Blackmail is nasty business, whether it’s called leveraging, hardball business or something else. Blackmail uses force or threat of force against you. It is robbery by another name.
I’m being blackmailed into an affair! <<– listen to the audio here
Hello, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here with me today. Today’s podcast is going to be dealing with the question of I’m being blackmailed into an affair, what can I do?
I’ve dealt with the topic of blackmail before and this time it’s a little different. Blackmail is always a nasty business. Whether you want to call it leveraging, hardball, hardball business, or anything else, it’s still nasty. Blackmail also uses force, or the threat of force, against you. It always leaves you feeling helpless, trapped, almost like you’re in a pit or there’s not much you can do.
At least you feel that way. And we’re going to be talking about that today.
Robbery by another name
In my mind blackmail is always robbery by another name. One of the things that separates stealing from robbery is that robbery involves the use of a threat or force against you. In the case of blackmail, force is definitely being used against you.
Blackmail is also another form of bondage or slavery. These days slavery is very much alive and well around the world. With affair blackmail, you’ve got this whole sensation of being trapped, combined with a feeling of powerlessness and being degraded.
It’s a form of being trapped. It’s a type of slavery. You’re being exploited. There’s no two ways about it. If the abuser is belittling you with names on top of what’s going on with the affair it crushes your self-respect along with any sense of decency you had about yourself when you were forced into an affair situation. You feel like you’re being used. It’s like you’re being prostituted out against your best wishes.
Besides having the impact of crushing your self-respect, the abuser or the person who is exploiting you, is counting on you staying weak and powerless. They’ve got you in a trap and they don’t plan on letting you out. The intention is to continue the exploitation, to continue the blackmail, as long as they can keep it going.
Time does not change all things when it comes to blackmail
It is not a situation that if you give it enough time it will change, or if you pay them enough money it’s going to change, or if you just wait it out that things are going to change. No. This is something that you’re going to have to take action on. There’s no two ways about it.
Change the Dynamics
The solution is: You’ve got to change the dynamics. I use the term dynamics to describe this situation because the two of you are in a relationship. That relationship has to change. It cannot stay the way it is. To change the relationship you are going to have to change the balance of power. You’re going to have to change something about that. We’re going to be talking about what you can do. You’ve got to change the dynamics.
1.Find a place where you are safe. It is very hard to break out of a blackmail situation if you’re living in fear. Fear always makes a situation worse.
Before you start trying to change the dynamics you’re going to have to put yourself into a place where you feel safe.
It may be a place where you feel physically safe, it may be a place where you feel mentally safe, but you’re going to have to be in a place where you feel safe. Because that’s where you’re going to have some strength.
If you try to change the dynamics from a position of weakness or a position where you are afraid, that’s where you’re vulnerable and that’s what they know.
It’s going to be hard to come across and appear to be strong when you are experiencing a sense of fearfulness. For that reason you need to find a place where you’re safe.
2. Remove the power of secrecy. Blackmailers count on you keeping secrets. By telling your spouse or other people the secrets lose their power over you. Sometimes it’s almost like they want you to be ashamed of what’s going on and they’re using that against you.
If that no longer has any power over you, or you’re no longer afraid of the secret, they lose some of the leverage that they’ve got over you.
3. Begin rebuilding your power. How you go about rebuilding your power, that’s going to depend a lot on your situation. Since this is a generic question I’ll have to give you generic answers. In some cases it may be by rebuilding your sense of spiritual strength. In some cases it may be you’re going to need to develop some alliances, or learn how to use the alliances that you have formed, or there may have to be other sources.
Each interaction you have with other people, and also with the exploiter, will either increase or decrease your power. You want to be in those situations where they increase your power. Rather than give your power away you want to find ways to increase it.
Whether it be through niceness or developing connections, through having people feel sorry for you, whatever. You’re going to have to learn how to turn situations around, rather than being scared of everyone you meet. You’ve got to find a way to turn the situation around.
It’s not easy being in a situation where you are blackmailed, and each one is going to call for some unique twist on how to get out of it. Because blackmailers are usually experienced in taking advantage of people, and taking advantage of situations, and you’re going to have to learn how to turn the tables on them. That’s what I mean by change the dynamics.
This was a question that came in and I wanted to address it in a podcast. If you have any future questions that you want me to deal with with the Affair Recovery podcast, feel free to let me know and I will respond to them.
I’ve enjoyed meeting with you today and I hope that this answer takes care of your situation and puts you in a better place.
If you want to know more ways of changing relationship dynamics, my Affair Recovery Workshop takes you through ways of making heavy duty changes.
Best Regards,
Jeff
