Hey Tabi!

When Kindness Is a Trap: The Truth About Manipulative Kindness in Abusive Relationships

• Tabitha • Season 2 • Episode 4

Share episode

What if the sweetest thing someone ever did for you… was actually part of the abuse?

In this powerful episode of Hey Tabi, licensed trauma therapist Tabitha Westbrook dives deep into the tactic of manipulative kindness, a dangerous, confusing form of coercive control that keeps victims stuck in toxic relationships.

This isn’t the “honeymoon phase.” It’s not real love. It’s a weapon dressed up as a gift.

You’ll learn:

  • What manipulative kindness looks like in real life
  • Why it feels so good—and why that’s part of the trap
  • How trauma bonding and intermittent reinforcement keep you hooked
  • Red flags to watch for (like minimization, strings attached, and false repentance)
  • How to tell the difference between real kindness and control wrapped in charm
  • Where to turn for help and how to begin healing

If you've ever been told, “See? He's trying,” right after being harmed, or felt guilty for not being grateful for someone’s sudden niceness, this episode is for you.

💡 Kindness should never come with strings.
💡 Control wrapped in charm is still control.

🎧 Listen now and take the first step toward clarity and healing.
🛑 Need help? Resources below.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Wanna say hi? Send a text!

🎧 Subscribe to Hey Tabi for more expert conversations on trauma, faith, and healing.

Order Body & Soul, Healed & Whole: An Invitational Guide to Healthy Sexuality After Trauma, Abuse, and Coercive Control

📩 Connect with Tabitha:
💻 Tabitha's Website - www.tabithawestbrook.com
📲 Tabitha's Instagram - www.instagram.com/tabithathecounselor
🎙️ Podcast Homepage - https://heytabi.buzzsprout.com

💻 The Journey & The Process Website - www.thejourneyandtheprocess.com
📲 The Journey & The Process Instagram - www.instagram.com/_tjatp

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel & watch podcast episodes there

👍 If this episode resonated with you, please like, subscribe, and share to help others who need this information!

🚨 Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy and is intended for educational purposes only. If you're in crisis or need therapy, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Need to know how to find a great therapist? Read this...

Speaker 1:

What if the sweetest thing someone ever did for you was actually part of the abuse? What if flowers, compliments, even I love yous were used like weapons, not to cherish you but to control you? In today's episode, we are pulling back the curtain on something that keeps so many people stuck in toxic relationships Manipulative kindness. It looks like love, it feels like relief, but it's actually a trap. Welcome to hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud, with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here and we are not. Take two verses and call me in the morning. I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist. But I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and well-being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope. Now let's get going. If that opening made your stomach flip or brought back a memory, you are not alone.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about why manipulative kindness is so powerful but also so dangerous. It is a really important topic to talk about. Back in the day, this used to be called the honeymoon phase. We used to have what was termed the cycle of abuse, and it was the best guess at the time of how abuse dynamics work and how things go. Unfortunately, it wasn't fully accurate and what it ended up doing when talking about the honeymoon phase was ostensibly telling victims oh, everything is fine, this is the nice part of them, or whatever, when what was really happening was still part of the abuse process.

Speaker 1:

Understanding more about the dynamics of coercive control really helps us unpack this a little bit more. When we look at something as like oh, this is where they're being nice and this is the good part of them, that can really get tricky, because then we think, oh well, if they were just more like this, then the abuse won't happen, it'll be fine, we'll be good. And that's not really what happens. And so when we term it that way, we forget that what's really happening is a full dynamic of power and control in the relationship. So we're going to unpack this from the lens of coercive control to understand what's happening for people when manipulative kindness shows up. So when we think of something like as the honeymoon phase, we're thinking, oh, this is these good moments, this is when things are calm. I want more of this. I'm going to try to get that.

Speaker 1:

What's really happening there isn't that we have stopped exercising power and control. What happened is the abuser has started doing it differently and the point of it is to bring you back into submission and subjection. The point is to lull you back in. The point is it's bait, and I know that sounds really harsh, but it's a true statement. It's like, oh well, you got really upset about this. Or oh, we had this blow up. Or, if it was physical, and law enforcement became involved in some way. Or maybe the church became involved in some way, or maybe the church became involved in some way.

Speaker 1:

It's the abuser's way of saying, hey, this is something I need to calm down, I need to get them back on my side, I need to lull them back in and pull them back in to my web, if you will. So if you think about it as an enticement, the carrot on the end of a stick it's all part of the overall dynamic of coercive control in the relationship. It's just a different way of trying to control the victim when manipulative kindness is exercised. One of the biggest problems with manipulative kindness is that it lulls you into a sense of security and it feels like there's healing happening. It gives you that sense of I need my body to calm down. This feels way better than whatever the abusive behavior was. That was more overt, and so it feels like, oh yeah, this is what I need, this is what I need right here. We just wanna keep it here. And then that keeps you compliant and complicit and also gives you the lie of like, oh, I can like do X, y, z and the relationship won't be that bad. Or oh, he or she can do whatever and they can do this, so I know they can. I'm going to hold out for it again. So, if we think about how it works, it really is the predator having this attitude of I'm going to give you something good, something that you more than likely for sure need, like kindness, love, care, compassion, and that's going to be what I use then to draw you back in and give me additional control and power over you.

Speaker 1:

One of the starkest examples I remember seeing of this in a book was in Dan Allender's Healing the Wounded Heart, and it is talking about a sexual abuse victim who really struggled because the abuse would be awful and violent and physically deeply harmful. And then the abuser would actually take this victim and dress their wounds and, you know, put bandages on them and that felt like care and kindness when they'd been so harmed. And so it was really confusing and really a weaponization then of real kindness and care that the person needed. The other thing that I think is interesting in all of this is the concept of intermittent reinforcement. Intermittent reinforcement is a behavioral learning where we reinforce a behavior at the highest level when we only get the reward sometimes. So if you have a really difficult and toxic and coercively controlling relationship and then sometimes you get kindness and compassion, you have reinforced for the victim the compliance behavior. Right, they're bowing to you the subjugation because you sometimes give kindness, so they're going to hold out for that kindness over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

One of the things I often tell victims is that's not their actual character. The care and kindness and compassion you see is that manipulative kindness. It is a tool to draw you back in, to suck you back in to the harm that they are perpetrating and to gain and maintain control over you. But because we want to believe the good, especially as Christians my goodness, as Christians and we should right. We should believe in redemption, we should believe in goodness, we should believe in repentance. But also, as Maya Angelou says, when someone shows you who they are, leave them.

Speaker 1:

And if their overall character is one of coercion and control, those nice moments are actually not real. They are a game, they are manipulation, they are that manipulative kindness and they are meant to have a means to an end, to continue control over you. And that's so hard because, again, like I said, we want to believe the good in someone. I know I feel that way, right, especially if someone can be really charming in those manipulative kindness moments and they can really give you good things and you're like I need love, I need kindness, I need this care so much and I'm getting it, and so maybe this little bit is enough. It's enough and it really isn't going to ultimately do that, but it is going to keep you stuck.

Speaker 1:

And I think there is that piece because we do want repentance and we do want goodness and we do genuinely love the coercively controlling partner. Right, like, we don't go into relationships thinking I would like this to be terrible. We go into them hoping and praying that they're going to be good, and so there is that. Well, maybe they really mean it this time. Maybe this kindness, this I'm sorry the return to some level of compassion or whatever, maybe there is really heart change here this time. And I will tell you, unfortunately that's not what we often see. We often see it being part of the overall coercion and control. And truly heart change is more than behavior modification. It's more than the person being nice to you. Some of the time it's really this person having a true character change, understanding how they have hurt you and making amends and repenting for it, even if it means leaving their relationship or the relationship can't be saved.

Speaker 1:

When I'm working with destructive men, one of the things I say is that first you need to be reconciled to God, but you may have broken the relationship so badly and done such deep harm that the relationship itself cannot be saved. And destructive people who are really truly changing understand that they grieve it. Of course they grieve what they've done, but they also are not trying to hold on to something that is something that they broke and hurt. They really give that other person the autonomy and that is true care and kindness. One of the things I've said over and over to destructive individuals I've worked with.

Speaker 1:

Is you adhering to a boundary that your spouse set? Is actually loving them? Yes, that means you don't talk to them. If they say don't talk to me, absolutely, it means that you don't see them. If they say I don't want to see you, and you don't complain about it, you may be sad, it's okay to feel sad, but what you don't do is violate it. And over and over and over again, I see these destructive individuals prioritize themselves over their partner by absolutely walking through boundaries and not holding them at all and then being like what? Why can't I talk to my spouse? Because they truly don't understand the depth and level of harm that they have caused.

Speaker 1:

And so when we see that, yeah, well, I just brought her flowers, okay, but this person said they don't want to talk to you, that they don't feel safe around you, so you're dropping off flowers or food or any of those other things, again, it's manipulative kindness. What is the purpose? And the purpose is to draw them back in, right? So here are some things that can help you identify when we have a manipulative kindness situation. The first one is it shows up after the abuser has gotten in trouble for something, so maybe the pastor has confronted them or law enforcement has become involved. A family member might have said something and all of a sudden they're super nice. Or you got really angry and you set a boundary and all of a sudden now they're really really nice. So that is one sign. Another sign is that the behavior goes back. So it goes back to the way it was, with power and control and restrictions and not hearing, boundaries and that kind of thing. So it doesn't last. So the kindness doesn't last.

Speaker 1:

Another sign that it is manipulative kindness is the harm that was caused to you is minimized. Well, it wasn't that bad. See, I brought you flowers, I made you dinner, I helped with the kids, whatever it is. And so there's that hallmark of coercive control which is the minimizing, denying and blaming. So we're seeing the minimizing there and the denying. It wasn't that bad, even though you're like man, it felt that bad. It felt that bad. Right, it also might come with strings attached. I did this, now you do that. I was kind to you, I helped with the kids. Now have sex with me, or I did this thing for you. Can't we just stop talking about this thing? Look, I'm helping with the kids. I helped you clean the kitchen. I did the thing.

Speaker 1:

We don't need to bring up the harm again. Right, that is a complete minimization of what it was like to be harmed for the person that was harmed and we should be able to talk through things. There should be a real repentance and if that's not there, then it is manipulative kindness. It's really like let's shove it under the rug or put a blanket over the elephant that's literally standing in the middle of the room so that I don't have to take responsibility and accountability that's another thing is manipulative kindness, is a total lack of accountability. It is a lack of saying I did you harm and owning it and really repenting of it. And repentance is not doing it again.

Speaker 1:

Manipulative kindness also shows up when you disagree hey, this doesn't feel good, I don't want flowers from you. And then they get butthurt and angry and start berating you again and the coercive control shows right back up in full force. That is another sign that manipulative kindness is an actual kindness. There are strings attached. That is another sign that manipulative kindness is an actual kindness. There are strings attached. That is another sign of it. When it's like again, tit for tat.

Speaker 1:

Relationships are not transactional. We treat each other well because it's right and good and because we see the other person as an image bearer of the living God and not to get something. If it is I did this for you, now you do this for me then there are strings attached. It's not a free gift, it's not loving and it's not real repentance. So how do we know when somebody is really being kind and it's not just coming with an expectation or harm that follows right after it? Well, first of all, it's consistent over time. It's the general vibe of how people treat you. They are kind as a rule. They're not manufacturing it. They're not all of a sudden love bombing you because they messed up in some way. It's just generally how you treat somebody. So if your spouse regularly brings you flowers just because they love you and they care about you, if they actually repent and aren't trying to fix it by doing things or giving you things, they are genuinely broken over harm that was caused.

Speaker 1:

And look, we are all going to hurt each other's feelings every now and again. We're going to say things, we're going to say something mean. It's not a pattern of power and control. We're not trying to take the other person's personhood, we just had a really bad day and we repent for it, we go, I'm really sorry, and we don't do it again. It's not our way of being, it was truly a one-off. That is a sign that there's real kindness. There there's an acknowledgement of oh my gosh, I really hurt you and I'm so sorry, and they really care about your feelings. They let you fully express them. There's not excuse making. None of that stuff shows up. There's also consistency. Again, this is their way of being. Power and control is not, and that is a huge difference and your body will feel it. Your body absolutely can feel it and register it when it is not manipulative kindness, and it can when it is.

Speaker 1:

This doesn't feel genuine is a good sign that you have a problem. Or, like gosh man, this does seem to be genuine. They are doing this over time. It is a long period of time that we have right. So I'm not into short-term behavioral modification. This is heart change. How is the posture of their heart toward you? And that will tell you if it's really kind.

Speaker 1:

Also, there's mutual respect. No one's putting you in a one-down position. No one is lording anything over you. It is mutually respectful If those things aren't present. Respectful. If those things aren't present, then the kindness is probably not genuine. If it is long periods of power and control and occasional care and kindness, then it's definitely not genuine If it doesn't come with change in other places.

Speaker 1:

So let's say there was a blow-up, there was a big fight, maybe the person kept you from leaving the room and you're like, oh my goodness. And they're like, oh yeah, sorry, sorry, that'll never happen again, whatever you know, and you're like, hey, here are other areas of the relationship we need to work on, like I need to see our finances, I need to have visibility, and they're like nope, nope, nope, and there's power and control still in the relationship. Then we still have a problem. That's not real change, it's not how it works and that is really important stuff. You want to look at the whole constellation of the relationship and I know how hard it is. I know how hard it is when you are so desperate for love and care. We need that, we legitimately need that.

Speaker 1:

And people who are coercively controlling they capitalize on our very real need for belonging, for care, for kindness. They capitalize on that to keep you controlled. That is so outside of the realm of who God is in our lives and how he treats us, that the only thing I can say is that is patently unbiblical to be treated in a coercively controlling way. You know I get how tricky it truly can be to understand whether or not this is manipulative kindness. Is it real heart change and good manipulators honestly like? I'm just going to be straight with you they make it real tricky because they aren't clear at all on it and they want again to pull you back into their web. The goal is control. It is power over you, because to them you are a couch that can talk. You are an object. You are not an image bearer of the living God, and I hate to say that, especially when you're like but at least those moments of kindness feel good, and of course they do. When you feel trapped and your captor is giving you kindness, it's going to feel good. And that makes it more confusing, especially if you care about them, especially if you have kids with them. It is really, really difficult. Now if you're listening to this week's episode and going oh goodness, I have a name for what's happening and I don't love it, what do I do? I want to encourage you.

Speaker 1:

Reach out for help. You can absolutely reach out for help. There are ministries like Call to Peace Ministries that will help you. You can reach out to a therapist who understands domestic abuse and coercive control, who will help you and you can get some support. You can reach out to a therapist who understands domestic abuse and coercive control, who will help you and you can get some support. You can tell a trusted friend and really do be careful. In-laws are not your trusted friend. I know that you may have a good relationship with them, but sometimes blood is thicker than water and I have seen clients say I thought I could trust my mother-in-law or my sister-in-law or whatnot and come to find out that when it came down to brass tacks, they were going to be loyal to the abuser. So just really be mindful and careful. Sometimes going outside of your immediate circle is actually the best first step. So that's why I do recommend ministries like Call to Peace or Leslie Vernick's Conquer is also really helpful. So any of those places are places that you can start to disentangle some of this. Also, great therapy, again with someone who understands domestic abuse and coercive control can help you disentangle it and wrestle through what is happening in your relationship and in your life.

Speaker 1:

Kindness should not come with strings. Your life Kindness should not come with strings. Kindness should be a gift that we give, because people are fellow image bearers of the living God, and it is right and good. And when your heart is truly following the Lord, you are marked by kindness and not by control. The life of a decent human really, truly, is more kindness than anything else, and you don't have to prove your worth or value. You are treated as an image bearer of the living God. You are treated with care, with kindness, with respect. Your opinion matters and people give you good things or do good things for you, not to get something from you, but genuinely because they care about you. It is not tit for tat.

Speaker 1:

Healthy relationships are not transactional. When we talk about transactional relationships, that's I pay a plumber to come in and do things right. That's a transactional relationship. I'm not going to go to Christmas with them, with my spouse. It is not transactional at all. That's not how healthy relationships work. If you really want to look at a good book as well that talks about healthy marriage, I definitely commend Sheila Ray Gregoire's book that she wrote with her husband called the Marriage you Want, and I'll link all these resources in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

I'm really glad that you were here with me today. If you are realizing oh my goodness, what happened this is manipulative kindness and I have totally been getting snowed by this person Reach out for help. Find a good therapist. Reach out to a ministry. Tell somebody that's safe and get help, because you do deserve so much better. And if you are sitting there going oh my goodness, gracious, I really need to tell a friend about this. This absolutely looks like their relationship. Send the podcast to them, send them a link, say hey, you got to listen to this. Make sure that you like and subscribe and follow us on all the socials and follow our YouTube channel, and we'll see you again next time. Thanks for joining me for today's episode of hey Tabby. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to tabithawestbrookcom forward slash hey Tabby. That's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Tabitha Westbrook, LMFT-S, LCMCH-QS, LPC-S, CSAT, CCTP, CCTCP

Host