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If you love me, then… or about emotional blackmail

Published 27.06.2024 | By Йосиф
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If you love me, then… or about emotional blackmail

I have long wanted to write on this topic, but then I came across a wonderful book by Susan Forouard “Emotional Blackmail”, and realized that somehow redrawing her text would only spoil it. The author is a psychotherapist with extensive experience. The book is written in good language and contains many practical examples. Of course, in two or three posts, you can only very briefly outline the main problems of people facing emotional blackmail and mention ways to solve them. But I thought that for an initial introduction to the topic, this brief squeeze might be useful. Well, if you recognize yourself or your loved ones in some lines, then it makes sense to read the whole book. Starting from the next paragraph, the entire text is a synopsis of the book.
What is emotional blackmail?
Emotional blackmail is a powerful form of manipulation in which loved ones directly or indirectly threaten us with trouble if we don’t do what they need. The essence of any kind of blackmail is one core threat, which blackmailers express in different ways and which sounds like this: if you don’t behave the way I want you to, you will regret it.
A criminal blackmailer can demand money from us, otherwise he threatens to use certain information to destroy our reputation. An emotional blackmailer knows how much we value a relationship with him. He sees our weaknesses and innermost secrets. And no matter how much he loves us, the emotional blackmailer uses this knowledge to achieve what he needs: our submission.
Knowing that we need his love and approval of our actions, the blackmailer threatens to deprive us of both or forces us to deserve them. For example, if you consider yourself a kind and caring person, the blackmailer calls you selfish and inattentive to others because you are indifferent to his desires. If you value well-being and confidence in the future, the blackmailer can promise you them or threaten to deprive you of these factors. However, if you constantly obey him, then manipulating your behavior and imposing decisions can enter the system. You are entering into a game with a blackmailer, the rules of which are determined only by him.
Lost in the “fog”
Why do so many sensible, capable people get lost when faced with behavior that seems so obvious? One of the main reasons is that the blackmailer does everything so that we do not understand that he is manipulating us. He envelops us in a thick veil of “fog” that hides his actions. We would have resisted if we could have seen what was happening to us.
I use the word “fog” as a metaphor to describe the feeling of confusion that the blackmailer’s actions cause in us, and as a means to help disperse it. It’s an acronym for fear, commitment, and guilt. (“Fog” – fog (English). FOG is an acronym for fear, obligation, guilt — fear, duty and guilt. – The tools of the blackmailer, with which he achieves that we are afraid to offend him, feel a sense of obligation to him and therefore obey and feel terribly guilty if we do not give in.
Since it is very difficult to recognize emotional blackmail through such a “fog”, I have developed a special questionnaire that will help determine whether you are a victim of blackmail.
Do people close to you do the following:
Do they promise to complicate your life if you don’t comply with their demands?
Are they constantly threatening to break off the relationship if you don’t do what they need?
Do they say or hint that they will be indifferent to their health or kill themselves; do they look depressed when you don’t do what they need?
Do they always want to get more, no matter how much you give?
Are they always waiting for you to give in to them?
Are they constantly ignoring or not taking into account your needs and desires?
Do they make generous promises, linking it to your behavior, but rarely fulfill them?
Do they accuse you of selfishness, inattention, greed, insensitivity, lack of care if you don’t do what they need?
Do they shower you with praise when you give in, and are offended if you do it your way?
Are they using money as a means to achieve their goals?
If you answered at least one question positively, you are being blackmailed with the help of subjective experiences. But I want to assure you that there are many ways that you can use immediately to improve your situation and mood.
The world of emotional blackmail is complicated and confusing. Some blackmailers, using your emotional experiences, threaten constantly and openly, while others, while maintaining good relations, resort to threats from time to time. Therefore, it is often difficult to determine from what point in a relationship the stereotype of manipulation begins to develop.
Of course, there are aggressive, outspoken blackmailers who all the time resort to direct threats about what will happen to you if you do not fulfill their conditions. They quite definitely explain the consequences of insubordination: “If you leave, you will never see the children again,” “If you do not support my project, I will not give you a positive recommendation.” These are clear threats without any hints.
However, more often emotional blackmail is much more sophisticated, it occurs in the context of mostly normal and positive relationships. We know the person from the good side, and our memories of positive experiences obscure the restless feeling that something is not going right in the relationship.
Emotional blackmail creeps up, quietly crosses the border of acceptable relationships and moves to the level of transactions, which at first is slightly colored, and then impregnated with elements that threaten our well-being
Before calling someone’s behavior emotional blackmail, you need to identify some components in it. We can make a diagnosis in the same way that a therapist or surgeon does — identify the symptoms.
In the examples below, you will get to know the case of a love relationship, but the symptoms will be the same in a relationship with a friend, colleagues, or family members. Some aspects of the relationship may differ, but the tactics and actions will be identical and easily recognizable.
Six deadly symptoms
My friends, a young couple, Jim and Helen, have been dating for over a year. Helen, a literature teacher at a local college, has huge brown eyes and a beautiful smile. She met Jim at a party and was immediately delighted with him. Jim is a successful songwriter, tall, with pleasant manners.
They fell in love, but for Helen, the joy of communicating with Jim began to wane over time. By the way, their relationship went through six stages of emotional blackmail.
So that you can clearly understand the six symptoms of emotional blackmail, let’s look at a simplified version of the conflict between Helen and Jim. You’ll notice that some of the symptoms describe Jim’s behavior, while others describe Helen’s.
1. Requirements.
Jim wants something from Helen. He says they spend so much time together that they could very well live together. “I practically live with you,” he says. “Let’s formalize our relationship.” She has a huge apartment, half of his things are already here, he adds, so it’s a simple move.
Sometimes blackmailers don’t openly say what they want, as Jim did. They make us guess. Jim could express his desire indirectly, for example, to be in a gloomy mood after a friend’s wedding, and answer Helen’s question: “I would like us to be closer to each other. Sometimes I feel so lonely.” And finally to say that he wants to move in with her.
At first glance, it seems that Jim’s proposal is dictated by love and is by no means a requirement, but it soon becomes clear that he is determined and does not want to discuss or change it.
2. Resistance.
Helen did not like Jim’s proposal, she replied that she was not ready for such changes in their relationship. Of course, she loves him, but she wants him to have his own apartment.
If she wasn’t a straight person, she could resist in other ways, for example, shut down and show her love less, or say that she was planning to do repairs and therefore it was better for him to pick up his things before it was over. But she expressed her disagreement openly: no.
3. Pressure.
When Jim realized that Helen would not give a positive answer, he did not even try to understand her feelings. Instead, he began to push her to change her mind. At first, he acts as if he is ready to discuss this issue with her, but the discussion becomes one-sided and turns into a lecture.
Jim transforms Helen’s disagreement into her disadvantage and expresses his desires and demands in the most positive terms: “I just want us to be better off. If two people love each other, they live together.
Then he turns on his charm and asks: “Don’t you love me and don’t you want me to be here all the time?” Another blackmailer could categorically insist that his move would improve the existing relationship and bring them closer together. Regardless of the blackmailer’s style, he applies pressure, even if hidden under benevolent motives; for example, Jim could tell Helen that it hurts him to hear her refusal.
4. Threats.
As Jim continues to encounter resistance, he makes it clear to Helen that her unwillingness to give him what he wants will have negative consequences. Blackmailers usually threaten to cause pain or trouble. They may claim that rejection causes them suffering, they may also bombard us with promises of how much we will receive or how much they will love us if we give in to their persuasions.
Jim uses veiled threats against Helen: “If you don’t love me enough, maybe we should try dating other people.” He does not openly threaten to break off the relationship, but the hint is quite transparent.
5. Consent.
Helen doesn’t want to lose Jim, so despite the uneasy feeling, she tells herself that she was probably wrong when she didn’t let him move in with her. She and Jim barely remember her worries, and Jim has never tried to dispel them. After a couple of months, Helen stops resisting, and Jim moves in with her.
6. Repetition.
After Jim’s victory, a period of calm follows. Now, having achieved his goal, he removes the pressure, and the relationship at first glance stabilizes. Helen is still uneasy, but she is glad that there is no psychological pressure and that she has regained Jim’s love and approval
Jim realized that by putting pressure on Helen and instilling guilt in her, he could always get what he needed. And Helen realized that the easiest way to get rid of the pressure was to give in to it. Thus, the foundation of the behavior model is laid: demands, threats, subordination.
The real motive
How do I know if our opponent is interested in solving the problem or defeating us? He’s not going to say anything, and he’s definitely not going to say, “I don’t care what you want. I’m just trying to get my way.”
In an emotionally stressful situation, our perception slows down, and this condition only worsens if we experience pressure. The following list will help you understand if there is emotional blackmail in a relationship, allowing you to determine the intentions and goals behind a person’s behavior.
If people sincerely want to resolve the conflict in a friendly way, with benefits for both sides, they do the following:
they are talking openly with you about the conflict;
they are interested in your mood and concerns;
They are wondering why you refuse to give them what they need;
they take responsibility for their part of the conflict.
If a person’s primary goal is to defeat you, he does the following:
Trying to control you;
ignores your protests;
Insists that his behavior and motives are above yours;
avoids talking about his own responsibility in relation to the problem.
If you see that someone is trying to achieve their goals, regardless of the price you have to pay, then you are facing emotional blackmail in its purest form.
The Four Faces of Blackmail
“If you really loved me…”
“Don’t leave me, or I’ll…”
“You’re the only one who can help me…”
“I can make your life easier if you do…
In the context of blackmail, all such statements are ways to make their demands, which are always very different, because each reflects a certain type of blackmail. If you look closely at emotional blackmail, it is divided into four types of behavior, as different as holiday ribbons on a flagpole.
The most prominent representatives of blackmail are the “punishers” who make it clear what they want and what awaits us if we do not fulfill their demands. They may behave aggressively or be immersed in silence, but in any case, if we try to contradict, their anger spills out directly on us.
Whatever their method, the “punishers” require a relationship in which the balance of power is exclusively one-sided. Their slogan is: “Here is God (that is, the blackmailer himself), and here is the threshold.” It doesn’t matter to him what you feel, what you need — the “punisher” doesn’t care. You, as a person, do not exist for him.
“If YOU go to work, I’ll leave you.” “If YOU don’t run the family business, I’ll cut you out of my will.” “If you divorce me, you won’t see the children anymore.” “If you don’t work overtime, forget about the promotion”
The “punishers” do not necessarily need to be verbose or talk at all in order to convey their demands. Blackmailers achieve the same effect by hiding behind non-verbal hostility.
It is difficult to endure the harsh, cold silence of such “punishers”, sometimes you want to sell your soul not to live with them. “Say something,” we beg. “Scream, do whatever you want, just don’t be silent.” As a rule, the more we try to get the gloomy silencers to talk, the more they shut themselves up, afraid to face us and their own anger.
The second category is “self—sacrificers”; they turn threats on themselves, talking about what they will do to themselves if they do not get what they want.
We’ve all met with six-year-old “terrible kids” who start making a row, loudly declaring: “If you don’t let me stay watching TV, I won’t breathe and I’ll suffocate to death!” The behavior of adult “self-sacrificers” is a little more complicated, but the principle remains the same. They bring to our attention that if we don’t do what they need, they will be very upset.
“Self-sacrificers” may swear to commit some act that will ruin their lives, or even do something to themselves, because this is the most successful way to manipulate us. “Don’t argue with me, otherwise I’ll get sick or depressed”, “Give in to me, or I’ll quit my job”, “If you don’t do this and that, I won’t eat/sleep/drink/take medicine”, “If you leave me, I I’m going to kill myself.” All these are threats of “self-sacrificers”.
“Martyrs” are people who deftly shift the blame, who make you guess what they want, and always claim that only they can give it.
The image of a martyr is associated in our culture with a famous film: a gloomy woman sits in a dark apartment and waits for a call from the children. When the phone finally rings, she replies, “How do I feel? Are you asking how I feel? You don’t come in or call. You’ve forgotten your own mother. I can stick my head in the oven and you’ll never know about it.”
The “martyr” believes that if he feels unhappy, sick, or just unlucky, there is only one way out: we have to give him what he wants, even if we haven’t heard from him what he needs.
The “martyr” does not threaten to harm either us or himself. Instead, he makes it clear: “If you don’t do what I want, I will suffer, and it will be your fault.” The last part of the statement — “it will be your fault” — is often not spoken out loud, but, as we will see, works wonders in the mind of the blackmailer.
The “tempters” arrange checks and promise something wonderful if we give in to them.
The “tempters” are the most insidious blackmailers. They encourage us, promise us love, money, or promotion—the carrot at the end of the pole, and then explain that if we behave badly, we won’t get what we promised. The reward seems tempting, but it turns into nothing whenever we approach it. The desire to receive the promised is so great that we forget about many of the unrecognized rewards until we realize that we are the object of emotional blackmail.
Many attract us with emotional rewards, such as castles in the air of love, family intimacy, or healed mental wounds. Access to such alluring, immaculate fantasies requires only one thing: to do what the blackmailer needs.
Each type of blackmailer has its own vocabulary and its own methods of making demands, threats, psychological pressure and giving negative characteristics. Such a distinction can make it difficult to recognize emotional blackmail, even if someone thinks they can identify it. If you think that all birds look like eagles, then you will probably be shocked if someone says that a sparrow that has just flown by is also a bird. The same type of cognitive dissonance can be expected when you encounter an unknown form of emotional blackmail.
But if you get to know his four faces, you can see signs of danger in the actions of another person and develop an “early warning system” that will help you predict, prepare and even avoid emotional blackmail.
The key word is fear
Blackmailers base their conscious and unconscious strategy on the information we provide them about our fears. They notice what we are afraid of, what makes us nervous, what words and actions we instinctively react to. They do not record their observations and do not store them to use in the future: we easily absorb this kind of information about loved ones. In emotional blackmail, fear also affects the blackmailer.
At this time, the information collected by the blackmailer in the course of a relationship is used as a weapon to conclude a deal, the driving force of which is mutual fear. The terms of the deal are customized for us: do what I need, and I [then select the right one]:
I won’t leave you;
I will not disapprove;
I won’t stop loving you;
I will not scold;
I won’t make you suffer;
I won’t contradict you;
I won’t fire you
Obligations
We enter adulthood with firmly established rules and values about other people, as well as how our behavior should be governed by concepts such as duty, submission, loyalty, altruism and self-sacrifice. We have deep-rooted beliefs about these values, and often we believe that these are our own beliefs, but in reality they were formed under the influence of parents, religion, prevailing views in society, the media and loved ones.
Often our beliefs about duty and obligations are reasonable, and the ethical and moral foundation of our lives is built on them. But too often, attempts to balance obligations towards oneself and a sense of obligation towards other people end in failure. We sacrifice ourselves for the sake of duty.
Emotional blackmailers do not hesitate to put our obligations to the test by repeating how much they have done for their victims and how much these victims owe them. They may even use reinforcing factors drawn from religion or social traditions to emphasize the debt owed by the blackmailer.
A good daughter should spend her free time with her mother.
I’m struggling to earn money for my family, and you can’t meet me when I come home from work.
Respect your father (and obey him!).
The boss is always right.
I protected you when you were out with that idiot and needed support. All I ask is to lend me 2 thousand. I’m your best friend!
Feeling guilty
Guilt is an important component of a feeling, responsible person. It is a tool of consciousness that, in a pure, undistorted form, registers a feeling of discomfort and remorse if personal or public ethical norms are violated. Guilt helps to orient the inner moral compass, and because this feeling is so painful, it dominates until we do something to atone for it. To avoid feeling guilty, we try not to harm others.
We trust this active indicator of our behavior and believe that if a feeling of guilt arises, then we have overstepped the bounds of what is permissible and deliberately violated the rules that we set for ourselves to communicate with people. Sometimes this is the case, and our guilt is natural, being an appropriate reaction to an offensive, illegal, cruel, insulting or dishonest act.
If we have a conscience, guilt permeates our entire lives. Unfortunately, you can’t always trust him. Like an ultra-sensitive car alarm that should be triggered when a carjacking attempt is made, but starts to roar every time a truck passes down the street, guilt sensors may react inappropriately. When this happens, we experience not only real guilt, which was mentioned above, but also a feeling that I call undeserved guilt.
In the case of undeserved guilt, remorse is not associated with the definition and correction of damaging behavior. This type of guilt, which serves as one of the main components of the blackmailer’s “fog”, is saturated with self-reproaches, self-accusations and self-flagellation that paralyzes the will. Simply put, the process that causes undeserved guilt looks like this:
1. I’m acting.
2. The other person is offended.
3. I take full responsibility for the offense, regardless of whether my action was related to her or not.
4. I feel guilty.
5. To compensate for it, I will do anything to alleviate this feeling.
For example:
1. I tell my friend that I won’t be able to go to the cinema with her today.
2. She is offended.
3. I feel terrible and I think that she was offended because of my fault.
4. I’m canceling all my plans so that we can go to the cinema. She feels better, and that’s why it’s easier for me.
Undeserved guilt may have nothing to do with causing harm, but it is directly related to the belief in causing harm. The emotional blackmailer pushes us to take full responsibility for his complaints and misfortunes, doing everything possible to reprogram the basic mechanisms of guilt and turn it into undeserved guilt, when indicators constantly signal: guilty, guilty, guilty.
The result of this is quite predictable. Everyone wants to believe that they are good people, and the guilt that the blackmailer causes is directed against the perception of themselves as loving, decent people. We feel responsible for the blackmailer’s pain and believe when he says that by refusing to give in, we are exacerbating his suffering.
As soon as the blackmailer notices that he can take advantage of the victim’s guilt, the question of time becomes unprincipled for him. If there are no recent cases that can be used to shift blame and blame, the past ones will do as well.
There is no complete atonement for him. The objects of blackmail discover that there is no statute of limitations for them, there is no moment after which a long—standing “crime” — real or imaginary – can be forgotten.
Susan Forouard “Emotional Blackmail”
https://econet.ru/articles/184442-esli-ty-menya-lyubish-to-ili-ob-emotsionalnom-shantazhe
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