How Control Disguises Itself in Arguments
Not all arguments are meant to be resolved—some are designed to keep you off balance.
Growing up, I have been witness to many destructive, chaotic, unproductive arguments. But before I learnt how to argue—or even why—I learnt how to detect and scan for pattern that make them this way. It has helped a little in my current volatile house as I have been able to assert my own boundaries by naming them, but I have also learnt I can’t help anyone else, even my beloveds. It is precisely for that reason I am writing so someone out there reads this and learns to help themselves. These are the top five symptoms of control motivated arguments:
Stance-Shifting: An controlling person never holds position. This is an obvious tell-tale. In most cases, you would try to understand their logic in order to address the grievance. But you can never out-logic them because they don’t have one commonsensical logic. They have multiple, juggling whichever suits them in the moment. You might want to give this person a chance, see if they can write their logic down. This one is my dad’s favorite.
How this works:
Him: “You spend too much money on groceries.”
Her: “I can start buying generic brands.”
Him: “I’m not talking about brands—you buy too much food, period.”
Her: “Okay, I’ll make smaller trips, buy less.”
Him: “Now you’re going to starve the family?”
Her: “No, I just meant—”
Him: “You’re too sensitive. I’m just trying to help us save money.”
Her: “Right, so I’ll cut back—”
Him: “Why are you always looking for ways to spend less time with this family?”
Word-Capture: If the person on the other end has the habit of latching onto certain words or phrases or sentences, and detach it from context and then, redeploy it later at you—that’s another sign. It is weaponization of your words to control framing and turn the narrative to buttress them. This is one of the classic manipulation tactics.
How it works:
During argument: “I feel like you don’t respect my boundaries.”
Two weeks later, different context: “You SAID I don’t respect boundaries. So now you’re saying I’m a bad person? You always attack my character.”
What happened: They extracted “don’t respect boundaries” from a specific situation about a specific behavior, removed all context universalised it and redeployed it as a permanent accusation you made about their entire character.
Fault Fixation: Toxic people almost always scan for your errors. If you ever feel like you ended up in a score keeping battlefield where the most erroneous person loses, take it as data. That’s what toxic people are well versed at. Your complaints are invalid by definition. Their behaviour is never the topic but that illusionary win in arguments.
How this works:
You: “When you yelled at me in front of guests, I felt humiliated.”
Them: “You didn’t take out the trash like you said you would. I had to do it.”
You: “Okay, I’m sorry about that, but can we talk about the yelling?”
Them: “And you left dishes in the sink. And you were 10 minutes late coming home.”
Dismissal: Your emotions, for them, is intrinsically irrational and irrelevant. They cannot accept any possibility for examination of their own actions. Lack of accountability is the biggest and most obvious red flag on the list.
How this works:
You: “When you criticized my cooking in front of everyone, it really hurt.”
Them: “You’re being too sensitive. It was just feedback. Why are you making this into a big deal?”
or
Them: “You always get emotional and can’t have a rational conversation.”
Gaslight: This is perhaps the most known and yet the most employed tactic of winning arguments. Such people attack your self-trust and your memory, calling you crazy (both men and women in my experience) or hysterical or accusing you of giving it more significance than it deserves or such statements of similar sentiments, take it as an alarm. And this doesn’t have to show up in an overt way or necessarily during heated fights, they often show up in repeated subtle suggestions. If anyone repeatedly—even as a joke—tries to tell your perception is flawed, exaggerated or defective, clock that.
*Critical Insight: A controlling person is not interested in resolution. They are interested in positional dominance. In such frameworks, debate is not a means to truth and resolution or even reflection; it is a means to maintain hierarchy.
Because of that logic fails. Consistency fails. Good faith fails.
What gives them away is not what they say, but how they move.
They remember your words better than your meaning.
They respond to vulnerability with analysis, not accountability.
They treat contradiction as a tool, not a problem.
They experience compromise as loss.
*If someone treats conversation as a zero-sum game, clarity will only make you more vulnerable. Pattern recognition is exit. There is no need for any explanations.
The pattern recognition test:
Try this with someone you suspect:
You: “Hey, I noticed yesterday you said X, but today you’re saying Y. Can you help me understand?”
Healthy response: “Oh, you’re right - let me clarify what I meant” or “I changed my mind because...”
Toxic response: Anger, defensiveness, more stance-shifting (”I never said X”), word-capture (”you’re calling me a liar”), fault fixation (”well YOU said...”), dismissal (”you’re overanalyzing”), or gaslight (”you’re remembering wrong”).
If naming the pattern makes it worse and the responses include shutting down, anger, retreat or more circular arguments characterized by the above signs—that’s your answer.