Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You

I love this book!!! I love how it not only talks about what manipulation and blackmail look like but also what healthy looks like. For someone who has been raised in an unhealthy environment and then marries into an unhealthy relationship it is really hard to know what healthy looks like. This made a huge difference for me. Thank you for writing this book and helping me!!! Page 11 is a must read!

To "Outstanding book--truly helpful!" - what an excellent way to describe the experience > "being nibbled to death by ducks" - in my case he trained the sweet ducklings to follow his lead as they got older & they joined forces with him. Eventually I broke loose - now happy & free. I use to use the term "soul-eater" - like the "duck" better - the visual image made me laugh !!

If you think you might be a victim of a parent or loved one who is using emotional blackmail to manipulate you and keep you from growing or changing, then this book is for you. I had such a loved one in my life, who was manipulating me with her own pain, keeping me from growing up, keeping me from being a man and doing what I needed to do. I won't go into the details, but you know if you are a victim of manipulation by this "emotional blackmail". Does someone threaten to write you out of their lives if you do such and such? Does someone break down and cry or get sick every time you bring up a certain subject? Does someone make you "walk on eggshells" around them, around certain subjects? If any of the above ring true, then you are a victim of emotional blackmail and should read this book. I read it, and it made so much sense to me, it was like I was seeing clearly for the first time in my life. This, along with therapy for only a couple months, really helped me change my life, release me from this blackmail, and in the end, the blackmailer "got over it" and I now have just as good - actually much better - relationship with her than before. My therapist read the book and is now recommending it to other people like me. Thanks to Susan Forward for writing this book! Do yourself a favor and read it!

I am an emotional blackmailer, I just had no idea until I read this book. It was suggested to me by my soon to be ex- husband who couldn't take it anymore. I thought I was being strong and standing my ground and this book helped me to see that I was emotionally bullying other people. I beleived I was always right and no human being can be. It also helped me to see that it doesn't matter if you are wrong or right, making another person feel as if they must agree with you or they are "bad" is not OK. I was using the behaviors descibed in the book to protect myself from being hurt and have hurt sooooo many others in the process. If you're a person who always feels like a victim or have no idea why so many people don't like you when you think you're such a wonderful person READ IT!!!

This book does a very clear job of defining emotional blackmail so you can begin to easily spot emotional blackmailers in your life. It then concludes with telling you specifically how to deal with emotional blackmail, that is, how to keep your energy, resources, and sometimes your very soul, from being stolen by them. Something that was particularly important for me personally in the book was the part at the end where she talks about not emotionally blackmailing *yourself*! What an insight! I realized that even when rigid, controlling people are not around to inspire guilt, fear and shame in me to get me to do things that are hurtful to me for their selfish benefit, I have a "voice" in my head that does the job for them, telling me that whatever I do that doesn't fit the world view of past and present blackmailers is "wrong," "selfish," or even "evil." So I beat myself up on behalf of my blackmailers even when they are not around to do it. I also was impressed by the insight that not only does it "take two to tango," that no one can blackmail me if I don't let them, but that it is also possible for me to actually "train" people to blackmail me. This is particularly, true, I think, for those of us raised in rigid, controlling homes with emotionally blackmailing parents. Thereafter, we are, so to speak, fertile ground for any future emotional blackmailers. I had rather been realizing these sorts of things the past few years now that I'm in my 40s (the middle years when we suddenly reevaluate our whole life), and gradually eliminating emotional blackmailers from my life, without exactly using that term. (The term I used was ridding myself of people whose presence felt like "being nibbled to death by ducks.") This book has validated my innate human "right" to not be eaten alive by the selfish demands of others. Kudos to Ms. Forward!