Dealing with manipulators is never easy.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have dealt with a manipulator, it’s likely that you’re more than aware of this.

As well as being stressful and unpleasant, manipulators can also be slippery customers that are difficult to deal with.

The key is to learn some techniques that you can use to disarm them so that their manipulative techniques won’t work on you, or that at the very least, they’ll become less effective.

And so with that in mind, let’s take a look at a few clever ways to disarm manipulators which are backed by psychology.

1) Set and maintain boundaries

Setting boundaries is one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself from other people.

The idea is to communicate exactly what you’re comfortable with and how you expect people to behave. You also need to make sure that they know what behaviors are unacceptable.

Setting boundaries is one thing, but maintaining them is something else entirely. You need to make sure that there are consequences for when people don’t obey your boundaries, and we’ll talk some more about that later on.

When manipulators are held accountable for their actions and you ensure there are consequences for breaking your boundaries, they start to learn that they can’t get away with it.

2) Stay calm

Staying calm in the face of adversity isn’t easy, but if you’re able to do so, you’ll find that it’s one of the most useful things that you can do.

That’s because if you get angry or lose your cool, the manipulator will find it easier to get you to do what they want. Often, they’re relying on it.

On top of that, if you start to get angry, you can soon find yourself yelling at one another with a full-blown argument taking place, sometimes over the smallest of things.

If you need to, consider picking up a few breathing exercises that you can turn to and taking a second or two to consider your response before you say or do anything.

3) Don’t sink to their level

One of the main reasons why you’ll want to stay calm is that it will help to stop you from sinking to the manipulator’s level.

The point here is that two wrongs don’t make a right and that you should never fight fire with fire. If someone’s trying to manipulate you, the last thing you want to do is to try to manipulate them right back.

There’s also a risk that if you sink down to their level, you’ll end up in a toxic relationship where the two of you are constantly at war with one another.

You should try to be the better person. You owe it to yourself, even if you don’t owe a thing to your manipulator.

4) Educate yourself

As with any difficulty that you face in life, one of the best things you can do is to educate yourself.

This means reading up on manipulators, with a particular focus on the tactics they use and the way that you can respond to them.

Most manipulators follow the same playbook, and that means that psychologists have found a bunch of ways to combat them.

Another option for self-education is to find other people who have struggled with manipulators and to make friends with them. That can help you to build a support network and to learn what worked for them.

If something worked to subdue one manipulator, perhaps it’ll work for another.

5) Pot patterns

Manipulators are often predictable, and this means that you can start to spot the behaviors that could act as early warning signs.

Being able to spot these patterns might allow you to defuse a situation before it becomes a bigger problem. It will also help you to mentally prepare yourself for what you know is likely to be coming.

There are a few different ways to look at this point. On the one hand, you shouldn’t have to spot patterns or predict the ways in which a manipulator might behave.

On the other hand, if you’re able to do it, it can act as ammunition that you can use to boost your chances of coming out on top of any potential conflict.

6) Be assertive

If you’ve been able to set and maintain boundaries then there’s a good chance that you’ve already been assertive.

The idea behind being assertive is that you need to be firm but fair, clearly articulating your feelings and making sure that the person you’re talking to understands what you’re trying to communicate.

When it comes to disarming a manipulator, a big part of being assertive revolves around making it clear that you’re not going to stand for any more of their bad behavior.

Of course, just like setting those boundaries, being assertive will only get you so far. You also need to back up your assertions if you want to be taken seriously the next time you’re assertive.

7) Set consequences

Like we’ve covered, setting consequences means making sure that if someone breaks your boundaries or treats you badly, there are repercussions.

For example, if your manipulator keeps trying to make you feel bad for spending time with friends and family, you might have to come up with a solution.

Perhaps if they keep calling you during a night out, the consequence is that you turn your phone off.

You know the manipulator in your life the best, and so it’s down to you to identify their regular techniques and to decide upon the consequences for when they use them.

Then it just becomes a case of communicating those consequences and ensuring that you stick with them.

8) Be consistent

Consistency is key with anything, whether it’s a case of establishing a new habit or whether it’s because you’re dealing with a serial manipulator.

We’ve already covered consistency at several points in this article, most notably when it comes to setting and maintaining boundaries and consequences. You need to consistently set them and make sure that you’re holding yourself accountable for maintaining them.

Consistency is also important for your messaging. In other words, when you’re talking to the manipulator, you need to make sure that you don’t contradict yourself or say things that you don’t mean.

After all, they’re a manipulator. If they catch you doing that, they’ll use it against you.

9) Get help

This final point is perhaps the most important one of all.

Help is out there, from informal support groups to professional help from trained psychiatrists and mental health specialists. The goal is to support you as you confront and disarm your manipulator, hopefully for good.

It can be difficult to accept that you need this kind of help, especially if the manipulator is a romantic partner who didn’t seem like a manipulator when you first started dating.

Just know that there are millions of people who’ve found themselves in the same place as you and managed to find their way out to the other side. Often, they’ve only been able to do this by getting help.

Conclusion

Now that you know a few of your options for disarming a manipulator, you’re in a much better place to deal with them.

A word of warning, though. Many manipulators are so used to their harmful behavior patterns that you won’t be able to change them.

When that’s the case, you need to decide whether you’re going to move forward with the options you have available to mitigate them, or whether you’re going to cut them out and move on with your life.

Just make sure that you don’t allow yourself to become a victim. And if it comes to it, follow that final tip and seek help. Good luck.