Have you ever been hurt by someone you cared about?
Of course you have. We all have.
Maybe it was a friend who betrayed your trust, a family member who couldn’t resist taking cheap shots, or a coworker who always seems to find new ways to drain your patience. Sometimes, it’s not even about deep betrayal. It’s just the steady grind of irritation from someone who seems allergic to self-awareness.
And then there’s the flip side: the people you don’t even care about who still manage to get under your skin. You see something they post online, the way they talk, the choices they make, and you think, What in the world are they doing? What are they thinking?
The truth is, every one of us has these people in our lives.
They live in our families.
They sit in the next cubicle.
They share our last name or our table at Thanksgiving.
We’ve all got that person.
The one who lies when there’s no reason to.
The one who can’t have a conversation without taking a shot at someone else.
The one who is endlessly negative, defensive, or manipulative.
You can fill in the blank with your own version.
And the more they act this way, the more we start to feel trapped in a loop with them. Frustration, confusion, resentment, and exhaustion can all be rolled into one emotional knot we can’t seem to untangle.
But what if we could look at it differently?
What if, instead of just reacting to their behavior, we tried to understand it? We may decide we can’t allow it into our lives but at least we will know we purposely filtered it.
That’s where these five questions come in. They don’t fix toxic people. They don’t excuse bad behavior. But they do something more powerful: they give you perspective. And perspective is often the difference between staying angry and staying sane.
1. Why?
(As in, why do they do what they’re doing?)
This is the first and hardest question. It’s easy to look at someone’s behavior and label it: selfish, mean, manipulative, arrogant. And maybe those labels fit. But they don’t explain everything.
People rarely act without a reason. That reason might not make sense to you or I, but it makes sense to them. Maybe they lie because they’re terrified of rejection. Maybe they control because they’re scared of losing connection. Maybe they lash out because that’s the only way they’ve ever known to feel powerful.
Asking why doesn’t excuse them. It helps you stop taking their behavior personally. When you understand why, you can start to detach emotionally. You can stop dancing to their music. This is where you can find the space to begin evaluating rationally how you will or will not interact with the person in the future.
When someone keeps hurting you, you don’t have to justify it, but understanding the reason behind it helps you see the situation for what it is, not just how it feels.
2. What Is Gained?
(What do they gain by doing what they’re doing or what do they think they’ll gain?)
This question digs a little deeper.
Every behavior pays off somehow. Even the unhealthy ones.
Someone who constantly plays the victim might gain sympathy or attention.
Someone who dominates every conversation might gain a sense of control or importance.
Someone who gossips might gain a fleeting feeling of power or belonging.
Understanding the payoff helps you recognize the cycle. Because when you see what they’re getting from their behavior, you can also see that it’s not about you. It’s about them chasing a feeling they crave.
The person who lies might gain temporary protection from accountability.
The person who criticizes you might gain a fragile sense of superiority.
And the person who always needs to be right? They gain relief from their own insecurity, even if only for a second.
Once you can see what they gain, you can stop getting hooked into trying to “fix” or “convince” them. Their payoff is theirs to manage, not yours to repair.
3. What Is the Goal?
(What are they hoping to achieve?)
Sometimes the gain and the goal overlap but not always.
A person’s goal might be different than the immediate payoff. The gain might be comfort. The goal might be control. Or safety. Or attention. Or belonging.
Ask yourself: What’s their endgame here?
What do they want from this situation, this conversation, this dynamic?
For example, a manipulative friend might not actually want to hurt you. Their goal might simply be to avoid feeling powerless, so they twist words and shift blame to protect that goal. A defensive spouse might not be trying to shut you down; they might be trying to avoid shame. A gossiping coworker might not want to ruin reputations, they might just want to feel important.
You don’t have to agree with the goal or even respect it. But naming it changes the way you engage with it. It keeps you from reacting blindly. It puts you back in control of your choices.
4. What Are They Really After?
This one goes beneath the surface of behavior and into the heart of desire. What people are really after is almost always emotional.
They want validation.
They want connection.
They want control.
They want to be seen as competent, lovable, or strong.
Even people who seem cold or cruel are chasing something human underneath all that noise.
When you ask, What are they really after?, you start to see the scared child beneath the defensive adult. The lonely person beneath the angry one. The insecure one behind the arrogant one.
Again, this doesn’t mean you have to tolerate their behavior. But it does mean you can understand it without absorbing it. You can draw a boundary without carrying bitterness. You can stay compassionate without staying entangled.
5. What Can I Do About It?
This is where the work lands back on your side of the fence.
You can’t change them. You probably already know that.
But you can choose your response.
You can decide what you’ll allow.
You can decide how much emotional real estate they’ll occupy.
Maybe what you can do is limit contact.
Maybe it’s change the topic when they go down the same old road.
Maybe it’s stop explaining yourself to someone committed to misunderstanding you.
Or maybe what you can do is simply let go of needing them to be different.
Understanding why someone acts the way they do isn’t about fixing them, it’s about freeing yourself from the emotional drain of confusion and resentment.
You might still grieve the relationship. You might still wish they were different. But you won’t keep losing yourself in their chaos.
When you start asking these five questions—Why? What is gained? What is the goal? What are they really after? What can I do about it?, you begin to see people differently. Not as villains or victims, but as complex human beings driven by need, fear, and history.
That doesn’t mean you excuse their behavior. It means you stop getting stuck in it.
When you can name what’s happening, you stop spinning. You stop trying to change what won’t change. You start focusing your energy on what you can control: your boundaries, your peace, your growth.
You don’t owe anyone your constant frustration.
You don’t have to keep playing the same emotional game just because someone else won’t change the rules.
You get to decide what stories you keep participating in.
And maybe, the next time that friend lies or that family member lashes out, you’ll take a breath and think, I see what’s happening here. Not in a superior way, but in a grounded one.
Because once you can see clearly, you can choose wisely.
And that’s how emotional maturity begins—not by fixing others, but by understanding them enough to free yourself and allowing them to be who they are.
May you see people as they are, not as you wish they would be.
May you hold compassion without losing clarity.
May you walk away when needed and stay grounded when staying is right.
And may you remember that understanding others does not mean excusing them.
It simply means you are choosing peace over chaos and growth over reaction.
If this resonated with you or helped in any way, consider sharing it with your friends. Chances are, they have someone like this in their life too. (Hopefully, it’s not you.)
Share here.
If this hit home, subscribe to stay in the loop. We’ll keep exploring the messy, tricky, and sometimes exhausting side of being human and how to do it with grace and love.
Subscribe here
