Recently I picked up an article on manipulation.
After some research I realised that this behaviour is more widespread than I had first thought.
We are manipulated on a daily basis by all sorts of people.
Often this manipulation is quite subtle and it may take us ages to recognise it as such.
Companies do little else but manipulate people into believing that the products on offer are absolutely a must-have.
They use tactics that address our most basic needs.
We encounter this on television, on radio, on the computer an in the newspapers and magazines.
Manipulation in a marriage can lead to depression and claustrophobia.
This is when the husband or wife demands actions of the partner that he or she is not entirely comfortable with.
So often, wives in particular, start off married life, giving in to the demands of the husband to make the marriage work and before they realise this becomes a pattern until one day they wake up to the behaviour of the partner, by then patterns have been so established that they are hard to break.
Once one partner has realised that he/she has been manipulated for the longest time, the marriage can spiral downhill.
This is where marriage guidance can help a lot to establish behaviour that is beneficial to both parties and it also makes the perpetrator realise what he has been doing and the victim what he/she has unwittingly allowed to happen.
Manipulation in a friendship is also quite widespread.
The good thing here is that once the victim realises this, he/she can back off and let the friendship cool.
I have had a few of these friendships and when I realised, I just spaced out the meetings and observed what happened when we did meet.
The problem is that once you realise what has happened, the trust is often gone and where there is no longer trust, there can hardly be friendship or indeed love.
In families between siblings this behaviour is often in the form of emotional manipulation or blackmail and can also be ever present.
It can amount to bullying too.
It goes on the lines of: if you don't behave, or do this or that, I will tell on you.
An ex-friend of mine started manipulating at an early age and did this until I realised just what he was up to, and I subsequently ended the friendship because it illustrated to me that this behaviour was never going to change.
As he was proud of telling me, he used to get annoyed when his mother was talking to a neighbour after she had collected him from school and whose house was just next to theirs.
He of course wanted his mother's attention.
He went into his home picked up the telephone and dialled the neighbour's number.
This woman then rushed inside her house to the phone, which the boy watched from his window inside the house, this then ended the conversation the two women were having but of course the boy hung up as soon as the neighbour picked up the receiver.
Of course there were other situations when he used his manipulation skills.
This behaviour will perhaps always stay with him.
The evidence is that he is unable to have a relationship for any length of time and I suspect strongly that it is because once the partner realises what is happening, she takes flight.
During our friendship, there used to be unbelievable rows between mother and son and I was led to believe that the mother was always at fault and wanted her own way but of course when my friend tried his manipulation with me once too often, I realised just what had been going on between them now that he was adult.
The little boy that had not grown up was still up to his old tricks but mum had seen through her son's manipulative ways and got angry.
She often said to me: There is another side to my son.
As I had not seen that other side before I was at the receiving end of his manipulative ways, I thought it was a strange thing to say by a mother of her own son.
Later, I realised just what she meant.
So, if you suspect manipulative behaviour, say 'No' more often, don't be a slave and if necessary, walk away.
No one should have to put up with such behaviour.
It undermines self-confidence and naturally, someone who cares about you would never need to undermine you.