Yes. Spike was never a good manipulator. It only worked on Buffy in season 6 because she was already depressed. In the balcony scene from DT for instance, Buffy was already seperated from her friends and going to the balcony alone. Spike makes it worse, and whispers in her ear, but he is hardly the catylst for any of it.

He says as much in The Yoko Factor, that he's just giving people a gentle nudge that were destined to have a big falling-out soon anyway