Emotional Blackmail: A Subtle Abuse
By Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC
As the
last of her children left for college, Janet realized she was done with her
marriage. She had maintained the image of a “perfect family” for too long. It
took her several years to get to this point – including many hours with a
counselor – but after all that time she was finally here and ready to move
forward into a new phase of life. The emotional, mental, verbal, and financial
abuse she endured had taken its’ toll on her and while she was no longer
impacted by it daily, she knew did not want to live with it anymore.
She, of
course, had asked her husband to get help, but he refused. Instead, he only
escalated his emotional abuse tactics to include emotional blackmail. The
regular, more frequent abuses of name-calling (verbal), gaslighting (mental),
and interfering with her success at work (financial) were typical experiences
and ones she already knew how to counteract. But the emotional blackmail she
was now experiencing was intense and far more hurtful.
Gangster
movies such as “The Godfather” love to portray the inner and outer conflict
that arises from being blackmailed, especially when someone’s life hangs in the
balance. There is the villain (the blackmailer), the victim (the target), a
demand (what is being asked for), and a threat (what negative thing will happen
if the victim refuses to comply). But blackmail does not have to be a life or
death situation to be real or significant. Emotional blackmail is a subtle
threat. Here is how it works:
What is Blackmail? For Janet to understand
the impact of emotional blackmail, it was helpful for her to think of examples
of blackmail in everyday life. Here is a couple of them. At school, one child
says to another, “If you don’t say I’m the coolest, then I’ll beat you up.” In
a neighborhood, it is a neighbor threatening to do property damage if turned
into the homeowner’s board. At the office, a co-worker who knows some private
personal information threatens to use it against another in exchange for a
small fee. This type of blackmail has some sort of physical or tangible harm
attached.
What is Emotional Blackmail? This is a bit
different. The threat is not tangible, instead, it is emotional. Susan Forward
and Diane Frazier (Forward and Frazier, 1997), coined the acronym FOG (fear,
obligation, and guilt) to describe the three primary emotions a blackmailer
uses against a victim. Because the threat is not tangible, the villain can
easily claim no responsibility. Janet’s husband used Janet’s fears, her sense
of obligation to the family, and feelings of guilt to make demands of her.
Janet, unknowingly at first, gave in to his demands of perfection because she
didn’t want to experience the negative emotions. This is often cyclical and can
build in intensity as the threats are incredibly useful.
Fear. After being married for so long, Janet’s
husband knew which fears to target for Janet. Apparent fears are left alone
such as a fear of spiders or heights. Instead, the fear targeted is deep-rooted
such as a fear of abandonment, loneliness, humiliation, or failure. These fears
tend to be unique in intensity to individuals so one person may not perceive
that a threat is being made while another one is mortified. This allows the
villain to have some additional cover in their deception. Janet’s fear was of
failure. Her husband threatened to tell Janet’s boss about how she got fired
years ago if Janet didn’t stop hanging out with a friend her husband did not
like. Other examples include, “If you don’t do this,” the blackmailer will
leave the relationship, isolate the victim from friends, ridicule the victim in
front of family, or expose other past failures.
Obligation. As a functioning alcoholic, Janet’s
husband talked and acted like most addicts including using this blackmail
tactic. Addicts need to justify their use of a substance, so they blame others
for things they are responsible for doing. This refusal of accepting any
responsibility translates into projecting responsibility unfairly onto others.
Thus, emotional blackmail through obligation is born. Janet, who is the enabler
to her husband, repeatedly fell into this trap hoping that by doing what is
asked, her husband will stop. However, he didn’t, and matters just escalated.
Here are a couple of examples. “If you kick me out of the house, I’ll drink
more, and the kids will blame you.” “If you don’t take the fall for me (because
he was late and missed an important work meeting), I’ll lose my job and then we
will lose the house.” “I won’t drink if you give me sex.”
Guilt. This type of emotional blackmail is more
commonly known as “guilt-tripping.” Unlike the other two categories, this one
has a mutual negative threat attached to the villain. The threat is designed to
make the Janet feel guilty for causing some negative outcome to her husband.
Many times, the guilt is implied, and the demand is not overtly stated. For
instance, “You make me feel so angry (rejected, abandoned, or unloved),” “Only
a selfish person would do that,” or “If only my life was as easy (good) as
yours.” These backhanded remarks left Janet feeling guilty for causing some
pain to her husband. However, the pain does not have to be real to her for her
husband to utilize it, rather it is a projection of the pain that he might be
feeling.
Understanding
emotional blackmail is a critical step in eliminating its effectiveness. The
next part is harder; the target must stop being a victim. This can be done by
ignoring the comments or refusing to cave in to the demands. For Janet, she had
enough and left. If you are unsure of how emotional blackmail may be playing a
role in your life, get help – and be ready to maybe make some tough decisions.
To schedule an appointment with Christine Hammond,
Please call our office at 407-647-7005.
www.lifeworksgroup.org
