Dealing with Emotional Blackmail

Are you in a relationship where your partner makes you feel that you have lost your mind? They try to control you and you feel like they are blackmailing your emotions? If you have ever felt like this, you aren’t the only person. Many people have been emotionally blackmailed.

What Is Emotional Blackmail?

Emotional blackmail is when you are in a relationship and the person you are with manipulates you and threatens you to get what they want from you.

They take your emotions and they try to tell you that if you don’t do what they want you to do then you will be the one that suffers.

Regular blackmail means that you find out someone is having an affair and if you don’t want his wife to find out then you will demand something in return such as a raise or money.

Emotional blackmail is not that different, it just happens when you are in a romantic or intimate relationship.

If someone is trying to blackmail you emotionally, you will become full of fear, anger and you will feel guilty when you don’t do or even when you do what they want.

You will be a victim and they will blame you for how they act.

Examples

When a person is an emotional blackmailer, they are immature, and they don’t know how to communicate or treat others kindly. They do not know what a healthy relationship looks like and they have spent their life bullying and hurting others.

Emotional blackmail only really happens in romantic relationships and this is the kind of blackmail that most people will see.

Cheating is one form of emotional blackmail. Instead of feeling bad that they are caught, they make it look like it was your fault that they cheated.

They will say that if you loved them more then they wouldn’t have cheated. This will go on so long that you will believe that it is your own fault that your partner cheated on you.

Once you begin to feel these feelings, you will wonder if you are the reason your relationship is so bad. Here are some other things that people do that is emotional blackmail:

• Say they will kill themselves if you leave them.
• They make you stop talking to your friends if you love them.
• They threaten to kill you if you talk to another guy.
• They tell you their friends and family think you are crazy.
• They tell you that you ruined their life and to stop telling them what to do.

An emotional blackmailer will make you feel like everything is your fault. They will blame you for not getting promotions or blame you because they are out of shape or fat.

They will make you feel confused and they will demand things from you that seem reasonable but then they will turn it on you so they can intimidate you or make you crazy.

How to Know

You might not even know that you are being emotionally blackmailed. Some people are in situations and they do not even see the warning signs of this.

Here are some things to look out for in your relationship:

• Apologizing a lot. If your partner constantly thinks you are wrong, this can be a bad sign.
• You are always taking responsibility for how they act.
• You are the only one making sacrifices.
• You are intimidated by our partner.
• They threaten you to listen.
• You have to make changes in your life so they will be happy.
• You cannot stand up for yourself.
• You worry about what to say or do around them.
• You do not put up boundaries.
• You have a hard time talking to your partner.

If you said any of those things were you, you are being emotionally blackmailed, and you need to do something to fix it.

How to Handle It

If you are a victim of emotional blackmail, you have to change it:

Honest

Be honest with yourself and what is going on in your relationship. Know when they are controlling you and putting you down.

Journal

Write down how you interact with your partner. Your memory can play tricks on you, so you need to make sure that you write it down.

Help

Find someone that you can talk to and someone that can help you. Speak to a counselor or therapist.

Danger

Know if you are in some kind of danger.

Action

Go to find someone to help you. Ask someone to step in and help you end your relationship.

Conclusion

No one deserves to be blackmailed in their emotions. This is a bad relationship and is unhealthy. If you find that you are a victim in this, know that you deserve a better life. Be happy and get out of the relationship as fast as you can.