"Emotional Blackmail"

This was a hugely helpful quote for me to ruminate on these last few days. I needed to hear these words and have Seth convince me that the applied to a particular friendship/interaction with a friend. (But now to decide what to do in light of my realization I have been emotionally blackmailed...)

Emotional blackmail happens when a person equates his or her emotional pain with another person’s failure to love. They aren’t the same. A person may love well and the beloved still feel hurt, and use the hurt to blackmail the lover into admitting guilt he or she does not have. Emotional blackmail says, ‘If I feel hurt by you, you are guilty.’ There is no defense. The hurt person has become God. His emotion has become judge and jury. Truth does not matter. All that matters is the sovereign suffering of the aggrieved.

[http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/gospeldrivenchurch/2015/03/23/piper-on-emotional-blackmail-in-the-church/]