Some affairs and accusations of affairs are used for exploitation or blackmail. ‘Blackmail’ is a manipulation technique that relies on your reacting out of fear and shame.
Dealing with blackmail affairs <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here with us today. The issue we’re going to be dealing with in today’s session is dealing with blackmail affairs.
This topic came up, people had been asking questions and had concerns about this. “How do I deal with the blackmail type affairs?”
Well, as you know, not all affairs are the same. Some affairs, and along with accusations of affairs, are used for exploitation or blackmail. The term blackmail comes to us from Scotland, of all places. It’s an old Scottish term for protection or hush money.
A lot of times with the gangster and gangster movies we’re familiar with protection money and that whole idea. The term blackmail goes back to this same concept, as it was going down in Scotland, because you would pay your rent and then you would pay your blackmail, or your protection money, to make sure that someone doesn’t burn you off your land.
In terms of affairs, when people work in the government, military, financial, or high-dollar businesses, they’re more vulnerable than other segments of the population. Everyone is potentially vulnerable to a blackmail affair, but these professions and vocations tend to be more vulnerable.
What happens is that the blackmailers use your own fears and they position the affair, essentially, as leverage against you. To where out of your own fear you are in a position of vulnerability and being manipulated and extorted.
This is also a very popular con game. Like for instance if the wife is home and says “Oh, my husband won’t be home for awhile”. They entice their victim, the victim meets with the wife.The husband suddenly comes home and threatens to kill or expose what’s going on unless you give them specified amount of dollars.
This was all a setup, and this type of scam continues. With the blackmail the whole goal is isolating you. They want you to feel all alone, like you can’t talk to anyone.
There’s no one that you can go to. They want you to feel that way. With blackmail, appearances are everything. It is nothing more than an old con game technique.
Con games come from the term confidence game, because they tear away at your confidence. They’re counting on you being afraid and ashamed of what’s going on.
For the con game to work you’ve got to want to hide, and affairs are ideal for that because there is that whole sense of feeling guilty and shameful about what happened. You want to hide it.
I know that not everyone of you who are listening to the call were involved in affairs. You may just be the spouse of someone who was in an affair.
You’re still going to need to know how to deal with this, and many times the confidence game or the blackmail affair could involve you, as well. There’s also the situation where you may not have done anything. You were just dealing with the accusation of an affair. You’re going to have to deal with this.
In terms of a solution to this, rather than run away from it you’re going to need to do the opposite. In other words embrace the crisis. When you embrace the crisis that’s your greatest potential for escaping the situation.
In terms of escaping it there’s several things that you can do.
- In dealing with blackmail affairs you’re going to need to team up with your spouse against the blackmailer. The blackmail affair works by getting you and your spouse fighting against each other. The way out of it? The two of you are going to have to work together against the common enemy of the blackmailers.
This also means you’ll need to come clean with your spouse. You need them now. Telling them the truth rather than hiding it is the best option. They have a vested interest in you and your reputation. When the two of you work together, it neutralizes much of the fear.
2. You’re going to have to make ‘truth’ and ‘consistency’ your friends. Since blackmail operates on fear you’re going to have to use truth to counter it. Secrets will only make it worse, and they are counting on you to try to hide and run.
When you team up with your spouse and instead of running you focus on the truth and you’re consistent with your friends, it’s going to be hard to split that. It also helps when you have a healthy social network where you can be truthful and consistent with them as well.
People that don’t have very close social relationships, they are more vulnerable to this type of affair because they don’t have any type of support system that they can count on. With a blackmail affair you’re going to need a support system, you’re going to need your spouse.
3. Your reputation is your only weapon. You’re going to need to learn how to use it, and you’re going to need to learn how to make it better. If you’re a person that’s in one of those vulnerable professions or vocations and you’ve got a lousy reputation, I can’t give you a whole lot of hope. If you have a good reputation and this is just a false accusation you’ve got a better chance of getting out of the whole blackmail affair situation.
The solution: embrace the crisis, three steps.
Team up with your spouse against the blackmailers, make truth and consistency your friends, and number three your reputation is your only weapon. You’re going to have to learn how to use it because if you’ve got a good reputation as a banker and people know you’re an honest banker, use that.
If you’ve got a reputation as being a sleazy person, like you’re a sleazy realtor or a sleazy car salesman, you’ve got potential problems. That’s why I’m bringing that up.
Blackmail affairs are a tough situation to deal with because you’re dealing not only with the affair, but you’re dealing with the added layers of the fear and the shame thrown in there. People are using this to take advantage of you.
It’s truly a tragic and a tough situation, but it can be gotten rid of and it can be gotten out of. But you’re going to have to work with your spouse rather than work against him in dealing with this.
If your spouse did have the affair, in this situation you may have to set aside your personal grievances until you get through the blackmail phase. Then you can deal with your own personal reactions to the affair and so forth. You’ve got to put out this fire before you move onto that one.
It also helps strengthening your marriage. The tools in the ‘Affair Recovery Workshop‘ will help you and your spouse strengthen your marriage.
Best Regards,
Jeff
