Stories and examples of sensitive/emotional men being abusive or manipulative?

whiskey_and_oreos · 2021-11-27T02:11:44+00:00

I've dated a lot of emotional softboys (and even married one) and honestly the one common denominator is the lack of action, same with any other type of LVM. This type just knows the right words to say to make you think they get it but like all LVM there's never any action or follow through.

So just watch to see if his words and actions are the same. A HVM wouldn't talk up all the nice things they could do and instead would just do them.

MissouriBlue · 2021-11-27T03:16:49+00:00

The emotional guys will share their childhood Trauma and relationship damage in an attempt to escalate the emotional bond with them. That false sense of connection and intimacy is used to lower your defenses.

They also, the more manipulative types, will share super “special” items with you… mine gave me his Army dog tags — and because they were such an intimate item, it created an additional bond.

Come to find out, he orders them regularly for all his women from MyDogTag dot com. $12.99 shipped. 😒

Edit to add: These guys also easily use trigger words, like “home” and “forever” and “unconditionally”… Home plays in to our childhood issues. Forever is a form of Future Faking. And Unconditional is used to lower your defenses and have you accept an obligation to loyalty without questioning.

Fun_Sherbet · 2021-11-27T02:56:15+00:00

Sob stories early on. They will do this to illicit your sympathy and caring.

sleutherino · 2021-11-27T03:29:21+00:00

Yep. Long before FDS, I dated a guy I worked with (I know), who I'm now 99% sure was on the autism spectrum, and also suffered from things like ADHD, anxiety, depression, the works. He was a quiet, ~~sweet~~, sensitive guy, but you can be all of those things and still be manipulative.

Well, he was in therapy, and in the process of finding the best medications for his issues. I was attracted to his motivation for self improvement, but my experience with him will ensure I never date a "work in progress" like that again.

Everytime he did something "wrong", he would blame it on his issues. Staring at another woman? "Can't help it, ADHD". Sharing personal details of our relationship with coworkers? "How was I supposed to know that was wrong?". Extremely clingly and emotionally dependent on me all the time? "Sorry it's my anxiety/depression, it makes me act this way sometimes".

Took zero responsibility for his actions, and made me feel like the villain for not being more "accommodating", as if our relationship was subject to ADA laws or some stupid bullshit.

It got to the point where he would repeatedly do these things, then when I pointed out the fact that he kept doing them, he would nitpick little details and act like it wasn't the same (because, say, he only spammed me with 7 messages instead of 10, stupid shit like that). I don't think his intention was to gaslight, but that's essentially what he was doing.

He would continously blame everything he did on his "disabilities", despite the fact that I suffered from many of the same ones, and I didn't have the same resources he did, like medication and therapy.

Well, when he finally got on my last nerve, he guilt tripped me like a pro. I wanted out of the relationship, but he would go on and on about how "I turned his whole life around" and how "everything would crumble without me". He literally said these things as I was discussing taking a break, or breaking up altogether. I was too nice for my own good.

He made me feel so bad about wanting to leave him, like he was completely helpless and has zero responsibility for anything to happened to him. If I left, his life would be in ruins, he'd tell me. No capability to fix the issues himself, he expected me to accommodate him.

I told him we were done, and he still clung, like he needed somebody's emotional health to feed off in order to stabilize himself. He wanted to be friends, he wanted to hug, he wanted to take classes together, he wanted to keep dating without calling it dating, basically was in denial.

Eventually I snapped and told him we were done, and he was never to contact me again. I blocked him everywhere, and learned a valuable lesson about being too nice trying to spare people's feelings, and getting drained and unhappy myself because of it.

Edit: I know this sounds harsh, and I literally have zero issues with mental health issues like this, but I'm no longer willing to take on somebody else's, or sacrifice my own happiness for it.

lansburysoda · 2021-11-27T03:53:25+00:00

At this point I’ve dated so many of this type that it’s a red flag to me if I’m interested in a guy 🥴 because undoubtably feeling empathy for him plays into the attraction. I feel like I can understand his insecurities and help him put himself back together again—I can be the woman who helps him become the man he could be—until he turns the tables and knocks me to the ground because it was all an act in the first place. It’s got to be pathological at this point.

_xyoungbellax_ · 2021-11-27T04:26:34+00:00

They're going to start telling how much of a struggle their life is, even when you haven't started dating yet. The usual phrases are "No good friends, no loving parents, no nice exes, so me spend time alone always" with a hint of suicidal stuff.

PSA: Here, I'd like to reiterate the fact, that one shouldn't date if they're not in a healthy headspace. This is coming from someone, who was diagnosed with cluster B and C and chose to stay away from dating for more than a year. Also, if you're dealing with a partner like that, consider leaving. There's always a high chance of codependency in such relationships.

lostmillenia · 2021-11-27T04:55:58+00:00

Your internal monolog will kick in and you will say to yourself, "wow, he wants me to validate this hard, and is really trying to be in the victim position here." Once you notice, it is impossible to unnotice. He wants you to agree he's the victim and I can guarantee the rest of your r ship will go that way as well.

When my ex would do this my brain says, "oh so he wants to be the princess now" like when my ex would warn me we couldnt get too much chinese food. 🤑🙃🙄

awhileagonow · 2021-11-27T08:39:15+00:00

The phrase that jumps to mind is 'hair trigger'. It was so easy to say something that made him angry or sad. One time I made a casual comment about a type of food I didn't like and he went silent then and later stormed out as he'd taken it as an insult to his family who had raised him on that type of food. I had never met them, didn't know this, and had only commented one sentence about my personal taste. His reaction was absolutely mystifying to me.

Unpredictable is another descriptor. He could be thoughtful, but it was more a point-scoring exercise rather than generosity of spirit. He made me one cold platter in five months of dating and actually threw that back at me as evidence of all the ways he tried to 'treat' me and he still wasn't good enough, boo hoo. In the middle of a seemingly normal exchange especially text but also in person he would just flip to the completely opposite emotion or sentiment because he'd 'been thinking' and out of the blue it was time to tell me something I'd done to cause him pain. A big one for him was how many sexual partners I'd had. He had a huge problem with it and I could tell was always angling for me to apologise or express shame, two things I was never going to do. He never let up about it, whether I might have used the same words with them as I did with him, how wretched it made him feel and how bad it was for his self esteem, and actually how it made him feel physically sick. These days I would have blocked and deleted but I tried dealing with this by telling him he needed to get over it and trying to continue as normal. Not possible, and his woeful act eventually turned into verbal abuse about how i was a slut and a whore, and this abuse continued after we broke up.

He also needed a lot of coddling. He was always trying to get me to take time off work to spend time with him. He thought this was easy because I was self-employed and got offended when I didn't. If I was ever unavailable I had to subsequently deal with a load of 'what have I done wrong?' 'i always knew you'd get tired of me' 'i'd never be good enough for you would I' etc. Actually what I did was never good enough, because he always wanted more, emotionally and in terms of time. He acted as if I was an ice queen when all I did was tell him he was gorgeous, amazing, tell him I loved him, ask about his work and hobbies, have him over at my house, cook for him, etc. He second-guessed everything I did and (as above) would randomly accuse me of secret ulterior motives.

No self-control. He'd constantly say 'I can't help it'. I absolutely detest that phrase. He'd send me endless abusive texts and afterwards it was always, 'I couldn't help it, it's how I was feeling, I was just upset.' In retrospect I think his last relationship (which was 7 yrs long I think) probably set the scene for some of these behaviours, as in he got away with emotional manipulation and took that forward to me.

When I broke up with him after a particularly bad stream of abuse he accused me of using him. I said, what for? He couldn't answer that. He had never paid for me, ever. Never bought me a gift. Sex was difficult because he had problems ejaculating so I definitely wasn't using him for that. (It was hard work and he never made me orgasm, and in fact never went down on me after about month two.) The whole relationship was hard work and a waste of time. I actually tried to maintain a friendship for a while but the verbal abuse escalated to threats.

Oh, and he complained of feeling suicidal because of me more than once, specifically due to how many men I'd had sex with before him.

IndividualRoutine661 · 2021-11-27T08:59:37+00:00

Replace “sensitive” with touchy, and that’s more accurate.

Yes I’ve 💯 encountered this.

What I’ve learnt…

A sensitive man would care not just about their own feelings but how they made others feel.

A touchy man cares only about his own feelings and not how their acts impact how others feel.

Astral_weaver · 2021-11-27T10:18:02+00:00

They come strongly to you with their sob stories about family and their exes, trying to force connection and sympathy. When you fall into their trap, catch feelings and start bedding them, they start doing all kinds of passive-aggressive bullshit, from negging, to triangulating and pulling away. They are cowards and good for nothing. Total trash.

Platipus6 · 2021-11-27T03:21:06+00:00

He says things that sound sweet and good, but never actually does anything. Seems to acknowledge his flaws or that he's inadequate or the problem, pretends to be ashamed and beating himself up but never improves. In fact they usually get worse as passive aggressive retaliation.

The embodiment of "ever get mad at your bf but you end up comforting him?"

"I really wish I was a better boyfriend 😌"

"I'm trying really hard to be the man you deserve😌"

"I understand you're unhappy, and that makes me sad. I'm unhappy too 😌" (derail, guilt-trip, pity-play, redirect to him)

"I really appreciate how patient you are 😌" (There is no causation between how patient you are and him actually getting off his ass!)

They find a way to shut down solutions.

eg I would tell my ex the Problem and suggest a reasonable Solution. He would reply "oh, I can't do that because xyz" and then turn away like it was all done. Conversation over. Never offers an alternate solution. Doesn't care that I'm distressed or that the problem is still there.

They think the problem is that you're talking, and any method to get you to stop talking means the problem is solved. Like we're just yapping into thin air and they don't need to listen. Hence all the "blindsided" dumped scrotes.

Because men don't do that! If a woman wrongs them, they're out the door. No paragraphs, no detailed explanations of how we hurt their feefees. Poof gone.

Start journaling this crap if you're easily gaslighted or guilted into comforting sadbois.

Write down exactly what the problem is. What a reasonable solution is. How long it would take you to implement the solution.

Talk to him ONCE. Any pushback, guilt-trips, manipulations, "he's sad too", "I'll try", "what about you", or any other vague, ass-dragging, deflecting, whining bullshit, drop him.

Expect a clear apology, recognition of how his behaviour has harmed you, concrete steps he's going to take to ensure he solves the problem / never does it again, and a timeline for when you can expect observable results (depending on the size of the problem).

For egregious problems that no-one in their right mind would commit, dump him.

Problem, solution, consequence.

"You left the toilet seat up. Put the seat and the lid down every time before you flush, or you won't be invited to my house again".

If you can't think of / won't enact a consequence, your talks and boundaries don't mean shit.

overthinker4444 · 2021-11-27T08:34:09+00:00

Emotional guys are the worst. They will tell you sob stories but don't you dare to tell your story. Careless guys I would say. They can manipulate well.

myeggsarebig · 2021-11-27T10:30:09+00:00

They seem to move back and forth between “I’m just a big piece of shit” and “it’s everyone else’s fault that I’m a big piece of shit.” They never take responsibility for “being a piece of shit,” though, and they certainly never work through it. The entire point is to get woman to see them as victims at all times. Because they think if you feel sorry for them, you’ll feel even worse if you say, “ok, there there, I know it’s not your fault that your parents are garbage and ruined your life, but it is your responsibility to reverse the damage the caused.” If you say that, you’ll be accused of trauma shaming them, and pushing them when they’re not ready. “Not ready” = I want to continue to abuse you with impunity.

hensbanex · 2021-11-27T10:37:02+00:00

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extragouda · 2021-11-27T13:13:47+00:00

I can't talk too much about my experience because it was extremely traumatizing. Abuse is a spectrum of behaviors. From manipulative to overtly violent. The same man can be both.

In my experience, manipulative men will flood you with their sad-boi stories and victimize themselves from the get-go. Don't fall for it. They will have a "crazy ex" and they will use your weaknesses to get you to focus your attention on them. So if you disclose that you were sexually assaulted, for example, all of a sudden they will say they were also sexually assaulted and their story will be bigger and more traumatic than yours. The weaponize your empathy. This is how they control you.

They do it repeatedly. Your discomfort and boundaries are nothing compared to their victim hood. They will also love-bomb you.

In the end, you might discover that they are lying, and have been doing it for years.

When you no longer have space to breathe because your entire life revolves around them (and if you try to change that, they attempt suicide, because they are so very "sad"), they will resort to using fear to control you by being violent. And by then, you have been gaslighted until you think you are nobody, so it's hard to have the confidence to leave, especially if they have been 'working on' your friends and family as well so no one will believe you when you say that this guy was violent. When you are not looking at them, their tears "switch off" and they have a look of pure malevolence on their face -- because they KNOW they have conned you. When they figure out that they are losing you, they might do shady things to empty out your bank account and start "grooming" another woman to take your place so that they have another person to financially abuse.

Covert abuse is still abuse. Look out for behavior that is controlling and selfish.

That is my experience.

I also know a woman who had a boyfriend who was in a wheelchair and needed constant care and could not work. One day she found out that he could walk and was cheating on her with another woman who was conned into giving him money too.

CroneRaisedMaiden · 2021-11-27T06:53:32+00:00

Emotional manipulation came with my “softer” ex, turning arguments around.

Sewud · 2021-11-27T13:33:52+00:00

There was a man who lied to me about his age. Said he was in his 30s, was really in his 40s. When it came out and I was hurt, he completely stole the thunder and said he was the most hurt one because it was so painful for him to be rejected for his age and I was just shallow and cruel and I was just trying to hurt him. He screamed at me to never bring up his age again because I was just doing this to hurt him. Basically he never admitted to doing anything to hurt me, it was always about him being such a poor hurt boy.

pompommom31 · 2021-11-27T14:35:57+00:00

These are the men that will have you doing constant mental gymnastics with yourself because they are soooo good at subtle emotional manipulation. If you find yourself constantly second guessing your “ick” feelings, constantly wondering “AITA?” then you’re likely with Mr. Sensitive. Think lots of tears and LOTS of silent treatment until they get the apology they think they deserve from you. Then all is magically forgiven until the next time you call him out and the cycle continues. If you start to feel like you’re the asshole in the relationship (and you know you aren’t) then run, girl.

_RustInPiece_ · 2021-11-27T04:59:35+00:00

When you bring up an issue he might let you do all the talking and thereby larps as a GrEaT LiStEnEr.

He isn't.

This is an emotional abuse tactic called stonewalling. He makes you communicate to exhaustion. He doesn't actively oppose you. He just "doesn't get it yet". He might even breadcrumb you into thinking "wow, he seems to get it now". He might even thank you for "your insights into his problems he wouldn't have discovered on his own". Now you are being rewarded with praise and gratitude for playing his free therapist. Co-dependent people and people pleaser beware - this is your vulnerability and your narcissistic "sensible guy" will use it against you unless you fix yourself.

If this form of communication seems to be necessary in your relationship and you are always the one initiating he's playing you.

Chickpea16 · 2021-11-27T17:24:34+00:00

There are a lot of amazing comments already but one that I will add is a refusal to respect your personal boundaries. This might look like them wanting to CoMuNiCaTe about why your boundaries make them feel bad and why your personal boundaries should be renegotiated with their input so that it is a MuTuAlLy agreed upon decision. Strangely enough, this type of man has no problem enforcing his own boundaries and will shut down any conversation surrounding them as toxic and disrespectful. He understands the concept but doesn’t see you as a fully autonomous human being who is entitled to act independently from him. He sees boundaries as a threat to his power, basically.

Yeet_Far_Away · 2021-11-27T06:34:36+00:00

The belligerent and confident abuser is actually the minority.

I worked in prison for a few months a few years back and guess what the average abuser (both of women and of children) looks like? A weak little piece of shit. They are pathetic, whiny and scared. They always try to justify shit with muh mental health, muh feelings.

lvrcalii · 2021-11-27T17:53:17+00:00

My ex has cystic fibrosis. He sucked me in with stories of how he always thought he was going to die at any point so he had always dated "fun chicks" and my intelligence and confidence intimidated him. He played on my mental health role to flip me into a place I often go professionally to make people feel comfortable during sessions. I let the diagnosis explain to me his drug use, all of his friends being females, his mom and him being weirdly close, him ignoring my boundaries and standards cause "he had never dated anyone like me". His house was gross, his oral care was shyt, and he was absurdly lazy in bed, he was usually broke, also all due to his "illness". Don't get me wrong, dude probably has CF and it definitely negatively impacted his life and helped create the monster he is, but he turned out to be the most insidiously malignant person I have ever met outside of my professional role. He was addicted to weed, porn, gambling, gaming, overeating and shopping. After we broke up, which took only 2 weeks cause I quickly realized what garbage he was, he ASKED ME FOR MONEY. He knew that I am a good person, with a serious abuse history who has pure intentions and he abused that until I stopped him. This is a textbook COVERT NARC. I will never be in that position again.
If a dude offers you their trust or truth earlier than feels normal, don't walk, RUN the opposite direction. It's a manipulation tactic.

2021-11-27T17:58:49+00:00

My ex would go light on the sob stories, knowing that it would out him. For example he would complain on how hard it is to date as a single dad like twice. And this was after he was hinting at trying polyamory, but when I mentioned that I was excited to date other guys he presented his sob story lol. He implued that only he could have a harem, i had to be monogamous. So it can be a very deliberate, calculated attempt to pull at your heart strings.

But mostly he would craft sob stories about the mother of his children, and since she was weirdly rude to me when I first met her so I believed him🤷‍♀️

miwamus · 2021-11-28T04:24:07+00:00

I've been the target of a Mr Sensitive. He would find me when I was alone or try to create a situation where we were alone. He'd also take every opportunity to touch me but in a "safe" spot, like a hand or and an elbow. It was his attempt to try to get me used to him touching me and create a false sense of closeness. Eventually, I had it and told him to stop touching me in front of friends, which slowed him down, but it didn't stop until I stopped hanging out with the friend group all together.

He was, of course, a "life coach."

SlackLifesentence · 2021-11-28T16:53:10+00:00

I dated a yoga and meditation teacher who abused me. So soft spoken, so kind at first. He called me Shakti. We had a ritual where I put my foot on his chest like Shakti and Shiva. I left the relationship with ten staples in my scalp….

ladylabrys · 2021-11-28T22:41:57+00:00

Not me, but a friend of mine had a husband (now ex-husband) who would have a "panic attack" when she would very delicately ask him to look for a job.

He would punish her with a tantrum/meltdown anytime she did anything he didn't like.

Remember, mental illness does not make someone abusive. It's also not an excuse to be abusive.

sleepykittn · 2021-11-29T01:33:28+00:00

My first bf litterally used sadness to rape me

Jaelismyhomegirl · 2021-11-30T00:25:18+00:00

This reminds me of my first college bf. Ultra Sensitive Softboi^TM type. Any time something didn’t go his way, he’d cry about how I “wasn’t taking our relationship seriously.” What I’ve learned is that emotionally manipulative men are usually the ones who use coercive control as an abuse tactic, and immediately insinuate their way into your friend group, so you have no one to turn to when you want out. They have to know where you are and what you’re doing at all times. If I called him (because he’d whine about me not calling him enough), he’d immediately say “where are you?!” and then “I’ll be right there!” when i told him, without giving me a chance to explain that I was too busy to see him. He’d invite himself in on any outing my friends and I had planned. Sometimes I’d show up, and he’d already be there. My “friends” weren’t any help (“but i thought you’d want to see your boyfriend”): I lived off campus at the time (30 minute commute), and he actually asked them if they would “keep me around” so that he could “spend time with” me. I often wondered why he didn’t seem to have friends of his own he could spend time with. He’d do other things, too, like future-faking (telling me that my choice of where to live after graduation needed to consider him—it was freshman year, and we’d been dating three months). He’d show up to my school lab sessions while I was trying to work, or I’d be working on a project in the environmental engineering center, and walk past an empty classroom to find him there, doing homework (the EEC was only used by students and professors of my major, which he was not, so there’s no reason he should have been there). He didn’t respect boundaries, either my time and personal space, or physically (he always insisted walking with his arm wrapped around my shoulders, which required me to scrunch down, because he was shorter than me. Whenever I tried to straighten up, he’d just grip my shoulders tighter).
Eventually, I broke up with him, and was amazed at lightness of being that came when the constant dread of “running into” him was gone (listen to that feeling, btw). A month later, I realized that he had sent me a wall-o-text psychotic email about how i’d “always be his”, which i never saw, because it had mysteriously ended up in my “read” folder (i should also mention that he worked at the school tech center, so he had root access to everyone’s email accounts, and regularly bragged about “hacking his friends’ email”).

2021-11-27T20:51:40+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Title	Stories and examples of sensitive/emotional men being abusive or manipulative?
Author	starlight_sequence
Upvotes	417
Comments	89
Date	November 27, 2021 2:05 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/r32mc2/stories_and_examples_of_sensitiveemotional_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/stories-and-examples-of-sensitiveemotional-men.1086358 https://theredarchive.com/post/1086358

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