Emotional Manipulation and Divorce
At its core, emotional manipulation involves subtle or overt tactics aimed at influencing and controlling another person's emotions and behavior. In the context of divorce, these manipulative strategies can complicate an already challenging process, creating additional hurdles for those involved. Making matters worse, it can be hard to detect in certain relationships, because part of its intent is to keep uneven power dynamics in place.
Defining Emotional Manipulation
Emotional manipulation in divorce manifests in various forms, often leaving the affected party feeling trapped and emotionally drained. It can involve guilt-tripping, gaslighting, playing the victim, or even exploiting shared vulnerabilities. These tactics are used with the intention of gaining an upper hand in negotiations, custody battles, or even simple interactions. Emotional manipulators seek to emotionally exploit, control, or influence someone for an advantage. Understanding what it is and what is is not can be helpful if you’re wondering if emotional manipulation is at play in your relationship. It will also help you move more intentionally toward being done with it.
What Emotional Manipulation Is
Guilt-tripping: Your spouse may use guilt as a tool to manipulate you, making you feel responsible for the divorce or using past mistakes to evoke sympathy.
Gaslighting: This involves manipulating reality by making you doubt your own perceptions, memories, or sanity. This can be particularly prevalent in disputes over the events leading to the divorce.
Playing the Victim: Portraying oneself as the innocent party who has been wronged, aiming to garner sympathy and support from others involved in the divorce process.
What Emotional Manipulation Is Not
Expressing Genuine Emotions: Sharing honest feelings and concerns is not emotional manipulation. It becomes manipulation when these emotions are exploited to control or manipulate the other person.
Setting Boundaries: Establishing clear boundaries and expressing one's needs in a divorce is a healthy practice. Emotional manipulation, on the other hand, involves using these boundaries against the other person to gain an advantage.
Seeking Support: Seeking support from friends, family, or professionals is a common and healthy coping mechanism during divorce. However, emotional manipulation involves leveraging that support to turn others against the partner or gain an unfair advantage.
Garden Variety Divorce Reactions: Feeling hurt, surprised, fearful, and angry when going through divorce is normal and periodically reacting from that space is expected. Emotional manipulation exists on a different plane entirely.
What to Do If You Are Being Emotionally Manipulated
Here are some recommendations to help manage yourself as you move through your divorce process:
Recognize the Signs: Educate yourself on the signs of emotional manipulation to identify when it's happening. Awareness is the first step toward breaking free from its grip.
Tell Yourself the Truth: Write down your experience. Do not sugar coat it. Let reality do it’s work on you.
Set Firm Boundaries: Establish and communicate clear boundaries with your spouse, but be ready to enforce them. Clearly define what behaviors are unacceptable and stick to these boundaries to protect your emotional well-being.
Seek Professional Help: Enlist the support of divorce coaches, therapists, or counselors who specialize in wading through the emotional complexities of divorce. We can provide guidance and tools to cope with manipulation.
Build a Support Network: Surround yourself with a supportive network of friends and family who can provide emotional support and a grounded perspective during the divorce process. These are people who will validate your experience, but also people who will make sure you take action.
Care for Yourself: Take walks, deep breaths, and naps. Prioritize self-care to give yourself maximum resources to maintain your own emotional and mental well-being as you grow and implement new strategies.
Emotional manipulation in divorce is a formidable challenge that requires vigilance, resilience, and expert support to overcome. Learning how to handle it is your ticket to future freedom.
If you are ready to feel equipped for addressing the emotional manipulation in your relationship, we should talk. Schedule a complimentary call here to get started.
About the Author:
Hi, I’m Andrea, a divorce coach, author, and speaker. I’m the creator of the Divorce Differently with H.E.A.R.T. model, and I can work with you to create a healthier divorce and life (even when your partner is difficult). My clients walk through divorce with a better understanding of the process, clearer expectations, defined boundaries, and useful hacks to make this most unwanted situation doable. I can teach you how to do it too! Let’s talk.
