r/Manipulation

**Title:** I think my emotionally sensitive friend is being manipulated by a married man — need serious advice
One of my close friends is emotionally very sensitive and I’m genuinely worried she might be getting trapped by a married man who keeps manipulating her emotionally.
Today I saw a post by Waqar Zaka talking about married men trapping younger girls with fake promises of marriage and honestly it scared me because the situation sounds very similar.
My friend already tried to end things yesterday. I also tried hard to convince her to leave because the relationship feels emotionally unhealthy and manipulative. But the guy keeps finding ways to pull her back in.
First he says things like:
“I just want to see you happy and successful.”
“Wherever you feel happy, I’ll support you.”
Then the next day he switches and says:
“Please stay with me at least as a best friend.”
“Don’t leave me.”
Emotional guilt-type messages constantly.
And today he shocked both of us by sending “property papers” worth around 25 crore and saying things like:
“I would never let you lack anything in life.”
“I can give you security and comfort.”
Now my friend is mentally stressed again and confused. It feels like every time she tries to leave, he uses emotions, guilt, promises, money, or future security to keep control over the connection.
I honestly don’t know if this is love, manipulation, emotional dependency, or something worse. I’m worried because she’s very emotional and gets attached deeply.
People who’ve dealt with manipulative relationships:
What are the biggest red flags here?
How can I support her without forcing her?
How do emotionally manipulative people usually keep someone trapped?
What should she do before things become even more complicated?
I really need mature advice, not judgment.

Deleted the post*

​

# Firstly, thank you so, so, so much to everyone who supported me- whether that was through DMs or via comments or Discord, etc. etc.

I'm writing this from the back of a classroom.

So I don't want to pretend I never liked the narcissist that constantly lied, never could take responsibility not even once, and lived under a total delusion that he was a guilt-free clean perfect person (yuck NOTHING ON EARTH could be farther from the truth).

In my humble opinion, I'm maybe 70% "over" it, but there's the 30%...

I strangely miss the sweet times, the cute times. The kindness times and all the real connection times.

Now, I talk about it, and all my friends agree it was all just manufactured lovebombing.

People from the internet also agree that it was all fake, manufactured lovebombing, so he could get whatever he wanted for his sick twisted toddlerhood-pulverized ego.

I just really, really, really, really thought that this person was "special."

He was just fake.

I will be glad however, since... because of him, other narcissists who enter my life (or try to, anyway) have only minimal effect on me now.

It's just sometimes hard to believe I will ever be "seen" and "loved" to the supposed extent that he did. And I am literally twenty-nine years old.

They know exactly what they're doing. They just refuse to take responsibility; he lived in an absolutely complete, total delusion.

There is still 1 narcissist in my life at the moment, but fortunately, I only have to be near that narcissist for several hours a day at most.

Part 1 for your reference:

# How do you feel about people like this?

At one point a person broke up with me through a single text. They would so frequently do/repeat/commit unnaceptable behaviors (for example, a) saying they will do XYZ and then doing the total opposite of XYZ, and b) doing physical stuff to me in bed while I'm asleep that I never even said yes to, and c) forcing vulnerable stories about me from my past that I wasn't even ready to talk about yet) but every single time I brought these issues up, the person would spit lines such as "this is too much drama" and/or "be more mature about this" and/or "you not opening up now is impairing our relationship" etc. etc. and unironically if through text would put smile emojis in those responses. Every time I confronted the person about a toxic behavior that they had/repeated, there was always zero accountability. They literally could not even *acknowledge* it. Looking back now, I think that person was so extremely narcissistic, because there was so much lovebombing and even charm; I want to say I'm over it- I *mostly* am, but how do these people even end up that way? I was abused constantly as a child and I didn't become that way. That person told me he was abused. Sure. Okay. Is that an excuse?

Frankly even the "breakup text message" was a direct reaction to a time that I pointed out something that he did- not even disrespectfully, but I think I articulated his behavior so accurately that there was so much dissonance in that person's mind that his ultimate response to "not acknowledge" it was just hit the apocalypse button and end the entire thing. Through a text message with smile emojis.

That person talked about being bullied and the person has tons of acne scars and the person talked about how his dad beat him a lot and I went through stuff as well, yes, but he can point out my flaws and change my behaviors, but cannot take that if reversed?

Additional notes (inspired by a Redditor comment):

I don't know how long I will feel the way I do. There's these little thoughts in my head, like from me to myself, and they're sort of like:

"Oh my god you fcked up. You will never ever *ever* find someone like that here, ever"

"You messed up when someone finally loved the most true most vulnerable you?"

And then there's thoughts of... I want to go back, make sure it didn't end, I lost the thing and the person I was given which showed me true love, etc. etc. Very mixed emotions, super confused, extremely broken and sad... he once even responded to me, when I told him I don't want/need to talk about my past traumas to him in that moment, with something like "Yes but you don't have the resources on your own" and also "You think you're healed?" and also he told me that in the past I just "haven't met the right person."

Like what sick person says all of that to someone? Then he'd tell me he loves me in between and ten times a day, and then... discard me in a single text message (with multiple different kinds of smiling face emojis) because he was confronted with the truth of his actions. I don't know how and don't understand how it exploded all at once. It's like from the outside I can see it, but in my mind and my heart, it's like I lost my only, only one true angel. *Angel.* I don't feel anger, it's betrayal and pain, a lot of hurt and pain. I feel like there is no future. I'm scared. Like I feel like I had my one lifelong person (we did actually have rare similarities) and now it's all gone.

He pulled out the child inside of me to break it.

I (24M) met a woman (25F) on Tinder while I was abroad visiting family. We started seeing each other casually and became intimate pretty quickly. We would meet regularly, go out, and spend time together.

Within the first month, she started saying things like she would miss me when I left. She also began posting me on her social media stories in a way that made it look like we were a couple, although she hid my face. I thought it was moving a bit fast, but I didn’t take it too seriously at the time because, from my perspective, we had not clearly agreed to anything serious.

During the time we were seeing each other, I never got the impression that she was struggling financially. Sometimes she would pay for small things, like cab fare, and sometimes I would pay as well. It felt fairly normal. She also brought up pregnancy at one point, saying she could see herself having a child in about a year or two. She would sometimes ask if I saw a future with her, but I avoided giving a serious answer because it felt way too early.

The situation started to feel off during one of our last times together. We had gone out, stayed at a motel, and the next morning I noticed some money I had left on the floor. For some reason, I decided not to pick it up right away because I wanted to see what would happen. I had already noticed money missing before, so I was paying closer attention.

While she was getting dressed, I saw her discreetly take the money. After that, she asked me how much money I had left and acted shocked that I wasn’t aware I had no money left. Later, she gave me part of it back and claimed she had “found” it.

That really alarmed me. I didn’t confront her directly because I didn’t want a big argument, but in my mind I decided I would stop contacting her once I got home. The main issue for me was not just the money, but the fact that she seemed willing to lie and manipulate the situation.

A few days after I stopped contacting her, she called me and said she believed she was pregnant.

The timing is what confused me. She had her period the month before, and after that, we were intimate only once. She said she started “feeling pregnant” about four days after we had sex, which did not make sense to me. She also said we should go to the hospital and “remove it,” even though, from what I understand, it would be too early to even confirm a pregnancy at that point.

I told her the timeline didn’t make sense and that I would need actual proof before taking the claim seriously. She stopped replying for a while. Later, she said she had called a doctor and that the doctor told her she should know in about a week and a half.

Around the time she was supposed to get her period, she texted me at midnight saying, “I’m pregnant.” She did not send any proof, so I ignored it.

About a week later, she messaged again and said she had taken a urine pregnancy test and that it showed she was pregnant. She again said we needed to go to the hospital. Still, she did not send me a photo of the test, a medical document, or anything concrete.

Now she has started posting things online that seem to imply she is expecting. She has posted pictures of happy couples with children and stories showing her stomach while saying she feels tired, with heart emojis. It seems like she wants people to think she is pregnant, but I still have not seen any actual proof.

I honestly do not want to deal with her at all because after the money incident, I do not trust her. At the same time, I don’t want to ignore something serious if there is even a chance it is true.

Should I try to verify what is going on, or should I stay out of it unless she provides real proof? What would be the smartest way to handle this without getting manipulated or making the situation worse?

Long story short, I went out with my girlfriends for a drink last Wednesday, I promised that I would be back by midnight, I went out, had a glass of gin on an empty stomach, got drunk, and forgot how bad my sober self wanted to be home by midnight, and the girls kept insisting that we should celebrate our friend who just got her wedding day date, I told him that I won’t be home and he didn’t like it.
I was home by 3am, and he hasn’t talked to me since.

It’s his birthday today, and i am not sure how to proceed, he obviously doesn’t want to talk to me, and it is just embarrassing at this point to start a conversation given that this is not the first time he does this to me.

Could there be any explanation to this other than he is trying to punish/manipulate me?

Hey, idk if this is the right place to ask but, my mom might be a bit manipulative? idk my (16M)partner pointed out that i(15F) literally saw her as perfect until he pointed out the cracks. i personally noticed that when im talking to her about feeling upset with her, or something important, she A: starts playing with the dogs and is like "look OP, isnt he so cute?" or B starts complaining about some kind of physical pain. (back, neck, dizzy, etc) and i pointed it out to her once and she was in so much pain she never answered. im confused because i know she loves me and thought she was perfect, and everyone else does too, just now that i see hints of manipulation im confused.

I’m not sure if this belongs here, but I’ve been trying to process something that happened in a past dating situation/situationship, and I think I just need to vent a little. At first, this person made me feel really special. There was a lot of attention, affection, and intense interest very quickly. But after I got emotionally attached, things became hot and cold. Sometimes they acted like I mattered a lot, and other times they would pull away, ignore me, or make me feel like I was asking for too much.Whenever I felt hurt or confused, somehow the conversation would turn into me questioning myself. I started feeling like I was “too sensitive,” “too needy,” or overreacting, even though all I wanted was basic consistency and respect.Looking back, it feels like a cycle of love bombing, breadcrumbing, guilt-tripping, and making me doubt my own perception. I just know that the whole thing left me feeling used, confused, and emotionally drained.Has anyone else gone through something similar, where a dating situation made you question your own reality or self-worth? How did you start trusting your judgment again?

I'm an adult still living at home - like so many these days.

I had my friends over for a cafe lunch and hangout. We return home and at some point my mother enters the conservatory (where my friends are) and puts on her 'teenage girl act' - acting like one of their best friends and starts berating me for

: having not fed them or given them alcohol etc.

• Previously, I asked my friends what time they wanted to head home - a sunday, they have work in the morning and I let them know there's unfortunately no food in the house

Once I enter the room Ma asks why I can't order food for everyone in front of them. I respond plainly that I have only just gotten a temp job after months of unemployment after a redundancy. She sends me money to buy food for everyone.

I leave the room - she plies with alcohol retorting that 'just because you don't drink doesn't mean everyone else has to'

Every time I leave to get plates, coffee, tea she enters while I'm away and talks about me. Then, in front of them confronts me about where the $30 she gave me for groceries went. This $30 was days ago. I told her - I used it to buy groceries, hello?? why did you feel the need to do this in front of my friends.

With a loud booming voice like a performance, she continues to make fun of me.

My lifelong friends just eat the free food (what she sent me covered very little too so i paid for most of it) and laugh in thanks etc - while both of them, with full time jobs, offer nothing to cover their share.

Insist when she leaves we have to get food for her (which means I am buying food for her, they aren't. It's not like they are thanking her with food because they aint paying)

The kicker?

As soon as she leaves she complains about the money spent and says "they better not have drank all the alcohol" - complaining about them TO ME??

I feel so sick and they didn't care. She's just the 'fun spunky mum' - the kind that treats her daughters friends better than her daughter for the sake of embarrassment.

I feel like I can't talk to anyone about it,  especially not my friends and not even my partner because they both reap the benefits of my mom's behavior in front of them.  As soon as they leave she says “I can't believe they did this I can't believe they did that“  

almost blaming me for the fact that her choosing to try and embarrass me cost her money.

Hello there, first thing first I had o idea where to post this I just needs to get it off my chest and this was the first subreddit I though of. And second: Enlglish is not my first languese and im dyslexic so im sorry for any wrong grammar och spellings. (fake names real ages)

So....

For some backstoery (I can litterally hear Charlottes SET THE SEAN lol) Im a minor and my whole life I have been really menatlly unstable and have Deppressive eppisodes where it have gotten so bad i have tried and kms hihi. (I have Audhd and really bad anxiety). So that in mind I really do not know who I am and think the best of everyone (people pleaser). Anyway, lets start :)

When this happend I was 14 soon 15 years old, it was 6 months ago. I had had a deppressive eppisode and was overall really lost in life, I had just gotten my Autism diagnosis and was trying to figure out who I was without "the mask" (I basically have multipple personalitys depends on who Im with so i dont know who *I* am). At the same time some of my friends had just starting drinking (we live in Europe so yhe), and if you wonder why thats important let me just say peer pressure (I did not drink ANYTRHING but the surroindengs).

I was on this app where you facetime with people from everywhere and swipe when you wanna go to the next one (dont remeber the name sorry), on there I met this man we call him Timmy (somewhere around 23-26years old) from Uganda. We talked a bit (he talked I answered to be polite and when I said i had to go he told me to stay I think dont really remember nut something about that), but then he asked for my number. I said no because I dont give out my number to people I dont know (trauma) but he keept asking and after some time the stupid people pleesing in me said okay and gave it to him. We said by and I didnt really think more about it.

The next day I got a message on whatsapp from Timmy. Something like:

"Hello, Im Timmy youknow we talked yesterday are you \*my name\*? (heart emoji)". i answered and there it started. We talked for a while, all ormal he was polite, he told me about hes dead mom and siblings and that he didnt hav any money so he hadnt gone to school. Then he asked me what I liked to do (normal) and I said dance and acting, then he asked if I could send a ideo of me dancing (weird?), I feelt uncomftrable and said that I didnt really know but in the end I did send a video of me dancing (jazz btw). He said something like:

"Your beautiful (said that alot) love your moves your amazing at dancing".

I got really happy because I really needed to hear that and said thank you. Nothing weird happened in a while but then he asked where I lived. Like what countrie and I said what countrie I live in (one of the nordics), and he asked alot about the countrie and I answered. Then he asked if he could come and visit and I said something like:

"You can come vissit \*the countrie\* its really beutiul but you cant live at our house"

Then he answered like "but I wanna meet you" and we went a bit back and forth a bit (I did say we maybe could meet up or he could just come visit anyway its a really pretty countrie).

I dont remember how this converstation ended but Ill tell you guys the next and last wird think he said before I told a teacher and ended up almost gong to a mentall hospital.

He asked me if I liked someone and I said yes (I had a beautifyl partner, both virgins). Then he asked if I wanted to send him pictures (I imeadietly got flashbacks) I said NO but then he asked if I wanted HIM to send pictures (more flascbacks yay) I also said NO and that Im not intrested in him (he said he was in me) and that its pretty weird becuse he is like a decade older than me and Im a minor. He said the thing I remember the most and thats when the red flags clicked for me:

"But age is just a number".

I obisusly said no and told him we probably sshould stop talking but then he satrted asking if I could set him up with one of my freinds and started asking about there relationships and stuff. I said NO and to please stop talking to me. He said okay but that he was sad and I feelt really bad but thats whe I decided to show my teacher and told he about it.

Now for the reason I almost got sent to a phyc ward when I told my techer:

The thing is, during all this it almost feelt like it was another person insiode of me who wrote to him and not ME I dont know how to explain but you can see what I mean n the texts. I really dont know how to explain but I have had scary and really uncommfretble fnatasies my whole life tell me if you want to know more about that. I just feel like a phycopath and I ABSOLUTLY HATE HATE HATE HATE IT AND THE FANTASIES I DONT WANT THEM I HATE THEM, sorry.

I feel bad for blocking him because he had gone through so much with his mom and no school and everythinga dn he was verry polite and nice. I just feel really bad but at the same time a part of me sees the red flags. Its just like one second I feel bad and the second I kinda hate him. I dont know I just need to know if Im crazy or he acually had bad intewntions.

So am I Overreacting or did he have bad intentions?

Hav a lovely day :D

Sharing details of trauma early in a relationship. What’s appropriate when?

I’ve had a weird run of things lately. I really like the woman I’m currently dating but things have got weird.

From our second date she disclosed that she had been sexually assaulted recently on a hinge date. Since then she disclosed other sexual assaults. This has been a recurring theme in the start of my previous 2 relationships, one being very toxic and the other being great and ended amicably due to mutual incompatibility.

Here’s the thing, I don’t want to hear the details of anyone’s worst trauma. I had to literally tell the woman I’m currently seeing this as she wanted to give me the details of a violent SA that occurred when she was a young adult.

I have my own trauma, top tier capital T trauma from childhood and I don’t want to give anyone the details of. I’ve worked on it with therapists and in group therapy for survivors.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD from events in 2015 and I’m open about my diagnosis but I don’t share the details as it traumatizes people, especially people who care about me. It’s the same when people ask me about my scars, I tell them they probably don’t want to know.

I come from one of the most marginalized communities in the world and 75% of the population of my country have a negative view of my ethnicity. I grew up in government housing in a community that had the highest crime statistics in my country and despite all this I am very financially successful and deal with my trauma to the point I don’t have to spew it onto people I meet.

This has gone way off track. Just reading over it and I’m clearly a bit triggered but hopefully not problematic with how I’m expressing it.

The woman I’m currently seeing recently brought up the violent SA she experienced as a young adult and asked to give me the details. I told her I would rather not know the details. She told me it was important as that’s how she got hsv. Ok, that’s important to share.

I guess it’s frustrating because I’ve got some skeletons in my closet but I try to be upfront about the ones that people need to know and have discernment around stuff that they don’t need to know.

I guess I’m feeling like maybe the SA disclosure was somewhat of a manipulation technique. I wouldn’t ever list all the worst things that have occurred to me while building trust and connection to reveal the most pertinent information that affects both our health and future.

The other thing that has me stewing on it now is that I am regularly tested and never had an sti but I somehow knew more about the condition and how to minimize chances of transmission than she did. She’s had it for 15 year!

Am I being a dick? Am I being a sucker? Can’t work out how I’ve ended up here and what I’m actually considering.

we started be friends after more than that, then we move somewhere , after 9 months those argues stared , and he try to manipulate me like: suicide try, bad talk, violence, that he will change, use things know abt me to hurt me etc now i wanna say what i can do to let him forever alone ? he s a mix of toxic and a little bit pshyco , he didnt want have a social normal life just stayin with me and having no friends, neither me. want me just for him, forever but also he do these bad things w me , i tell him i wanna go home back but he become more violent what i should do

Long story short I feel like a few members of my own family do this. For the record I don't think it's some psycho thing I just think they know me, how I'll react and they take advantage of it.

I don't necessarily mind this behavior, if x family member said

"Hey let's go on vacation and I'll pay for it and we'll have a great time!"

On the surface that may sound fine but then they blow up about everything and act totally selfish constantly like it's a one person vacation. BUT they paid for it so if you DARE say a word you're a villain?

The worst part is I agree partly with that. But back to the main issue. How do you tell the difference.

Because people have their own issues, triggers etc so you gotta be understanding. So is it me, them? A combo? How do you know?

I’m a 27-year-old woman in England and I’ve been involved on and off with a 30-year-old man in the US for about 5½ years after meeting through a prison penpal site. He was incarcerated for theft of iPhones. He was released from prison in February this year.

I visited him in the US for 10 days after his release and things were amazing. I went back again in April for 2 weeks, but leading up to that trip things had already become extremely unhealthy. He became intensely paranoid that I was cheating or hiding things despite never once catching me cheating, lying, or doing anything suspicious.

For the first 2 weeks after coming home after the first trip, things were great. Then the paranoia started. It started with small things being interpreted as “off” behaviour — for example after I came home from the first trip, I didn’t want phone sex for a few days because my period was due, and he later said that’s when his trust issues started because I “started acting different.” Other normal behaviour then became suspicious to him like taking more than a few rings to answer a FaceTime call because my phone was in the other room or not replying immediately because I was cleaning. Any time that these things happens, I was accused of being with somebody else.

Over the next couple of weeks until the next trip, I started constantly reassuring him and changing my behaviour to avoid accusations:

always being available,
updating him constantly,
sitting on FaceTime for hours every night,
screen sharing while on FaceTime
sharing my location
constantly explaining myself
Having to show him around my flat on FaceTime, open cupboard doors to show him that nobody was hiding in them

A few days before my April trip we fell asleep on FaceTime together and the next morning he told me that throughout the night he was hearing moaning and lots of banging and lots of noises and he was convinced that I was fake sleeping on a green screen. He then started asking for things like my iCloud login and Instagram password to “prove” I wasn’t doing anything. I refused because by that point I already felt like nothing was ever enough and more access would just create more paranoia. I was genuinely becoming ill with the constant accusations and treading on eggshells and there would be 2/3 hour long conversations every evening when I got home from work with me trying to reassure him and him accusing me of the next thing I was supposedly lying about.

The only thing that had kept me in a relationship with him until this point was the fact that he was very self-aware, when he wasn’t spiralling he would say to me I know that this isn’t healthy and I know that I’ve got severe trust issues and I know that what I’m asking of you isn’t right or healthy and you are justified in saying no to passwords etc but he said that if I really wasn’t doing anything behind his back and I really wanted to try and help him then I would have no problem sharing these things so I’m essentially making everything worse by not helping him, completely disregarding how I have changed my entire lifestyle to help ease his fears.

I was debating on whether to go on the April trip or not but decided to go hoping that me physically being there with him would be able to help ease his anxieties and help him feel more secure for when I next go home.

During my April trip I discovered he had secretly bought spy cameras off Amazon and hidden them in the bedroom and bathroom to record me and monitor my phone screen while he was in another room. I saw loads of recordings of me just lying on the bed on TikTok while he watched remotely. I barely reacted at the time because I had become so used to trying to soothe his trust issues.

Aside from finding out about the spy cameras, the April trip went extremely well and I felt really positive coming home (that sounds crazy I know given the history of everything) but within a couple of days things went back to how they were before. He then requested that I gave him access to the security camera in my flat which I stupidly agreed to hoping that would solve all of our problems because I knew that I had genuinely nothing to hide. When the cameras obviously proved nobody was coming in or out, instead of feeling reassured he just moved the accusations onto my “behaviour” instead — things like turning lights on/off, the way I moved around, etc. He would call me a “weirdo” constantly for completely normal things like questioning why I kept my hairbrush in the living room rather than my bedroom and he was telling me that I was manipulating lights in a certain way to block certain doorways to sneak people in.

He has also screen recorded FaceTimes and later interrogates me about tiny movements like:

“At 4:27 why did you look left, who was there?”

I genuinely started feeling psychologically unwell:

hypervigilant,
constantly on eggshells,
scared to miss calls,
scared to move wrong on FaceTime,
constantly trying to prevent accusations.

A couple of weeks ago I basically had a mental breakdown and told him I can’t do it anymore and this is where I revoked camera access, turned my location off and told him I wasn’t going to continue in this relationship anymore if he doesn’t change and work on himself. Since then, over the past couple of weeks things have been better (less accusations) but there are massive double standards which I believe he has only done to punish me for revoking the access:

he has changed his phone password and told me that I can’t go on his phone anymore when we’re physically together
he stopped sharing his location,
he admits he withholds affection (says luv u when I say I love you things like that) and refuses to explain things to “make me feel how he feels,” (for example on a FaceTime I saw him zooming in on a picture of a girl on his camera roll in the reflection of his glasses and when I asked him about that he told me that he would not explain anything because I refuse to give him my passwords)
he’s gone out to bars until 5am leaving his phone at home
but if I question anything, I’m accused of “spinning things.”

Meanwhile, emotionally the relationship has become completely one-sided. Everything revolves around regulating him and his anxiety. Even though I’m not being met with extreme accusations anymore, constant little comments are being made. My needs only seem to matter when they don’t conflict with his insecurities.

Examples:

I recently found a lump in my breast and had an appointment at a breast clinic. Despite all our issues, he didn’t even check in or ask how it went. I genuinely think he forgot because he’s so consumed with himself and monitoring me.
Sex is extremely selfish. He doesn’t care about my pleasure and refuses oral sex, while everything revolves around him.

Financially I’ve invested massively:

flights,
hotels,
clothes,
trips,
general support,
probably around £10k over the years.

He recently promised to start paying me back weekly after getting a job, but so far has only sent £250 and complains about sending money despite having very low living expenses.

The biggest issue now is that I genuinely feel like there is no “solving” this because the goalposts constantly move. Whenever I provide proof or reassurance, a new accusation appears:

cameras proved nobody entered my flat → accusations shifted to my behaviour,
he demanded to see my emails to prove I logged him out of Spotify because he suddenly couldn’t access my Spotify on his phone → when no password reset email existed, he claimed I must have deleted it,
every reassurance just turns into another theory.

He says I’m manipulative and “spin things,” but I have been doing nothing but bending over backwards trying to help him while becoming mentally drained in the process.

The confusing part is that I do believe he genuinely loves me and is just really struggling with adjusting to life in the real world and I don’t think he can help the way he feels insecure and paranoid because he was never like this in prison. He is very self-aware like I have said and he is very aware of the fact that his behaviour isn’t normal and it’s unfair to me. I don’t think he wakes up every day thinking “I want to abuse her.” But at the same time, his behaviour has become controlling, emotionally exhausting, invasive, and honestly psychologically damaging for me.

He is now saying he wants me to do a polygraph/lie detector test in June when i’m next due to fly out to see him, he says that’s the only way that this behaviour is going to stop, he needs proof from a lie detector test that I am not a cheat or a liar. At first I agreed because I genuinely have nothing to hide and I thought maybe it would finally put everything to bed, but the more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve realised that even if I passed, I honestly don’t think it would change anything. Every time one accusation gets disproved, another one appears instead. It feels like he’s so determined to prove I’m lying that no amount of reassurance, evidence or “proof” will ever actually be enough.

Right now I’m at the point where:

I love him,
but I don’t think I can do this anymore,
I feel like I’ve lost myself,
and I’m struggling to tell whether there’s genuinely any hope of recovery after enabling/reinforcing this dynamic for so long.

Has anyone actually come back from a relationship dynamic this extreme and ended up healthy? Or is this realistically too far gone?

I recently realized that a family member I grew up with (same age as me) may have been emotionally manipulative for years, and I genuinely don’t know if I’m seeing things clearly or overthinking it. The pattern is usually: she says hurtful/passive aggressive/comparative things (sometimes subtle, sometimes direct), I get triggered and defensive, and then suddenly the entire focus becomes how “dramatic,” “difficult,” “sensitive,” or argumentative I am. I’ve spent years believing maybe I was equally at fault because I did react emotionally, and I’m someone who tries hard to self reflect and see both sides of situations. But recently I started noticing that I mentally prepare before seeing her, overmonitor my words around her, feel relieved when interactions end, and become unlike myself around her. What confuses me is that in almost every other relationship in my life (friends, partner, etc.), people describe me as emotionally mature, grounded, and kind. Has anyone else experienced a dynamic where you only later realized the defensiveness/reactivity may have been a response to the environment rather than proof that you were “the problem”?

Need help, I’m so angry and confused (because she is a very close family member).

So as a kid, I had a severe fear of ghosts. Still manifests as some paranoia at night when alone.

The worst version of that fear involves mirrors. That one persisted much more strongly into adulthood. I cannot be around mirrors at night in the dark. If a mirror is in the same room I am sleeping in, I have to cover it. If I have to use the bathroom, my head is facing down at the floor until the light comes on.

A little under a year ago, my girlfriend and I thrifted an old standing mirror. I was immediately unnerved by it, and we both kind of half-joked about it being haunted. I had nightmares about it, and I started covering it at night. This is also how she learned about these fears.

Some months ago, she started to claim she had psychic powers. Got involved in a lot of spiritual reading groups. Didn't really think much of it and I try to keep an open mind about things like that, even if I don't buy into it despite my own phobias.

About a month ago or so, I started EMDR. I would talk about it with her. The general themes were that I was learning it was okay to say, "no," that I am allowed to stand up for myself, and for my needs to matter. This is around when I started asking for space to myself again.

I came home one day and found out that her self-proclaimed powers now include the ability to channel ghosts, and apparently she channeled one over some kind of group spiritual therapy call.

Later, she decides to drop that she confirmed there is one in that mirror and that she had asked if it was friendly. Apparently, it said, "No." She said she would talk to some friends about figuring out how to protect my house and keep the mirror safe.

So I'm not exactly in the most stable state. My logical mind is refusing to believe it but my body is getting these slow burning chills all over it as my hairs are standing up.

Shortly after an exchange about malicious mirror ghosts, we were cuddling at night. She expresses appreciation for me a lot, but this time it felt weirdly overbearing and almost artificial. Maybe I'm being paranoid. It just came off as really hamming up how glad she was we had each other.

She eventually put some runes on the mirror and a salt circle around it and then we were supposedly safe.

I did something manipulative myself at this point and set up a test. I leaned into how scared I was genuinely feeling to make it believable while making up complete nonsense. I said I had seen the ghost while my eyes were closed, and I wanted to describe it but I had a horrible feeling that would end badly. Then I said something about how I thought maybe a soulless medium would be safe, because then it would have no entry point. She then praised my intuition and told me I was psychic and didn't know it yet. She validated a bunch of random nonsense I made up on the spot.

As for the soulless medium: I showed her an AI generated image of a ghost. She confirmed that was also what she saw, before suddenly backpedaling and saying something like, "Well, it didn't have the teeth and the gums, but I got the same shadowy figure vibes too." Generic and vague enough that it doesn't really prove much but it still set off some alarm bells.

Needless to say, I am suspicious by now. But then, suddenly, evidently the crisis is resolved. The ghost got sent away by some dude in one of her spiritual groups or something. So I think, "Huh, maybe I was just being paranoid."

I finally successfully take a day to myself after a month, and I'm talking to her on the phone on the way back home at night. I get in my house around 10 PM, still on the phone, cover the mirror, sit down, and she then asks, "Have you stood by the mirror and checked if you feel any presence?"
I told her I already covered it and didn't feel anything.
She then said, "Okay, great. I'll talk to some of my friends to see what else we can do to make sure nothing else can come out of it."

Well, dang, now the hairs are slowly standing up all over my body again and I'm turning all the lights on. Wonderful.

I write this and every single part of me is screaming, "Yeah, the timing is way, way too coincidental, and the subject is way, way too targeted." But then I think, "Well, she does have very spiritual views, and maybe she actually believes this and thinks she is helping. Maybe she'll just integrate anything that loosely fits her beliefs, which is why she was so eager to validate what I said."