12 Questions Deeply Manipulative People Ask Often
There are certain questions you should always be wary of receiving, especially from people you're supposed to trust.
Yurii_Yarema | Shutterstock.com Manipulation can take a variety of diverse and unsettling forms in our daily lives and relationships, from relatively underresearched behaviors like gaslighting, to more widely known narcissistic tendencies like guilt-tripping and bullying. While recognizing manipulative behavior in someone you're supposed to be able to trust, like a partner or best friend, can be difficult, there are certain questions deeply manipulative people ask often that can be a huge red flag.
Whether they're actively dismissing your emotions, invalidating your identity, or passively taking space away from you in conversations and social situations, being able to recognize and set clear boundaries with a manipulative person will ensure you're looking out for your best interests. You deserve to cultivate an inner circle of people in your life that are committed to celebrating and empowering your existence, rather than breaking it down.
Here are 12 questions deeply manipulative people ask often
1. 'Don't you want to make everyone happy?'
Fizkes | Shutterstock.com
According to mental health counselor Garelyn Dexter, manipulative people tend to use tactics like gaslighting or love bombing to assert some kind of power and influence over someone in their life, even at the expense of their emotional and physical well-being.
By leveraging their power over conversations and interactions, they can work to dismiss a person's autonomy, encouraging them to behave or communicate in ways they otherwise wouldn't. This phrase, along with other questions deeply manipulative people ask often, encourages someone to overstep their own boundaries for the benefit of others, even if it means putting their own needs aside.
Manipulators rely on this ability to make people do things they wouldn't normally do to get what they want from every interaction, whether it's financial compensation, emotional support, time, or energy.
2. 'Why would you do that?'
New Africa | Shutterstock.com
Having someone in your ear constantly undermining your competence and dismissing your feelings can be incredibly overwhelming and dehumanizing, like experts from Charlie Health explain. But people with manipulative partners, friends, and family often experience the emotional burden of their toxic behaviors.
The people we surround ourselves with should celebrate our independence and encourage us to take steps outside of our comfort zone, not degrade and dismiss us for making decisions that don't act directly in their best interests.
Manipulative people get offended by behaviors often, but instead of communicating their feelings with the person who made them feel uncomfortable, they guilt and shame them into taking accountability for things that aren't necessarily their fault.
3. 'Are you sure you can handle this?'
Prostock-studio | Shutterstock.com
Manipulative behavior, although characterized by self-centeredness and toxicity, isn't always inherently malicious towards other people, according to a study from the Journal of Personality Disorders. In some cases, questions like this that deeply manipulative people ask often are actually more focused on self-preservation than intentionally harming others.
With deep-rooted insecurities motivating their behaviors, manipulative people often project their own incompetence and anxiety onto others — becoming overly critical and unnecessarily judgmental in their relationships, from professional co-workers to intimate partners.
4. 'What will other people think?'
Ekateryna Zubal | Shutterstock.com
People who already seek external validation from others to fuel their sense of self-worth are often most vulnerable to the consequences of questions deeply manipulative people ask often, according to certified mental health coach Darius Cikanavicius.
Being rejected or judged by others is a real anxiety in their lives, motivated entirely by praise, attention, and recognition from the people they admire and love. By leveraging this knowledge of their insecurity, manipulative people find ways to attack people in their life with questions like this, holding their own sense of self-worth over their head to get what they want.
5. 'You don't want to let me down, right?'
Perfect Wave | Shutterstock.com
Fueling unhealthy power dynamics in their relationships and their misguided sense of superiority, many manipulative people will use guilt-tripping questions like this to get people to do what they want without taking accountability for it themselves.
Whether it's getting a raise at work or urging a partner to take on more responsibilities at home, they hold their love, affirmation, and security over their partner's heads — playing with their fears of rejection and abandonment, rather than openly communicating their needs and desires.
6. 'What makes you think you can do that?'
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock.com
Patronizing their partners and loved ones with condescending language like this, manipulative people attack other people's competence by re-asserting their own. Even if it's misguided and entirely falsified, they use their perceived dominance over situations to get what they want by taking away the confidence of others.
Even if they're competing for something at work or trying to resolve a conflict in a relationship, manipulative people attack others for their own gain. This makes others feel less confident, intelligent, and powerful with hurtful comments, negative body language, and stressful encounters.
7. 'Don't you trust me?'
Lightfield Studios | Shutterstock.com
Considering trust is one of the most important factors of a healthy relationship, even in the eyes of a diverse set of partners highlighted in an Eastern Illinois University research paper, it's important to recognize the manipulative ways it can be leveraged to guilt-trip people into behaving in ways that counteract their interests and needs.
For example, a manipulative person might overstep someone's boundaries or convince a partner to disrespect themselves in the name of "trust" or "loyalty" in a relationship, hoping that their intrinsic guilt to protect the perceived health of their relationship will help them get their way.
8. 'What did I do wrong this time?'
SynthEx | Shutterstock.com
According to experts from Flourish Psychological Services, ignorance is a key part of the gaslighting behaviors a manipulative partner or friend relies on to get other people to act in ways that benefit them. They refuse to acknowledge their shortcomings, hurtful language, or mistakes, instead urging other people to take on the emotional burden and responsibility of their toxic behaviors.
By flipping the narrative on other people in their life and assuming a misguided sense of victimhood in response to their toxic behavior, they self-soothe their uncomfortable feelings like embarrassment, instead shifting them to other people.
Not only does this heightened anxiety and emotional burden help to make their loved ones more vulnerable to their manipulative tactics, it ensures they fall into a toxic power dynamic that consistently helps manipulative people to get their way.
9. 'Why can't you take a joke?'
ViDI Studio | Shutterstock.com
Humor can work in powerful ways to alleviate anxiety and tension in emotional conflicts, but when it's used in a dismissive question like this — intended to dismiss and invalidate a person's emotions — it only sabotages the health of relationships and the connection between two people, like licensed marriage and family therapist Phil Stark argues.
Even if you intended to make a joke and another person was offended or hurt by it, make space for their uncomfortable emotions. Take accountability, apologize, and figure out how to communicate more effectively, especially if you want to continue a healthy relationship with that person.
Manipulators are only concerned with themselves, so they'd prefer to dodge taking accountability for their hurtful comments with questions like this that consistently degrade and demean the people they're supposed to support wholeheartedly in their lives.
10. 'Why are you being so defensive?'
Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock.com
Many manipulative people engage in unhealthy behaviors that sabotage their relationships and put other people's well-being at risk to soothe their own uncomfortable feelings and insecurities. Rather than take ownership and heal from their own embarrassment, fear, or shame, they shift it to other people, hoping to cope with their own discomfort by avoiding it.
Even if you're resorting towards defensiveness in response to a manipulative person's attacks, that says more about them than you. When someone who you're supposed to trust in life makes you feel like the worst version of yourself every time they're around, consider whether or not the relationship is worth keeping.
11. 'Don't you think you're being too sensitive?'
New Africa | Shutterstock.com
Studies like one from Maricopa Community Colleges reveal that having a deep level of understanding with your partner — knowing everything about one another and growing together — can be incredibly powerful for maintaining a healthy relationship dynamic.
However, in the hands of the wrong partner, that information, from your insecurities to your biggest fears, can help to manipulate you into a toxic environment where you feel pressured and obligated to put your own needs aside.
If you've struggled with being overly empathetic in your life and a manipulative partner, friend, or parent is aware of that struggle, they may use a phrase like this to encourage you to act in their best interest. Again, manipulative people aren't afraid to put your needs and emotional well-being aside to prioritize their own, and questions like this can be reflective of that behavior.
12. 'Why do you make everything about you?'
Fizkes | Shutterstock.com
When a narcissistic or manipulative person feels like they're getting attention taken away from them, they'll do anything to ensure they can re-assert their misguided superiority and dominance, even if it's just in a passing conversation with a partner.
For example, if you're expressing your emotions or opening up a conversation about what you need from a partner, and they respond with anger or dismissal, they're probably acting on a fear of rejection or inferiority. The guilt-tripping, blaming, and victimization behaviors that follow, with a phrase like this one, are only a reflection of their insecurity, needs for validation, and constant attention.
Every conflict, argument, or conversation directing attention to what's "missing" from their lives feels like a direct attack on their character, even when an open conversation could actually persuade them into personal and social growth.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.