Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the terms for toxic and manipulative behavior — each one links to a full guide if you want to go deeper.
Boundary
A limit you set for yourself and are willing to enforce — about what you will do, not what someone else must do.
Read the guide →Breadcrumbing
Dropping just enough attention — an occasional text, like, or compliment — to keep someone hooked without ever committing.
Read the guide →BIFF
A reply style for hostile messages: Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm. Common in high-conflict co-parenting.
Read the guide →Catfishing
Using a fake identity online to start a relationship — often paired with a refusal to video chat or meet in person.
Read the guide →Contempt
Sarcasm, mockery, name-calling, or eye-rolling that treats a partner as beneath you. The single strongest predictor that a relationship is in trouble.
Read the guide →DARVO
Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender — a tactic where someone confronted about harm flips the script to become the apparent victim.
Read the guide →Devaluation
The stage after idealization where affection turns to criticism, coldness, or contempt, leaving you trying to earn back the early warmth.
Read the guide →Enmeshment
A family dynamic with no healthy separation, where independence is treated as betrayal and guilt keeps everyone bound together.
Read the guide →Flooding
Becoming so physiologically overwhelmed during conflict that you can't think clearly — a real reason to pause, distinct from punishing silence.
Read the guide →Four Horsemen
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling — four communication patterns that reliably predict relationship breakdown.
Read the guide →Frenemy
A friend who behaves like a rival — supportive to your face, competitive or cutting underneath.
Read the guide →Future faking
Promising a shared future — commitment, change, plans — with no real intention of following through, used to keep you invested now.
Read the guide →Gaslighting
Manipulation that makes you doubt your own memory, perception, or sanity, until you stop trusting your version of events.
Read the guide →Golden child / scapegoat
A family split where one child can do no wrong and another is blamed for everything — two roles that keep a toxic system running.
Read the guide →Grey rock
Becoming deliberately boring and unreactive so a manipulative person loses interest, used when contact can't be avoided.
Read the guide →Guilt-tripping
Making you feel responsible for someone else's feelings or choices so you'll do what they want.
Read the guide →Hoovering
Sucking someone back in after distance or a breakup — with sudden apologies, charm, or promises — named after the vacuum.
Read the guide →Idealize–devalue–discard
A three-stage cycle: intense early adoration, then growing criticism, then withdrawal or rejection — often repeating.
Read the guide →Intermittent reinforcement
Unpredictable rewards — warmth one day, coldness the next — which, like a slot machine, create a powerful pull to keep trying.
Read the guide →JADE
Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain — the over-explaining trap that gives a manipulator more to push against. The antidote is a short, calm answer.
Read the guide →Love bombing
Overwhelming early affection, attention, and grand gestures used — knowingly or not — to gain influence fast.
Read the guide →Manipulation
Influencing someone through indirect, deceptive, or unfair tactics instead of honest, direct communication.
Read the guide →Negging
A backhanded compliment or subtle put-down designed to lower your confidence so you seek the other person's approval.
Read the guide →No contact / low contact
Ending communication entirely (no contact) or cutting it to the bare essentials (low contact) to protect yourself.
Read the guide →Repair attempt
Any gesture — an apology, a joke, reaching back out — that de-escalates conflict and reconnects. Healthy couples make and accept them.
Read the guide →Romance scam
A fake online romance built to extract money, typically escalating from love bombing to an urgent financial ask.
Read the guide →Silent treatment
Withdrawal and refusal to communicate used as punishment, to make you anxious and quick to apologize.
Read the guide →Soft start-up
Raising a hard topic gently — naming the situation, your feeling, and your need — instead of opening with blame.
Read the guide →Stonewalling
Shutting down and refusing to engage during conflict — going silent or walking out.
Read the guide →Triangulation
Pulling a third person into a conflict to pressure, compare, or isolate you.
Read the guide →Yellow rock
A warmer version of grey rock — polite and civil rather than blank — used when a court or children are watching the exchanges.
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