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If we take the woman at her word and she's genuinely just crying because she's sad, then it sounds like she's just really immature and bad at emotional self-regulation. Describing this behaviour as "emotionally manipulative" implies that it's calculated and deceitful - some people can consciously choose to turn on the waterworks on command, and abuse this skill in order to get what they want from other people. If that's what she was doing, I would have no problem describing the behaviour as emotionally manipulative, maybe even abusive. But if she really is sincerely bursting into tears because she's sad and it's not calculated and intentional, then it's something else.
I think "selfish" or "inconsiderate" might be better words, and neither one is as grave an accusation as "abusive" or "manipulative".
As to the broader question of what constitutes emotional abuse from a woman to a man, I think that most of the red flags people are warned about are gender-neutral. Harsh insults, extremely harsh criticism, controlling behaviour, attempting to isolate your partner from their family/friends, paranoid jealous behaviour, gaslighting, failure to respect boundaries, lashing out, threatening suicide if you don't get your own way - women can be just as guilty of all of the above as men.
Ok, clear. Yes, it's possible she is just a hair-trigger weeper, but I suspect that's learned behavior with a touch of lack of self -awareness. Like the polar bear who hits a button and a fish cake falls out the chute might grow to just like red buttons.
I had a student (female) once whose boyfriend, if he realized he had offended her, would become violent... against himself. Like punch and slap himself until she became vocal enough to get him to stop the self-harming--often this took the form of her acquiescence to some need of his. Very bizarre dynamic.
Jesus, that's the kind of thing non-verbal autistic children do when they're upset.
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