DARVO: The Manipulation Tactic Your Partner Uses When You Confront Them

You worked up the courage to bring up something that hurt you. You rehearsed it. You kept your voice calm.

Within minutes — or sometimes seconds — you're on the defensive. You're apologizing. You're the one who hurt them.

If this is a pattern in your relationship, there's a name for what's happening.

What DARVO Means

DARVO is an acronym coined by psychologist Jennifer Freyd in 1997. It stands for:

D — Deny. A — Attack. R — Reverse. V — Victim. O — Offender.

When you confront someone about their behavior, they deny that the behavior occurred, attack your credibility or character, and then position themselves as the victim — with you as the offender.

The result: you started the conversation trying to address something that hurt you. You ended it feeling guilty, or like you owe them an apology.

Dr. Freyd originally documented DARVO in the context of institutional responses to abuse disclosures. But the pattern appears at every scale, including in one-on-one relationships.

DARVO in Text Messages — Real Examples

Example 1: The Classic Reversal

*You: "I was really hurt when you canceled last minute again."*
*Them: "I can't believe you're attacking me right now. I've been dealing with so much stress and this is how you treat me? I'm the one who should be upset here."*

D: Didn't address whether they canceled — implicit denial of wrongdoing.

A: "Attacking me" — reframes your expression of hurt as an attack.

R/V/O: They're stressed and hurt; you're causing harm.

Example 2: The Memory Attack

*You: "You made that comment in front of everyone and it embarrassed me."*
*Them: "I never said that. And even if I said something, you're completely twisting it. You're always trying to make me look bad. Why do you do this to me?"*

D: "I never said that"

A: "You're twisting it," "trying to make me look bad"

R/V/O: "Why do you do this to me" — they're the one being harmed

Example 3: The Escalation

*You: "I felt dismissed when you walked away while I was still talking."*
*Them: "I walked away because you were being completely irrational. I'm tired of being treated this way. You have no idea how exhausting it is to be with someone who does this constantly."*

A: "Irrational," "constantly" — attacks your character broadly.

R/V/O: "Exhausting to be with someone who does this" — they're the victim of your behavior.

Example 4: The Immediate Flip

*You: "Can we talk about what happened last night? I felt really hurt."*
*Them: "Oh, we're going to have THIS conversation again. Fine. Let's talk about how you always find something to be upset about. How I can never do anything right."*

This variant flips the script before you've even said what you wanted to say.

Example 5: The Guilt Trip

*You: "I've been feeling really alone lately."*
*Them: "That's really hurtful to hear. After everything I do for you. I work so hard and this is what I get. I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough."*

Your emotional disclosure becomes a wound they claim you inflicted on them.

Why DARVO Is So Effective

The social cost of appearing aggressive. When someone convincingly positions themselves as the victim and you as the aggressor, you instinctively pull back to avoid looking cruel.

Your own empathy. If you have normal empathy, seeing someone in distress — even distress they manufactured — activates a caregiving response. You start managing their feelings instead of your own.

Repetition conditioning. After enough DARVO cycles, you start to self-censor. You stop bringing things up because you've learned that raising issues results in you being the one who gets hurt.

DARVO vs. Genuine Hurt

Not every defensive response is DARVO. Sometimes people genuinely feel hurt when confronted.

Signs you're dealing with DARVO, not genuine hurt:

• —The reversal happens immediately, before your full concern is heard
• —Their "hurt" requires your apology, not space
• —The pattern repeats — every confrontation ends with you apologizing
• —They attack your character, not just disagree with your account

What to Do When Someone DARVO's You

In the moment, don't engage with the reversal. Acknowledge briefly and return to the original issue:

"I hear that you're upset. I still want to talk about [original concern]."

This is harder than it sounds. The pull to manage their distress is strong. But engaging with the reversal on its own terms means the original issue never gets addressed — which is exactly the function DARVO serves.

A single DARVO incident might be a bad moment. A consistent pattern — where raising any concern reliably results in you apologizing — is different. That's a structural feature of the relationship, not a one-time reaction.