How to act when a man plays with you: 4 tips

Let's see what we can do to detect these cases of emotional manipulation and prevent them from harming us.

Thanks to emotions and feelings we are able to connect with others and empathize, but this also has its drawbacks. Among other things, emotions open a new avenue through which we are psychologically vulnerable, because it makes us capable of getting our hopes up with projects that in reality are a deception.

It is because of this fact that many people who come to psychological therapy do so with one question in mind: How to act when a man plays with you? Although both men and women can emotionally manipulate other people, when someone belonging to the male gender does it, certain facts are more likely to occur, so it is worth seeing what they are.

So, in this article we will try to give an answer to this question related to the cases of emotional manipulation when the manipulator is a man.

Signs that they play with your feelings

One of the key signs of emotional manipulation that occurs when a man plays with your feelings is that whatever happens is not obvious, especially from the victim's point of view.

The hopes of having a meaningful and intimate relationship with the other makes those things that might be giving away his true intentions go more unnoticed.

However, there are some signs that, analyzed as objectively as possible, help us to know if what is happening is that there is indeed a man playing with you (or trying to). In many cases, it will make use of traditional male gender roles, since they are historically linked to the concept of authority and rationality. and rationality: that is, it is easier for them to make it appear that they are right and it is the others who are wrong or too confused. Let's see.

1. Use gaslighting

Gaslighting consists of blaming one's own negative actions on misinterpretations by the person witnessing these behaviors.

In fact, the person who uses gaslighting to manipulate another person is able to blame the victim. is capable of blaming the victim for feeling bad about what is happening, scolding him or her for not paying attention to what is happening.scolding them for not paying attention or for "being weak" or overly sensitive.

2. Promises a lot of things but does not deliver

It is common for manipulative people to feign an interest in the other person that is simply not real. It is just a way of gaining their favor, by giving them hope and reasons not to break off the relationship. and reasons not to break the relationship.

This can be detected by keeping track of the number of occasions on which unfulfilled promises appear. Of course, infidelities are a clear example of broken commitment in those cases in which a relationship has been established with that person.

3. No attention to detail

Both men and women tend to play with each other's feelings without really being interested in what the victim is like; they only memorize the essential details so that it is not obvious that there is no intention to consider her as a victim. that there is no intention to consider the victim as a loved one..

Therefore, paying attention to whether he makes an effort to remember details about how we are, what we like and dislike, what is our past and other nuances that create our identity, we will see if we are part of the things he values the most or if he only pretends love or appreciation for us in an interested, instrumental way, to keep up appearances.

How to act when a man plays with you?

To know what to do in these cases, follow the following tips and recommendations step by step.

1. Adopt a healthy distance

In order to have an objective and neutral point of view about what is happening, you should focus on the facts as you know they happened.You should focus on the facts as you know them to be true and draw conclusions from them.

You should avoid adopting as a starting point statements such as "he doesn't love me" or "he plays with me", since these are ideas that we will in any case conclude once we have considered everything that has happened, but not before.

That is why, it is good for you to create lists and diagrams describing the situation.. When you see a statement in which a very subjective interpretation of the facts is implicit, eliminate it and replace it with another one.

2. Make a decision

Once you have managed to have a more or less objective description of what is happening, stop and think if the degree to which this person has played with your feelings deserves to stop seeing her or let her know how you feel and allow her a reasonable time (for both of you) to correct her attitude.

In case you decide to break forever the friendship or couple relationship you had, or that after some time has not changed significantly for the better, move on to the next tip.

3. Don't obsess about what he/she might think.

In the situations in which we decide to cut the relationship we had with someone, we are usually faced with a dilemma that poses two options: to give priority to one's own feelings, or to give priority to the feelings of the other person..

In this case, it is very important to put the focus on what you feel, and to let go of the responsibility of making the other person feel a certain way.

If instead you give in to the desire to make the other person perceive us as we want them to perceive us, we will be feeding a dynamic whereby we remain dependent on the other person. In other words, if you do that, you actually give them room to continue playing with your emotions..

4. Avoid blaming yourself

In these cases it is easy to fall into the trap of blaming yourself for not making the relationship work.

However, this is only a consequence of the fact a consequence of the fact that they have played with us and have generated a and have generated a dynamic of dependency in which one party gives a lot and the other gives almost nothing. The fact that we have analyzed the facts as objectively as possible will protect us against these negative thoughts.