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Emotional Blackmail

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Generally, it’s one particular person—a partner, a parent, a sibling, a friend—who manipulates us so consistently that we seem to forget everything we know about being effective adults. Though we may be skilled and successful in other parts of our lives, with these people we feel bewildered, powerless. — location: 46 ^ref-18184

In such relationships, we keep our focus on the other person’s needs at the expense of our own, and we relax into the temporary illusion of safety we’ve created for ourselves by giving in. — location: 64 ^ref-58013

the source of friction isn’t in communication styles. It’s more in one person getting his or her way at the expense of another. These are more than simple misunderstandings—they’re power struggles. — location: 69 ^ref-47468

At the heart of any kind of blackmail is one basic threat, which can be expressed in many different ways: If you don’t behave the way I want you to, you will suffer. — location: 81 ^ref-1736

no matter how much they care about us, when they fear they won’t get their way, they use this intimate knowledge to shape the threats that give them the payoff they want: our compliance. — location: 84 ^ref-43477

if you pride yourself on being generous and caring, the blackmailer might label you selfish or inconsiderate — location: 87 ^ref-34147

Regularly ignore or discount your feelings and wants? — location: 102 ^ref-3668

The blackmailer’s comments and behavior keep us feeling off-balance, ashamed and guilt-ridden. — location: 158 ^ref-43088

We begin to doubt our ability to keep promises to ourselves, and we lose confidence in our own effectiveness. Our sense of self-worth erodes. Perhaps worst of all, every time we capitulate to emotional blackmail, we lose contact with our integrity, the inner compass that helps us determine what our values and behavior should be. — location: 159 ^ref-61953

When we live with emotional blackmail, it eats away at us and escalates until it puts our most important relationships and our whole sense of self-respect in jeopardy. — location: 162 ^ref-56361

isn’t giving him the response he wants, Jim does not try to understand her feelings. Rather, he pushes her to change her mind. — location: 239 ^ref-23908

Helen is still uncomfortable about how things have turned out, but she’s also relieved to have the pressure off and to regain Jim’s love and approval. Jim has seen that pressuring Helen and making her feel guilty is a sure way to get what he wants. And Helen has seen that the fastest way to end Jim’s pressure tactics is to give in. The groundwork is laid for a pattern of demands, pressure and capitulation. — location: 256 ^ref-53835

It’s amazing how hard it is for many of us to be direct even about minor things, much less when there’s a lot at stake and we want something significant. — location: 266 ^ref-50116

Manipulation becomes emotional blackmail when it is used repeatedly to coerce us into complying with the blackmailer’s demands, at the expense of our own wishes and well-being. — location: 275 ^ref-22846

no threat, either direct or indirect, about what she will do if Denise doesn’t honor her request. — location: 301 ^ref-9238

she insisted on therapy for both of them. — location: 338 ^ref-49937

Appropriate limit-setting isn’t about coercion, pressure or repeatedly characterizing the other person as flawed. It’s a statement of what kind of behavior we will and won’t allow into our lives. — location: 341 ^ref-61653

continually defined him as morally inferior and unworthy, using his transgression as a weapon. — location: 360 ^ref-2188

possibilities for hurt or healing exist in any situation in which we’ve chosen to maintain a relationship after a serious transgression: a betrayal by a colleague, a damaging rift in a family, a discovery that we’ve been deceived by a friend. — location: 365 ^ref-56109

if both parties are coming from a position of goodwill and truly want to resolve whatever crisis is impairing the relationship, there is no place for emotional blackmail. — location: 367 ^ref-41817

If people genuinely want to resolve a conflict with you in a fair and caring way, they will: Talk openly about the conflict with you Find out about your feelings and concerns Find out why you are resisting what they want Accept responsibility for their part of the conflict — location: 372 ^ref-32316

Disagreements, even strong ones, don’t have to be mixed with insults or negative judgments. — location: 376 ^ref-47772

primary goal is to win, he or she will: Try to control you Ignore your protests Insist that his or her character and motives are superior to yours Avoid taking any responsibility for the problems between you — location: 377 ^ref-32380

other people are trying to get their way regardless of the cost to you, you’re looking at the bottom-line behavior of the emotional blackmailer. — location: 380 ^ref-13310

in many cases, the outcome doesn’t matter too much, and the person with the strongest preference usually wins by default. — location: 388 ^ref-27296

there’s a rhythm of give and take, a sense of balance and fairness. We can give in to many things with little negative effect and replenish our egos and energies quickly. At the same time, we also expect others to give us our way from time to time. When the willingness to compromise begins to disappear, the status quo becomes the template for the future. — location: 389 ^ref-37214

She made Allen feel guilty when he wanted to do a perfectly normal thing like going out by himself. — location: 411 ^ref-39437

She gets what she wants by making me feel so damn guilty all the time. And I feel like a wimp always giving in to her. — location: 415 ^ref-37323

something that many targets of emotional blackmail do, particularly at the beginning: He gave Jo the benefit of the doubt and rationalized away her clinginess because of his compassion for her difficult childhood and his deep feelings for her now. — location: 419 ^ref-11067

understanding and compassion get you nowhere with an emotional blackmailer. In fact, they only add fuel to the blackmail flames. — location: 422 ^ref-3421

Punishers may not always realize the full impact of their words or notice how often they threaten to disapprove of us, let others know how terrible we are or take away something that is important to us. — location: 458 ^ref-12539

If they capitulate, or at least buy some time, they find themselves swimming in a cauldron of rage: rage at the blackmailer for creating such an oppressive and constricting situation, and at themselves for not having the guts to put up a fight. — location: 480 ^ref-28791

punishers often make their children choose between them and other people they love, setting up a situation in which any choice is seen as betrayal. — location: 496 ^ref-3427

As we maneuver to avoid the wrath of punishers and the aggressive way they manipulate us, we may find ourselves doing things that amaze us—lying, keeping secrets, sneaking around—to maintain the illusion of obeying them. Behaving as though we’re still rebellious teenagers, and violating our own standards, adds to what may already be a significant load of self-reproach born out of the failure to stand up to the blackmailer. — location: 503 ^ref-4710

tell him as nicely as I could that this was not a good time for me, and could I have a rain check. — location: 515 ^ref-23822

Silent punishers barricade themselves behind an impenetrable facade and deflect any responsibility for their feelings onto us. — location: 526 ^ref-15065

I canceled the trip. I’m pretending I never wanted to go. — location: 595 ^ref-20752

they have an incredible talent for making you feel responsible for what happens to them. Where punishers turn their targets into children, self-punishers cast their targets in the role of the grown-up—the only adult in the relationship. — location: 600 ^ref-60082

a strong-arm tactic that didn’t mesh at all with her description of Melanie as weak, the label that many self-punishers use for camouflage. — location: 622 ^ref-11389

If you don’t do what I want, I will suffer, and it will be your fault. This last part of the accusation, “it will be your fault,” is often unspoken but, as we’ll see, can work magic on the conscience of a sufferer’s target. — location: 650 ^ref-55967

They’ll tell us what they want on their own timetable, after letting us twist for hours, even weeks, in anxiety or concern. — location: 656 ^ref-56805

Sufferers may look weak on the surface, but they are actually a quiet form of tyrant. They may not yell or make scenes, yet their behavior hurts, mystifies and enrages us. — location: 670 ^ref-6279

Sufferers like Tess tell us how the cards are stacked against them, the fates have conspired to keep them down. Their theme song might be the old blues tune that goes “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” All they need is one little break to turn things around. They often have a certain underdog charm that can be appealing. Of course, these sufferers let us know that if they don’t get a break—that is, if we don’t give it to them—they’ll fail. — location: 693 ^ref-33428

A typical tantalizer, Alex was full of gifts and promises, all accompanied by conditions for Julie’s behavior: “I will help you if. . . .” “I will ease the way for your career if. . . .” And finally, Julie realized that the testing would never end. Every time she got close to the carrot, Alex pulled it away. Tantalizers offer nothing with a free heart. Every seductively wrapped package has a web of strings attached. — location: 719 ^ref-13300

experience with this profound instance of emotional blackmail was a turning point that helped her find the ability to withstand a coercive form of manipulation. — location: 762 ^ref-11800

There are no firm boundaries between the styles of blackmail, and as you’ve seen, many blackmailers combine them, or use more than one. They might take Carol’s tack and switch back and forth from suffering to offering up the tantalizing fantasy of a troubled family that could be magically mended—if. . . . — location: 764 ^ref-45715

Most emotional blackmailers are not monsters. As we’ll see, they’re rarely driven by malice but rather by some demons of their own, — location: 769 ^ref-27558

blackmailers turn up the volume, blasting us until we’re so uncomfortable we will do almost anything—even something that is not in our best interests—to return these feelings to a more tolerable level. — location: 787 ^ref-33137

FOG-inducing tactics prompt responses that are almost as automatic as covering our ears when a siren shrieks past. There’s little thinking on our part, only reacting, and that’s the key to effective emotional blackmail. When blackmailers pressure us, there is practically no time between feeling emotional discomfort and acting to get relief. — location: 788 ^ref-56227

one of the most painful parts of emotional blackmail is that it violates the trust that has allowed us to reveal ourselves and develop a more than superficial relationship with the blackmailer. In the situations that follow, watch the way the blackmailers zero in on the fears that will get the strongest response. — location: 809 ^ref-14289

humans are tribal animals, and the idea of being cut off from the support and affection of those we love and depend on can be almost unbearable. That makes fear of abandonment one of our most potent, pervasive and easily triggered fears. — location: 813 ^ref-4148

I can’t not say what’s on my mind, but I’m going nuts with these fights. — location: 829 ^ref-61377

in all relationships except significantly abusive ones, anger is just another emotion—not good and not bad. We’ve built up so much anxiety and apprehension about our own and other people’s anger, however, that it can dramatically affect our ability to stand up to blackmail. — location: 871 ^ref-8320

a remarkable ability to reactivate our childhood fears. As Josh recalled: — location: 880 ^ref-26892

The events and feelings we experienced as children are alive within us and often reappear when there is turmoil and stress. — location: 884 ^ref-29090

Emotional memory can keep us locked into old ways of fearful acting and reacting, even when there’s nothing in our current reality to justify the fear. — location: 886 ^ref-62345

all it took was an angry look from Paul. He quickly settled on his best course of action: He’d lie. He’d keep seeing Beth but pretend to his father that he’d broken up with her. It was an expedient solution, but Josh’s quest to avoid anger cost him dearly. — location: 899 ^ref-15077

playing a dangerous game called Peace at Any Price. — location: 901 ^ref-58250

Fear flourishes in the dark, unexamined but vividly imagined. Our bodies and the primitive parts of our brains read it as a reason to run away, and often that’s what we do, avoiding what we fear because deep inside we believe that’s the only way to survive. In fact, as you will see, our emotional well-being depends on doing just the opposite—facing and confronting what we fear the most. — location: 902 ^ref-34455

Blackmailers never hesitate to put our sense of obligation to the test, emphasizing how much they’ve given up, how much they’ve done for their targets, how much we owe them. They may even use reinforcements from religion and social traditions to emphasize how much their targets should feel indebted to them. — location: 913 ^ref-670

They push far beyond the limits of a give-and-take relationship, letting us know that, like it or not, it’s nothing less than our responsibility to do what they ask. — location: 918 ^ref-19195

love and willingness can quickly fall out of the equation when replaced by obligation and an enforced sense of duty. — location: 920 ^ref-59117

a seminar at my church that taught me something I always carry with me: It takes one person to make a relationship work. If you give your all and ask for God’s help, you can ride with all the waves that come up. — location: 927 ^ref-60053

Reluctance to break up a family keeps many people in relationships that have gone sour. No one wants to traumatize or uproot their children or have to deal with their pain and confusion. — location: 950 ^ref-18388

Some blackmail targets feel so passionately about their obligation to their children that they will make what they mistakenly see as a noble sacrifice and give up their right to have a good life. — location: 952 ^ref-16877

How nice it would be if blackmailers were as sensitive to our feelings as they want us to be to theirs. — location: 959 ^ref-1915

As so often happens with people who are easily manipulated through obligation, Maria remembered to do what was best for everybody except herself. Most of us have a terrible time defining our boundaries, where our obligations to others begin and end. And when our sense of obligation is stronger than our sense of self-respect and self-caring, blackmailers quickly learn how to take advantage. — location: 965 ^ref-54251

It’s not uncommon for two people in any relationship to change roles, alternately playing both target and blackmailer. One person may blackmail more than the other, but rarely is blackmail completely one-sided. — location: 986 ^ref-10676

emotional blackmailers who peddle blame bombard us with a sales pitch aimed at getting our attention. Though the details vary, one phrase, often unspoken but always just under the surface, serves as the blame peddler’s slogan: It’s all your fault. — location: 1025 ^ref-15723

many people go through the motions of everyday interactions with a blackmailer who’s plying them with guilt, but the resentment and even self-loathing that build in them are corrosive. With little fun or true intimacy, what looks like a marriage or a friendship becomes a hollow framework. — location: 1044 ^ref-29700

Like parents who punish their children while saying “I’m only doing this for your own good,” blackmailers are expert rationalizers, and they use their tools to persuade us that the blackmail somehow serves us. — location: 1100 ^ref-48372

Like all spin doctors, Cal was interpreting his desires in glowingly positive terms and describing Margaret’s resistance as darkly negative. — location: 1122 ^ref-57485

Blackmailers let us know that they ought to win because the outcome they want is more loving, more open, more mature. It’s what’s best. — location: 1123 ^ref-2505

Any resistance on our parts is transformed from an indication of our needs to evidence of our flaws. — location: 1125 ^ref-29207

We buy into the spin because we want our friends, lovers, bosses and family members to be right and good, not mean, unfeeling or oppressive. — location: 1141 ^ref-25838

It was less painful for her to buy Cal’s version of reality than to confront the uncomfortable truths about him and their relationship. — location: 1147 ^ref-2345

In addition to discrediting the perceptions of their targets, many blackmailers turn up the pressure by challenging our character, motives and worth. — location: 1155 ^ref-64260

most wrenching, they dissolve the trust that’s accumulated in a relationship by lining up all the unhappy events we’ve shared with them and throwing them back in our faces to prove that we caused these things to happen because we were such emotional cripples. — location: 1174 ^ref-41105

I keep replaying it in my mind and wondering if she’s right. I do have a rough time establishing relationships. Maybe I don’t know how to be with someone who really loves me. — location: 1209 ^ref-40315

a tactic that most pathologizers rely on: throwing back in Roger’s face uncomfortable things that he’d confided to her about himself and his family. — location: 1216 ^ref-57630

Painful life events—divorces, child custody battles, abortions—that we have described at intimate moments are all used as proof of our instability. — location: 1219 ^ref-32890

Pathologizing is especially persuasive when it comes from an authority figure—a doctor, professor, lawyer or therapist. — location: 1237 ^ref-45060

Our relationships with these people are based on trust, and we tend to cloak professionals in a mantle of wisdom that some don’t deserve. We assume that they will treat us with openness and integrity. — location: 1238 ^ref-47039

They tell us that they’re looking out for our best interests, and by resisting them we’re proving how obstinate, ill-informed or insecure we are. They are the experts, even when it comes to our deepest knowledge of ourselves, and we aren’t allowed to question their advice or their interpretations of a situation. — location: 1246 ^ref-13053

We may desperately need to express the truth of what’s happened to us, but it takes determination, preparation and support to counter the pervasive pathologizing that goes along with long-term abuse or deep problems within a family. — location: 1272 ^ref-12405

she would be welcomed back into the fold only if she’d be quiet, so everyone could resume a way of behaving that, despite being destructive to all of them, was familiar, and therefore comfortable. — location: 1295 ^ref-10212

The message from all of them was the same—it was as though Jay himself had written the script—but hearing Jay’s words from other people she loved and trusted made those words carry even more weight. — location: 1317 ^ref-16935

Wisdom resonates differently in each of us, and none of us can claim a monopoly on it, but we can count on blackmailers to insist, by pulling selective quotes, comments, teachings and writings from a host of sources, that there is just one truth: theirs. — location: 1323 ^ref-19146

Negative comparisons make us feel suddenly deficient. We’re not as good, not as loyal, not as accomplished as so-and-so, and we feel anxious and guilty about it. So anxious, in fact, that we may be willing to give in to blackmailers to prove that they’re wrong about us. — location: 1331 ^ref-7664

the blackmailer can almost always get our compliance—hardly surprising, considering that a person who resists is likely to be spun around, criticized, ganged up on or found wanting. — location: 1371 ^ref-46370

People who have faced major deprivation and loss in childhood often become needy and overly dependent as adults to keep from feeling rejected, abandoned or ignored. — location: 1424 ^ref-17312

a core belief common to many emotional blackmailers: I don’t trust that I’m going to get what I need, so I have to give myself every advantage. That justified all the clinging and all of the blackmail. — location: 1431 ^ref-1248

angry, punitive people are really very frightened, but they rarely confront or diminish those fears. — location: 1607 ^ref-26259

Devaluation is a common tactic for angry blackmailers. It softens the sting of confrontation and enables them to downplay their feelings of loss. But as they do this, they give their targets confusing double messages. It’s as if they were saying “You’re no good, but I’ll do everything in my power to hold on to you”—a — location: 1621 ^ref-14002

Insults and infantilizing are similarly explained away with the “It’s for your own good” rationale. — location: 1634 ^ref-21348

It’s fairly apparent, especially to the person on the receiving end, that punishment doesn’t produce the results the blackmailer believes it will, yet there are attractive payoffs to clinging to this erroneous idea of punishment as training. — location: 1640 ^ref-24183

Blackmailers can live with almost anything if they can make their targets seem like dunces. — location: 1642 ^ref-48585

it was important for her to understand that Michael’s criticisms of her and his anger at her supposed flaws had nothing to do with her, even though it was difficult not to take them personally. — location: 1656 ^ref-17589

You may resent or even hate the blackmailer, but as long as your focus is on them, they haven’t been abandoned or discarded with indifference. Punishment keeps a lot of passion and heat in a fractured relationship. — location: 1668 ^ref-35313

The use of children as a weapon against the noncustodial parent is one of the oldest and cruelest forms of emotional blackmail. There are no higher stakes. It’s especially effective because of the intensity of the emotions involved. It keeps people who once cared about each other locked in a terrible battle in which everyone loses. — location: 1688 ^ref-20557

The most sensitive of approval junkies are reluctant to take any action that might be in their own best interests if they’d risk incurring anyone’s disdain. — location: 1810 ^ref-19105

In the face of criticism from someone else, we may disagree at first, then come to believe that our sensors and gauges are faulty. How can we be right if someone important to us says we’re wrong? — location: 2008 ^ref-12915

If we assign wisdom and intelligence to another person, which we’re bound to do if we don’t trust ourselves, it’s simple for them to keep our self-doubt active. They know best, and what’s more, they know what’s best for us. — location: 2017 ^ref-46189

It’s especially tough to believe that your own perceptions are valid when people you love are telling you how crazy, wrong or sick you are, but with support and hard work, Roberta did find the courage to hold her ground; her recovery would have been impossible if she hadn’t shed the self-doubt that had clung to her for so long. — location: 2035 ^ref-10410

Just as owning her own truth was a matter of psychic survival for Roberta, for most of us it’s the only way to end emotional blackmail. — location: 2039 ^ref-64574

even feeling a little self-doubt won’t hurt you—as long as you don’t make them the armor that’s supposed to protect you from feelings you think you can’t stand. — location: 2044 ^ref-33936

Change or cancel important plans or appointments — location: 2054 ^ref-14462

Every day of our lives, we teach people how to treat us by showing them what we will and won’t accept, what we refuse to confront, what we’ll let slide. — location: 2059 ^ref-15671

every time we let someone undercut our dignity and integrity, we are colluding—helping them hurt us. — location: 2064 ^ref-58151

Petty punishments like Michael’s strip us of our adult dignity and power. — location: 2084 ^ref-316

in emotional blackmail the present is a prologue to the future. What you teach today will come back to haunt you tomorrow. — location: 2094 ^ref-47648

How often do we deprive ourselves of something that’s reasonable and well within our means simply because we fear another person’s reaction? We shelve our dreams and plans because we’re “sure” someone will object—though we’ve never tried bringing up our ideas. — location: 2108 ^ref-31923

We may even come to resent people for keeping us from doing something they didn’t know about. — location: 2113 ^ref-25607

Though we tend to equate integrity with honesty, it’s actually much more. The word itself means “wholeness,” and we experience it as the firm knowledge that “This is who I am. This is what I believe. This is what I am willing to do—and this is where I draw the line.” — location: 2123 ^ref-22850

When we give in to emotional blackmail, we cross off the items on this list, one by one, by forgetting what’s right for us. And each time we do, we sacrifice a little bit more of our wholeness. — location: 2134 ^ref-11695

The unfortunate result of such self-flagellation, however, is that it creates a vicious cycle. Under pressure, we do something that doesn’t fit with our sense of who we are. In shock and disbelief, we realize what we’ve done and begin to believe that we are actually as deficient as blackmailers make us out to be. — location: 2168 ^ref-54419

One of the most serious effects of emotional blackmail is the way it narrows our world. We often give up people and activities we love in order to please our blackmailers, especially if they are controlling or overly needy. — location: 2201 ^ref-49014

the stress and tension that accompany emotional blackmail may manifest themselves in physical symptoms when other outlets of expression are blocked or shut down. — location: 2241 ^ref-12359

Emotional blackmail sucks the safety out of any relationship. By safety I mean goodwill and trust—the elements that allow us to open ourselves to someone without fear that our innermost thoughts and feelings will be treated with anything but care. Remove those elements and what’s left is a superficial relationship empty of the emotional candor that enables us to be our true selves with another person. — location: 2267 ^ref-51341

when you see yourself begin to deal in a more conscious way with blackmailers’ pressure, you’ll notice a dramatic improvement in the way you feel about yourself. — location: 2379 ^ref-20556

commitment is a promise to yourself, and it’s one well worth keeping. — location: 2397 ^ref-31285

“you have to set it up so that you feel as comfortable as possible and the other person can be a receptive listener.” — location: 3197 ^ref-51937

That precious wholeness you mourned for was never really lost—just misplaced. It has been waiting for you. — location: 4071 ^ref-38276