4 tactics of emotional blackmail

In the course 'End emotional blackmail using 2 highly effective techniques' you'll learn to recognize 16 different tactics od emotional blackmail. Unfortunatelly these tactics are very effective (= the other person gets their way). They are also quite easy to miss if you don't know that they are actually a part of emotional blackmail.

Today I'm sharing with you 4 of these tactics:

1. tactic of emotional blackmail: I WILL NOT ALWAYS BE HERE

Has anybody ever said to you:

“I may not always be here.”

“Be nice to your grandpa, he’s old and will not always be around.”

“You only have one mother in this life.”

“You’ll be sorry when I’m gone!”

Or something to that effect?

Chances are you were emotional blackmailed.

When a person say something like the sentences above, what he or she really means is this:

“You need to do what I say, because we will all die one day. Think about how horrible you’ll feel, when I’m gone.”

The person who is blackmailing us, is trying to make us think about his or her request in comparison to death and life itself. And naturally any sort of request – small or big, will appear trivial if you look at it in the context of death.

We start imagining that person being gone and we think to ourselves:

That person is now dead and I was didn’t want to go to lunch with her that Friday/didn’t follow his advice that time/didn’t lend him 1000 dollars.

When we look at a request in the context of death any request will seem small. When we think about death we experience all kinds of emotions - from deep sadness, grief to fear of losing somebody, fear of the unknown, guilt, sometimes even anger etc.

2. tactic of emotional blackmail: WHEN WILL YOU...

This is another highly effective tactic. The person asks us when we will do something - without us prior agreeing to doing anything at all.

For example:

The person asks us out of the blue:

"When will you come to my house to help me paint the kitchen?"

This is the first time we are hearing about us helping him or her painting the kitchen. We have not agreed to do anything.

Or for example our mother asks us:

"What time will you be coming to lunch on Saturday?"

Without us agreeing to come to lunch on Saturday at all.

Why is this tactic so effective?

Because we get caught up in the question. We start thinking: "When do I have the time to help come paint the kitchen? Could I come to lunch at my mums at 1pm or 2pm?"

We forget one vital thing.

To ask ourselves: What do I want?

Do I want to come paint the kitchen?

Do I want to come to lunch?

Do I have time?

Do I have the energy?

The person that emotionally blackmails us confuses us with this type of questions. We forget that we haven’t actually made a decision yet whether to do something or not. And we immediately go down the path of pleasing others. We forget about ourselves, our needs, our plans, our wishes.

3. tactic of emotional blackmail: PUBLIC DISPLAY OF EMOTION a.k.a. DRAMA LOVER

A person can emotionally blackmail us by using public display of emotion. Particularly displaying sadness or anger.

I remember a client of mine telling me about his wife. They were at a restaurant, when they started to disagree on something. His wife started getting really upset. She started raising her voice more and more until she was yelling. She even threw a fork on the ground for dramatic effect.

A waiter came by and asked them if they could please calm down because they are disturbing the other customers.

My client was mortified. He quickly agreed to whatever his wife was saying, just so this horrible situation would stop.

And that is how this tactic works! The person who is emotionally blackmailing us by using public display of emotion, is silently expecting us to be so uncomfortable that we will agree to anything in order for them to stop crying or yelling in front of everybody.

4. tactic of emotional blackmail: MAKING UP RULES a.k.a. "YOU SHOULD..."

The person using this tactic makes up his or her own rules and then expects us to follow them. Most of the time the person isn’t even aware that these are her own made up rules. He or she is often convinced that that is just the way it is.

How to spot when somebody is trying to blackmail us using this tactic?

Watch out for the phrases:

“You should…”

“You must…”

“The right thing to do is…” or. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“A good wife/husband/friend/mother/son/employee/neighbor/citizen… would/is…”

The problem with this tactic is that we ourselves sometimes start believing the rules the other person makes (especially if the other person is our parent, because at some point in our lives we actually had to follow their rules. So it can be really hard to recognize when rules are in fact made up. For example: A mother says to her grown daughter: "You should come see me every weekend. A good daughter takes care of her mother.")

When you hear phrases like that, it’s time to stop and look closely at the situation. Ask yourself: whose rules are these? Mine or someone else’s?

Would you like to learn all 16 tactics of emotional blackmail and more importantly - would you like to know what to answer the person who is pressuring you and how to end emotional blackmail?

Join our online course 'End emotional blackmail using 2 highly effective techniques':