Smooth-talking
All of the above techniques represent the direct-attack approach to getting one’s own way. There are however, more subtle forms of manipulation that can be extremely effective. One of them is a smooth tongue. Probably the most common form is open flattery. A man invites some friends home for dinner and only tells his wife about it when they arrive at the front door. There in front of all his friends she hears from him — for the first time — what a marvelous cook she is and how amazingly quickly she can prepare a meal. Or a wife may come to her husband and tell him how wonderful he is, how generous he has always been, how she appreciates the fact that she always feels at liberty to ask him for extra money — and then ask him for a new dress. This is undisguised manipulation.
We all enjoy compliments, but when they are given with an ulterior motive, they leave a bitter taste in the mouth. That is why a man who very seldom compliments his wife and then all of a sudden starts praising her, is likely to get only one response: “What do you want from me?” One cannot blame her for being suspicious.
Another approach to getting our own way is to placate our partners when they express reservations about our plans. “Don’t worry about it, Sweetheart. You’ll see that it will all turn out well. Trust me.” This is just another way to overcome any opposition. It is not good partnership.
Claiming helplessness
It is much easier to give an explanation for our behaviour than to change it. Somehow we believe that if we can come up with a good enough excuse, we can justify almost any behaviour. Traditional psychiatry has done us a great disservice by suggesting that there are behavioural forces over which we have no control. A man may for example suggest to his wife that she should express her affection for him more openly. If she replies, “What can you expect when I had a mother who never expressed her affection openly?” she is claiming helpnessness in order to get her own way.
There are probably as many excuses as there are people. Some blame their backgrounds, while others use illness to get their own way. “How can you expect me to do this, when you know I’m so ill?” Some people even use God to get their own way. Men have neglected their families — even financially, with the excuse that God had told them to do this or that. Women have been “conned” into marriage because their prospective husbands have claimed that God had shown them to be their life partners. That’s a get-my-own-way technique if ever there was one!
People who use this manipulative approach are basically claiming to be helpless — that they are subject to circumstances and forces over which they have no control. Since it becomes almost impossible to counter such reasoning effectively, people who resort to this technique usually end up winning — or at least getting their own way, but again with serious negative consequences for the relationship.
Suffering
A third manipulative technique is to let our partners know how much suffering they are causing us. One of the most common ways is to let our partners know that they have hurt our feelings. Since they then become responsible for our hurt feelings, the obligation is on them to change their behaviour — and we’ve won” again.
In a marriage where love-making was not very frequent, the wife used to blame the husband by saying, “You make me feel so awful when you ask me to make love and I’m not up to it. I just feel I’m a complete failure as a woman.” What she really wanted of course was for him to stop asking, and when he did “because I didn’t want to make my wife feel a failure”, she had succeeded in getting her own way.
A husband who occasionally has a drink with his colleagues after work can be manipulated to come home on time every evening, because his wife worries so much when he stays out late. It actually brings on severe headaches, and what self-respecting man would wilfully cause his wife to suffer from headaches?
Tears can also be used effectively to get one’s own way — as many women know so well. Very few men can cope with a tearful wife, especially if she also accuses him of “not loving her anymore”. Rather than say to her, “You are obviously very upset right now. Let’s continue the discussion when you’ve had a chance to calm down,” the husband allows himself to feel guilty for causing his wife “so much anguish”. Subsequently he gives in in order to pacify her — and she has won. In fact any woman who starts off a proposition by saying, “If you really loved me, you would …” is simply manipulating her husband to get her own way.
Another tactic often used is to walk away from an argument with a “do whatever you like, I couldn’t care less” remark. People who say this do not really mean it. They really do care what happens. It is just another get-my-own-way technique. What woman will freely go ahead and “do whatever she likes” after her husband has told her to do just that?
Perhaps the most extreme form of suffering used to manipulate someone’s behaviour is to threaten suicide. A young woman told me the story of how her father had committed suicide and that as a young teenager she somehow felt that she was to blame. When some years later her boyfriend threatened to kill himself if she didn’t go to bed with him, she couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for another death. So she finally gave in — and ended up with an illegitimate child.
Some marriages have been founded on the threat of suicide. A middle-aged man told us of his unhappy marriage of over twenty years. When he had wanted to break off the engagement, his fiancee had threatened to commit suicide — so he had married her. Hardly a prescription for a happy relationship. He felt trapped and the subsequent bitterness virtually destroyed both him and his wife.
