast you in the villain’s role (and them in that of the victim). For you to save face, you’re forced to do what they want.

“If you really loved me…”

Toxic people are in every corner of our lives. They’re coworkers, friends, and family. Often, they also end up as our partners. That’s when the manipulative behaviors really come out. Close interpersonal relationships allow toxic people to let down their guard and let their darkness out.

Sometimes this darkness seeps in slowly. Instead of making overt threats, the toxic person appeals to your love for them and demands that you make choices which are contrary to your nature. That’s certainly the case when they say something like, “If you really loved me, you’d do this.”

That’s a subtle push. It’s picking at your heartstrings and saying, “Put yourself behind me, below me. Take second place and put me first, no matter what…even if it hurts you or makes you uncomfortable.” It’s coercive, and coercion is always dangerous.

“I’m sure you’re better than me.”

Toxic people wouldn’t be able to hold on to any relationship if they were open and honest about their intentions and their behaviors. That’s why they have to be subtle, and pull the threads around them slowly like a spider spinning a web.

That is certainly what they do when they say something like, “I’m sure you’re doing better than me.”

A response usually given after a passive-aggressive (or rhetorical) question, this is a statement that is once again meant to minimize your experiences. A toxic person who is saying this is showing you they see you in an inferior position. Your challenges are trivial to them and they see their suffering as both greater and more important than yours.

If these kinds of statements aren’t addressed, then you can find yourself stuck in a second-tier citizen slot in your own relationship. Your beliefs about self can change to, as well as the way you behave around others.

“Don’t you remember when…”

You will never get shut down faster than when a toxic or manipulative person hits you with an unrelated story mid conflict. Used frequently in arguments, toxic people will bring up past embarrassments and shameful stories as a means of de-valuing everything you’re saying. These unrelated stories cast doubt on your genuine concerns.

It’s a means of humiliating you and making you doubt yourself, too. Once the toxic person puts you in a place of shame, you’re more likely to back off and allow them to blame-shift and avoid accountability. So the behaviors repeat and the cycle goes on.

“Why are you doing it like that?”

A lot of toxic people are hindered by their insecurities, which make them lash out and see others as both enemies and competition. Many of them crave a sense of superiority. They want to be better than the people in their lives and they want to have the power and call all the shots.

A subtle way to do this is by undermining the beliefs and confidence of those who get close to them. This is done over time, in a small and calculated ways. It’s not uncommon to hear things like, “Why do you look like that?” or, “Why do you do that?”

These phrases are subtle, but they form the blade of a sharp knife. Little by little, you are convinced you are inherently wrong, inherently ugly, inherently worthless to the people you love most. Statements like these are a barrage against your self-esteem.

The more insecure you become, the more malleable you become. Once you’re a in significantly weaker (and brainwashed) state, you are more likely to do what they want you to do (or keep yourself in that weaker, boundary-less state).

There is no one who can save you from the clutches of a manipulative person. No knights on big white horses are coming to scoop you out of the relationships you chose for yourself. You are the only hero in the story. You’re the only one who can draw the line, stand up for your happiness, and make a change away from the manipulation and toxicity.

What are you going to do? Who are you going to be? Will you remain weak? Will you remain committed to people who tear you down and undermine your happiness? There’s no right or wrong choice when you choose in the name of your higher self and your ultimate wellbeing.

Do what’s right by you and start building the relationships you always deserved. Healthy love, companionship, and friendship are out there.

© E.B. Johnson 2023

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