- People who use emotional guilt to get their way frequently say these phrases
- 1. “I’ll feel awkward if I have to go alone”
- 2. “I would do it for you”
- 3. “Who knows where we’ll be in the future?”
- 4. “I’m embarrassed that I can’t just do it myself”
- 5. “I’ll drive”
- 6. “You were free when they asked to hang out”
- 7. “Everyone’s going to be there”
- 8. “I haven’t seen you in forever”
- 9. “I’ve been having a really hard time.”
We all know someone who pouts and acts incredibly hurt when they don’t get what they want. These people have learned that the most effective way for them to get their way is to use emotional guilt to make others feel bad enough to give in.
Sometimes my friends will ask me to hang out when I’m feeling exhausted. If I have no energy to be social, I have to tell them I can’t go. Most of the time, they’ll understand, but some don’t care. These emotional manipulators often use tried-and-true phrases to make people feel too guilty to say no to them.
People who use emotional guilt to get their way frequently say these phrases
1. “I’ll feel awkward if I have to go alone”
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One tactic manipulators use when you tell them you can’t hang out is making you feel bad for them. If there’s an event I don’t want to attend, my friends who fall back on guilt tell me they’ll feel awkward if they have to go alone. This is an attempt to use people’s empathy against them.
People who use emotional guilt are often pretty insecure. They aren’t always lying about feeling awkward if they have to go alone, but that shouldn’t be anyone else’s responsibility. Adults don’t need a babysitter, and they shouldn’t have to be accompanied everywhere just because they’re too afraid of being judged for being by themselves.
2. “I would do it for you”
Most of the time, when I notice someone using emotional guilt against me, I’ll cut them off. But some of those friends are really good people at heart. They’ll listen to me when I need to rant or always invite me to a group plan. They’re just too insecure to be vulnerable. They can’t be open and honest about how they’re feeling, so they guilt-trip their friends instead. If I don’t want to go somewhere, they’ll tell me they would do it for me.
People who use this phrase make it hard to argue with them because if they’ve done a lot for you in the past, their reason is somewhat valid. They probably would do it for you, but that doesn’t mean you have to do the same. Friendship isn’t transactional. Just because they’re willing to hang out all the time doesn’t mean their friends have to be okay with that too.
3. “Who knows where we’ll be in the future?”
Life is short, and you never know what’s going to happen. People who guilt-trip others use that idea to convince them to do something they don’t want to do. They usually mean that there’s a possibility that you guys won’t be in the same area in the coming years or could lose touch. They want to convince you to take advantage of the time you have and hang out with them.
This tactic works a lot of the time because if they’re close to you, there’s a reason for that. They probably care about you and don’t want to miss out on time with you. Still, the idea that you have to take advantage of every moment because life is short leads you to do more than you can handle and burn yourself out.
4. “I’m embarrassed that I can’t just do it myself”
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People who use emotional guilt to make you do what they want will make themselves seem less capable than they actually are. They’ll use weaponized incompetence so they make you handle things they don’t want to do themselves.
Say someone has a broken light fixture in their house and they don’t want to fix it themselves. Learning a new skill and doing the manual work to fix it is probably too much for them. They’ll ask someone else for help and then say they’re embarrassed that they can’t just do it themselves. That way, the person they are asking will feel sympathetic toward them because they’re saying they feel bad about themselves for not knowing how to do it.
5. “I’ll drive”
Emotional guilt doesn’t always show up by someone making you feel bad for them. People who use those tactics to get their way don’t just use their own insecurities to manipulate people. They’ll also use other people’s feelings to make them feel like they have to hang out or do what the other person wants.
They’re the kind of people who say they’ll drive after someone tells them no as a way of invalidating any excuse the other person could make, causing the other person to feel bad about themselves for not being social and saying yes to a fun experience, even if they really just need a break.
6. “You were free when they asked to hang out”
People who use guilt trips love to make comparisons because they are so insecure. They’ll get jealous if you spend time with others but then are busy when they try to make plans with you, so they’ll remind you that you were free when they asked you to hang out.
This isn’t someone trying to express feelings in a healthy way. If someone really wanted to be heard, they would talk about how they’re feeling instead of comparing your commitment to them to your commitment to others.
7. “Everyone’s going to be there”
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The fear of missing out isn’t just a hashtag. It’s a real feeling people experience when everyone is hanging out without them. People want to be part of a group, and when there’s something that happens that makes them feel disconnected from that group, it can be emotionally scary. Our brains get triggered, and we fear missing out on memories the group will bond over without them.
People who use guilt to get their way use that feeling against others. They’ll say everyone will be there, just to make you feel like you have to as well.
8. “I haven’t seen you in forever”
Most people’s instinct is to try to support others, but some use that support as leverage. When someone’s around a person like that for a long time, they’ll usually need a bit of a break from them. When they run into each other again, the person immediately jumps back into emotionally guilt-tripping them by saying they haven’t seen them in forever.
They say this phrase because they’re afraid of losing someone else, but they actually lose a lot of friends because of this very behavior. They can tell their friend is pulling away, and the way they try to stop it only makes things worse.
9. “I’ve been having a really hard time.”
When my friends are struggling, I want to do everything I can to support them. People who frequently use emotional guilt seek out people who have that impulse. They know they can always get them to do something by acting like they need help. They tell people they need them to hang out because they’ve been having a really hard time. They may ask if they can rant to you or get your advice.
The really frustrating part is if they go hang out with them and the emotionally manipulative person doesn’t even mention the issue they’re having. Sometimes they just use this to get someone to spend time with them. Other times, they’ll also use this phrase to unload all of their emotional burden onto their friend. They use their sadness or hurt feelings to force their friends into becoming their therapist.
Lily Bell is a college student studying English and Publications who covers relationships, mental health, and personal narratives surrounding the human experience.
