Some people aren’t content with building genuine connections—they’d much rather weave complicated little traps that keep you stuck.
The most cunning ones don’t come in swinging or looking obviously toxic, unfortunately. Instead, they slowly twist things around until you feel confused, guilty, and unsure about whether you’re even allowed to leave. If you’ve ever wondered why it was so hard to walk away from someone who didn’t treat you right, you might have been caught in a few of these tactics without even realising it. Here are some of the most subtle but twisted moves devious people use to keep you around.
1. They bombard you with affection, then pull back when you need it most.
At the beginning, it’s a whirlwind—constant texts, compliments, sweet words that make you feel seen and wanted. You get used to the high, the rush of being their favourite person. Then, just when you start trusting it, they yank it away without explanation.
Their sudden coldness leaves you scrambling, wondering what you did wrong. And that’s exactly the point! It hooks you into working harder for their approval, even though the original affection wasn’t sustainable or real to begin with.
2. They turn every boundary into a personal betrayal.
When you try to set even the smallest boundary, such as taking a night for yourself, saying no to something that feels off, they act hurt or betrayed. Suddenly, you’re cast as the bad guy just for protecting your peace. After a while, that pressure makes you second-guess whether you even have a right to your own needs. It slowly conditions you to abandon yourself just to avoid upsetting them, which keeps you tangled in their web even tighter.
3. They use “playful” jabs to chip away at you.
They’ll wrap their insults in jokes, throw out little criticisms disguised as teasing, and laugh it off if you push back. “Don’t be so sensitive” becomes their favourite get-out-of-jail-free card. These digs are never really playful; they’re strategic. In the long run, they wear down your self-esteem so subtly that you barely notice it happening. You just start feeling smaller, doubting yourself more, without even realising who planted those seeds.
4. They make you question your other relationships.
Maybe they hint that your friends don’t really have your back. Maybe they suggest your family misunderstands you. However they do it, the goal is the same: make you feel like they’re the only one who truly gets you. Little by little, you drift away from your other sources of support. With nobody left to reality-check what’s happening, it becomes a lot easier for them to stay in control without you even realising how isolated you’ve become.
5. They dangle future promises they never plan to keep.
Talk is cheap, and cunning people know exactly how to use it. They’ll promise grand holidays, dream moves, or serious commitments down the line, just enough to keep you hopeful and invested. However, when it comes time to actually take action, there’s always an excuse. You get stuck chasing the fantasy they sold you, believing that if you just wait a little longer or try a little harder, everything they promised will finally happen. It won’t, and they know it.
6. They play the sympathy card until you’re emotionally exhausted.
They paint themselves as the misunderstood victim—the one nobody else ever really gave a fair shot. They lean hard on your empathy, making you feel responsible for healing hurts you didn’t even cause. The more you get drawn into fixing, rescuing, or overextending yourself for them, the harder it becomes to untangle. They rely on your compassion becoming a trap—one where you keep giving long after there’s nothing left for you.
7. They rewrite memories to make you doubt your own mind.
They’ll swear things didn’t happen the way you remember, or that you misunderstood their intentions. Over time, you start wondering if you’re the one who’s misjudging everything, even when your gut knows better. Their constant questioning of your reality chips away at your ability to trust yourself. And once you lose confidence in your own instincts, it’s much easier for them to steer the narrative however they want.
8. They keep emotional scorecards you never agreed to.
Maybe they supported you once during a tough time, or helped you with something important. And now, years later, they treat that moment like a blank cheque you’re always repaying—emotionally, mentally, sometimes even financially. Healthy people don’t keep score like that. Of course, cunning people weaponise every kindness they’ve ever shown, turning it into a tool to guilt-trip you into staying loyal long after it’s healthy or fair.
9. They lure you back with sudden “epiphanies.”
Source: Unsplash Every time you start pulling away for good, they suddenly have a breakthrough. They realise their mistakes. They swear they’ve changed. They cry, make dramatic declarations, and say everything you’ve always wanted to hear. Obviously, the change never lasts. It’s a strategy, not a genuine shift. They’re just pressing the right emotional buttons to reel you back in for another round of the same old cycle, and every time you stay, it gets a little harder to leave next time.
10. They frame your growth as selfishness.
Source: Unsplash Working on yourself, setting boundaries, chasing dreams—these things should be celebrated. However, to a cunning person, your growth feels like a threat to their control. Instead of cheering you on, they imply you’re selfish, disloyal, or “too busy for them now.” It’s a twisted way of guilting you into staying small, especially because small, apologetic versions of you are easier for them to manage.
11. They create a constant sense of urgency.
Source: Unsplash Everything’s always a crisis. Everything needs your immediate attention. If you ever try to step back, somehow an emergency appears that demands your focus, usually at the exact moment you were about to focus on yourself. This keeps you permanently in reaction mode, too drained to think clearly about the bigger picture. And that’s exactly the goal — to keep you too busy putting out fires to ever wonder if you should just walk away altogether.
12. They control through unpredictability.
One day, they’re sweet. The next, they’re distant. One minute, they praise you. The next, they pick you apart. It’s exhausting, but it’s not random. It’s designed to keep you guessing and trying harder to “win” back their approval. Predictable kindness makes it easy to feel safe. But emotional chaos? That keeps you scrambling, focused on staying in their good graces rather than realising how much the chaos itself is the problem.
13. They convince you no one else would “get” you.
Whether it’s said outright or just heavily implied, the message is the same: You’re too complicated, too damaged, too something, and only they could ever love you anyway. That lie is incredibly powerful because it isolates you emotionally, making leaving feel terrifying instead of freeing. But the truth is, real love never needs you to feel broken or lucky just to be tolerated—real love feels like freedom, not fear.
