Why Do Women Manipulate?

Manipulation is an indirect way to get somebody to do what you want via making the person feel a certain emotion (more often, a negative one).

If you are thinking right now that you never manipulate your partner or anybody else, let me disappoint you a little bit in yourself. All people manipulate, including all women. We manipulate especially often. But HOW and WHY did we start doing this? So let's go way way back and think about our prehistoric ancestors. What I'm going to tell you now comes from anthropology and it might trigger some of modern feminists.

Imagine a pre-historic woman, who lives in a cave and does not have any modern contraceptives. She also has a man that is attracted to her. So what happens is - she is constantly pregnant.

She spends her life with a huge belly and probably other 2-3 babies constantly clinging on to her. What she can't do is she can't run for herself. She can't go hunting like her man, her partner. She can be with those babies and gather some plants around the cave, but she can't go far from those babies.

As a result, she depends on the man, because he is stronger, he can bring prey and because if he doesn't like something he can just, you know, hit her or get rid of her.

So what could this woman do to make sure her needs are not neglected? She can't demand, can't fight, can't run away and build a life on her own. How could she get something out of a person who is stronger?

The answer is simple: she started manipulating.

For centuries that followed women remained dependent, remaining basically legal property of first her father and then her husband. For centuries men were responsible for our fate and far not always they would be acting out of OUR interests.

So we needed to strengthen our manipulative skills and that's what we did. For generations this skill was passed from mother to daughter, it strengthened and became more refined. Interestingly, men also started responding to manipulations better and better. They are trained by their mothers since childhood after all.

Maybe if we know how to manipulate and men know how to get manipulated, there is no problem? It worked for centuries, for millennia. Maybe we shall just stick with it?

No, because there is a BIG problem with manipulations.

Since you manipulate with the emotions of another person, you can manipulate with a positive emotion, like the feeling of joy. But you can manipulate with negative emotions too, and those ones are way easier to inflict upon another person. For example, it is way easier to make the other person experience guilt rather than joy.

Making your partner experience negative emotions again and again makes him resentful, which has a long-lasting negative impact on your relationship.

But what about the "positive" manipulations? When we do make the person feel something positive instead of negative? For example, daughter comes to father and says: "Can you take me for ice cream? Because you are the best father in the whole wide world!". The man gets a huge smile from ear to ear and, of course, he can't say "no". She is happy, he is happy, everybody's happy.

Well, playing on his ego and self-esteem is fun and can spice your relationship from time to time. But what if this is the only foundation your relationship is built upon? You don't talk to each other, you don't open up to each other, you don't share feelings, you don't share your dreams, goals. You just play the game.

It's not a real relationship. This is just a game you play between each other. So instead of learning how to "make him give you gifts", learn how to build a genuine connection in a relationship instead.

The genuine connection is a direct way to interact with a person.

When you want something, when you don't like something, you announce it directly and very clearly. To help you get started in this new mode of communication, I will give you one useful technique:

When you ... (do certain action, behave in a certain way, etc. We do not attack his personality, only his actions in a very particular situation), I feel ... (How does it make you feel? Speak about yourself, not him. Show him why it really matters for you). Can you please ...? (What do you want him to do instead?).

Using this communication tool will help you refrain from attacking him in a conflict. Instead, you will learn to open up about YOUR OWN feelings, which in return will help him open up too.

Stay loved and be happy!

xoxo