443 SelfWork: What to Do About Emotional Manipulation

The SelfWork Podcast

Margaret Robinson Rutherford PhD

Education, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Self-improvement

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Emotional manipulation can be hard to figure out. But when you do, it's also hard to know what to do about it.

So today, I’m going to use two such questions from listeners to give you some ideas. First is from a mom who took care of her granddaughter a lot early on – and now feels that her daughter and her relationship has become toxic and the daughter is withholding her child from her.

Second is from a woman who has “lots” kids with a man she’s been married to for many years. But she also writes that he's intensely enmeshed with his parents, choosing to spend much time with them over her, their kids, and/or her parents. And then blames her for not supporting him. What she seems to be describing is not having any true trust or shared goals with her husband.

Here are three helpful questions to ask yourself is you're the victim of emotional manipulation:

How do you figure out you’re being manipulated?
What are you afraid will happen if you confront the manipulation? .
If you choose to act, what’s a healthy way to move forward?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you're listening to Self-Work and I'm Dr. Margaret.
0:04.2	Today we're going to be talking about emotional manipulation.
0:07.3	But first, a word from our sponsors.
0:19.6	This is Self-Work, and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford.
0:23.3	At self-work, we discuss psychological and emotional issues and what you can do about them,
0:28.6	whether that's learning self-acceptance, taking action, or seeking therapy or treatment.
0:34.3	Eight years ago, I extended the walls of my practice to reach those of you who might
0:38.6	already be knowledgeable about middle health treatment, but also to those of you who might say
0:43.3	you'd never darken the door of a therapist. And yet, you are here. I'll answer your questions
0:49.2	while I invite you to take a few minutes for your own self-work.
1:01.2	Ideally, again, that usually lies in both of you taking responsibility for your own part of the problem.
1:09.1	But if you decide the other person or your partner or your friend or whomever isn't ready or capable of taking responsibility for their part of the problem, how can you begin changing yourself
1:11.0	so you don't absorb the message the manipulator is handing out.
1:15.4	Welcome to this week's edition of self-work. I get a lot of emails and voicemails from listeners
1:22.0	who are aware that they're being manipulated but don't know what to do about it. So today I'm going to use two such questions from listeners to focus on and we'll ask three
1:32.7	questions.
1:33.8	One, how do you figure out you're being manipulated?
1:37.6	This is usually the easy part to spot because you're living your life the way someone
1:42.0	else dictates, not the way you want or need to.
1:45.7	And you're not getting back from the relationship what feels good to you.
1:49.9	The second one, what are you afraid of will happen if you confront the manipulation?
1:55.0	This is huge because you may tell yourself and believe and may be right that whatever you fear losing, and that could be
	...

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