Critical response was primarily positive; some reviewers said it was a highlight from The Declaration while others felt it was inferior to music released by Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige.

As part of the song's promotion, Ashanti launched a website that allowed users to create and send a personalized news report and death threat to a contact.

Her previous album Concrete Rose (2004) had been overshadowed by negative news regarding the label, including a feud with G-Unit and an FBI investigation.

[10] The single was included on a July 2008 Cartier charity playlist created to support the Boys & Girls Clubs of America organization.

[12] AllMusic's Andy Kellman compared her vocals to her 2003 single "Rain on Me" because of their similar "melodramatic flourishes" but said the lyrics of "The Way That I Love You" were "much more vengeful in nature than depressive.

[2][16][17] The New York Daily News' Jim Farber felt Ashanti's collaboration with Hutton was her best work, and described "The Way That I Love You" as a "strut of a song.

[19][20] Despite praising Ashanti's performance as emotional, Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly found the single to be inferior to those by Beyoncé and Mary J.

[27] Ashanti used the true crime TV shows Snapped and Forensic Files as the primary inspiration for the video.

[5] She felt that the storyline of a woman driven to murder fit the single's dramatic, painful, and emotional lyrics.

[32][33] In a 2015 article for The Atlantic, Kornhaber said it was part of a trend in music videos of violent female pop artists who want to avoid being presented as the victim.

[14][28] The message, stylized as a "gotcha-gram",[14] featured a news report about a series of murders inspired by "The Way That I Love You" music video and the upcoming release of The Declaration.

The news report ends with the disclaimer, "Ashanti and Universal Music Group do not encourage or condone violence of any kind.

[14][28] The civil rights organization Project Islamic Hope and the think tank Industry Ears led a protest that called for the website's removal.

Universal closed the site, but Ashanti defended it as "a better alternative to actual violence" and "an incredible online viral tool.

"[14] Ashanti's publicist, Michelle Huff, clarified that the video was intended to have a similar tone to a Saturday Night Live sketch and said that the singer had received primarily positive feedback for the site.

[28] Shanti Das, Motown's vice president for urban marketing, referred to the campaign as a parody of the music video and said that Ashanti does not promote violence against women.