What exactly is a guilt trip? It’s an effort by someone else to control your behaviours by making you feel regret and think negatively about yourself if you don’t do what they tell you to do. It’s effective simply because we don’t want to disappoint important people in our lives.
Guilt trips are a form of coercion or psychological manipulation. Guilt tripping is indirect and manipulative, and surprisingly works by making people feel bad about themselves.
Guilt trips are a form of verbal or nonverbal communications in which a guilt inducer tries to induce guilty feelings in a target, in an effort to control their behaviours. This make guilt trips a clear form of psychological manipulation and coercion.
Guilt tripping is classic passive-aggressive behaviour because it indicates an inability, or at least an unwillingness to communicate in a healthy and constructive way.
"Guilt tripping is indirect and manipulative, and surprisingly works by making people feel bad about themselves."
Guilt trips is the projection, "pathological certainty," and lack of self-awareness of the guilt trippers. Even when you’ve done nothing wrong, the other person might imply the situation is somehow your fault. They make their unhappiness clear and leave it to you to find a way of fixing the problems. It’s their way of projecting their insecurities and concerns and dump the blame on you.
It's not a bad thing to express your feelings and concerns when you feel hurt or upset by someone else's behaviour, but when you start to become passive aggressive and manipulative about it, that's when it becomes a problem.
Guilt tripping also doesn't require the same vulnerability as directly sharing your hurt and how you're feeling. It's shaming the other person, making comments that make the other person feel bad, sort of blaming and attacking — and so in that way, I don't think there's ever an appropriate or OK situation to guilt trip. It's always going to be a harsh way of treating the other person.
People have various reasons and motives behind their conduct. Besides personal gain and manipulation of others, guilt trips could be rooted in neediness and insecurity. By manipulating and mistreating others, the guilt tripper may get a rush or a sense of power. Deep down, they know feeling superior is also quite fleeting. Abusing other people never breeds genuine happiness.
"It’s their way of projecting their insecurities and concerns and dump the blame on you."
Guilt tripping is more about making someone feel bad or guilty for their behaviour. That said, dark personality types like narcissists and other toxic people will often use both of these manipulation tactics freely and without remorse.
Guilt trips and gaslighting have been used interchangeably but gaslighting and guilt-tripping are not the same things. They are both forms of manipulation. They can both be forms of emotional abuse. However, gaslighting differs from guilt-tripping in that the intention of gaslighting is to deny another person’s reality, whereas the intent of guilt-tripping is to induce guilty feelings. Nevertheless, guilt-tripping can be a form of gaslighting if the message being communicated denies the other person’s reality, but not all gaslighting is guilt-tripping.
Most people who attempt to inflict guilt upon others are incredibly calculating and conniving; they know exactly what they’re doing and are used to wielding guilt as a weapon to get what they want from others. For many, guilt trips are often viewed as a type of bullying.
"Gaslighting differs from guilt-tripping in that the intention of gaslighting is to deny another person’s reality, whereas the intent of guilt-tripping is to induce guilty feelings."
If you’ve caved to your colleague’s hints that you owed her a favour and ended up working late even though you were exhausted, or you’ve given in to your partner’s (or child’s) insistence that you spend time or money on them that you had planned just for you, you were probably sent on a guilt trip.
A self-inflicted guilt trip can occur when someone engages in negative self-talk and makes themselves feel guilty about something they haven’t done or have failed to do properly. For instance, you may tell yourself that you should have spent more time with your loved one over the weekend. This type of guilt trip can happen when you are feeling especially stressed, and it is also common among people who have incredibly high standards or who are perfectionists by nature.
Guilt-tripping is, in effect, a form of emotional blackmail. But it is typically an unconscious process whereby the guilt-tripper feels entitled and innocent of any misdeed. On the receiving end, it feels like an oppressive intangible force that invisibly intrudes into our personal spaces confusingly and frustratingly, bolstered by plausible deniability and reversal of blame.
Guilt trips might be the bread and butter of many families' communications, but they are rarely as benign as we think. Guilt trips frequently induce not just strong feelings of guilt but equally strong feelings of resentment toward the manipulator. This could prompt the target to retaliate.
What allows guilt trips to succeed despite the resentment they cause is the nature of the relationships that usually exists between the two parties. Guilt trips occur most often in close family relationships (or close friendships) because if the target didn’t have strong feelings of caring and affection for the guilt inducer, their resentment and anger at having their feelings manipulated would likely override their guilty feelings and cause them to resist the manipulation.
And so it goes when guilt is used unconsciously to get loved ones to do what we want and “feel our pain” – though it does not always produce the intended result.
The closer we are to someone, the likelier we are to feel emotional attachments which can consequently engender vulnerabilities to guilt trips.
Guilt trips often happen in close relationships (family, friends, some co-workers) where you care about your connection as well as the person’s feelings and how your behaviour affects them. That care is what a guilt-tripper zeroes in on. When they “guilt-trip” you, they’re using your emotional bond to manipulate you into doing something.
Guilt trip manipulation typically occurs in our closest relationships, such as those with a spouse, romantic partner, parent, or close friend. Put simply, guilt tripping occurs when one person uses guilt as a tool to make the other feel bad so that the other person will change their behaviours.
For example, if your partner has to work late instead of coming home and hanging out with you, you might guilt trip them by saying that you always make a point to come home on time for dinner, but they never do. If your partner forgets to unload the dishwasher, you may make them guilty by listing all the chores that you’ve done around the house over the day.
Guilt-tripping is a problematic way of communicating. The guilt-tripper may have trouble expressing their needs directly, or they may feel at a disadvantage in the relationship. Guilt tripping might be a way to show dissatisfaction with you without simply saying so.
"Our guilt around our own needs makes us guilt trip other people."
Guilt-tripping may take many forms, from criticism to passive-aggression to playing the victim. It may also be communicated with sighs, shrugs, other negative body language or the “cold shoulder”, that is flat out ignoring you.
Some other ways to recognise a guilt trip, is if you have these experiences:
You cannot say no without severe consequences.
You’re always the one to blame when something goes wrong.
The other person questions your love or loyalty or compares you to people who they think are doing better.
There are plenty of reasons that people resort to guilt tripping, whether subconscious or very much conscious. A lot of the time, it's simply the "easiest" option, compared to actually being vulnerable and stating your needs and feelings in a direct way.
Sometimes people want sympathy, sometimes they want to manipulate your behaviour, and sometimes they may just be looking for attention. But the key is they're not willing to be outright about what they're wanting from the interaction.
Often, when we feel that something is wrong but we don't feel that we have a right to ask for what we want, we use guilt tripping or other passive-aggressive behaviour instead. In other words, our guilt around our own needs makes us guilt trip other people.
When someone runs a guilt trip on you, you may feel stressed for saying no under pressure, or resentment for saying yes and feeling manipulated. You may start to avoid the person and any chance of discomfort from an impossible request. That avoidance can contribute to more stress and anxiety
Causes of guilt tripping
Guilt tripping can be seen as a form of manipulation, or a tool that people use to get others to give in or see things their way. Here are some possible causes:
Hurt feelings
Anger over someone not getting their way
Difficulty expressing emotions
Communication problems
Desire to control the partner
Feeling unequal in the relationship
Having grown up in a family where guilt-tripping was common.
Impacts of guilt tripping
Guilt trips carry a negative connotation, but they are not always bad. Guilt can be a force for good. When you worry about losing a connection, you’ll take steps to make amends when you’ve hurt or offended someone. Guilt is a powerful motivator and may encourage people to follow through on desirable and helpful behaviours.
Positive impacts of guilt might include:
Environmental conservation
Safe sex
Decreased substance use and increased sobriety
Charitable giving
Dental hygiene
Even though the intention of the guilt trip may be to create prosocial outcomes, the effects may backfire. Not all guilt trips are equal, so the impact can range from creating mild discomfort to a severe reaction that results in permanent damages.
Negative impacts of guilt trips include:
Strained, difficult, and undesirable relationships
Long-term feelings of guilt and shame that extend beyond the relationship
Avoidance of the source of the guilt trip due to resentment and anger
New or worsening mental health conditions like anxiety and depression fueled by the guilt
Guilty feelings about specific roles and identities, like being a mom, parent, caregiver or survivor
It’s also important to remember that the negative impacts may not have a lot to do with the degree of the guilt trip. Some people will be more prone to the ill-effects of a guilt trip due to their past or the relationship with the other person.
Types of guilt trips
Several types of guilt can show up in a relationship, but all of them have the same goal: making a person feel ashamed so they will give in to what the other person wants.
Moral guilt
Let’s say that your partner doesn’t agree with your decision to go for a night out with friends over the weekend, and would rather you stay home.
They may give you a lecture about drinking and partying not being “right” to try to make you feel guilty and cancel the outing. Moral guilt occurs when someone tries to convince you that your decision or way of doing things is immoral and that their way is superior.
Guilt trips can also be a way of getting someone to engage in a behaviour that the individual feels is more moral or “right.”
Sympathy-seeking
Acting as if they have been harmed is another way guilt trippers may make someone feel guilty. The guilt tripper will talk at length about how the other person’s behaviour has hurt them, hoping that they will feel ashamed and change their behaviour out of sympathy for their wrongdoings.
In some cases, guilt-tripping allows the individual to gain the sympathy of others by casting themselves in the role of someone who has been harmed by the actions the other person is supposed to feel guilty about.
Manipulation
Sometimes, the primary goal of a guilt trip is to manipulate someone into doing something that they normally would not want to do.
Guilt tripping in relationships can sometimes take the form of simple manipulation, in which one person strategises to make the other person feel guilty, so that person will feel obligated to do something that they would not normally do. This allows the guilt tripper to ensure that they get their way.
Avoiding Conflict
This form of guilt tripping may show up as the guilt tripper appearing visibly upset, but insisting that nothing is wrong. The intention here is that the other person will pick up on the guilt tripper’s emotions, feel bad, and change their behaviours.
In other cases, people may use guilt trips to avoid directly talking about an issue. It allows them to get what they want without having to engage in direct conflict.
10 signs of guilt tripping
1. Degrading comments
Instead of asking nicely for your help with the bills for example, a guilt tripper may try to get you to step in by listing how much money they’ve spent and making a snide comment about you paying nothing. This makes you feel guilty as if you have not done your fair share.
2. Sarcasm about your behaviour
Guilt trip manipulation can also involve sarcastic statements disguised as a joke but are a ploy to get you to feel guilty.
3. Using the silent treatment
Perhaps you and your significant other have fought. Instead of having a mature discussion to resolve the issue , your partner may give you the silent treatment for the rest of the day, making you feel guilty for your role in the disagreement.
They hope that you will give in, apologise first, and give them their way.
4. Listing your mistakes
A classic way of making someone feel guilty is telling them all that they have done wrong. When you try to discuss a concern with a friend or loved one, they may come back at you by telling you every mistake you’ve made in the past. This makes you feel guilty and takes the focus off of their current mistake.
5. Making you feel guilty about favours
If someone approaches you and asks you to perform a favour, but you are legitimately unable to do so, they may make you feel guilty by listing every favour they’ve ever performed for you, hoping that the guilt will be enough to make you change your priorities for them.
6. Keeping tabs on what you owe
Typically, in a healthy long term relationships, it involve partners doing things for each other without keeping tabs or attempting to level the playing field. This means that if your partner does a favour for you, there is no expectation that you must give them something equal in return.
With guilt tripping in relationships, on the other hand, your partner may keep track of all they have done for you and suggest that you owe them something in return.
7. Displaying passive-aggressive behaviours
Passive-aggressive guilt tripping typically takes the form of a person appearing visibly angry or upset but denying that anything is wrong.
8. Inducing guilt through body language
Guilt tripping in relationships may also look like a person sighing loudly or slamming objects down, hoping that you will recognise that you’ve upset them and then feel guilty.
9. Ignoring
Sometimes, a person who is using guilt may try to make you even guiltier by ignoring your efforts to solve a problem you’re having. Maybe there has been a disagreement, and you’re legitimately trying to have a conversation to move past it. A guilt tripper may refuse to engage in the conversation to make you feel even worse.
10. Making direct comments
Finally, guilt tripping in relationships can sometimes be very direct. For example, a guilt tripping partner may say, “I do things for you all the time,” or, during casual conversation, they may ask, “Remember when I spent RM 1,000 on your birthday?”
How guilt tripping affects relationships?
People who use guilt-tripping likely do so because of the effects of guilt on a person’s behaviour. Guilt trippers have learned that guilt is a powerful motivator and that people in their lives will change their behaviours if they are made to feel guilty.
1. Resentment
While guilt tripping may help people to get their way, at least in the short term, over the long term, it can cause serious damage to relationships. The guilt trip examples above can result in a person feeling resentment for their partner over time. The victim of guilt tripping may feel as if their partner does nothing but try to make them feel bad, damaging a relationship.
2. Feeling manipulated
A person who is repeatedly guilt tripped may also begin to feel as if their partner is intentionally manipulating them or playing the victim to get their way. This doesn’t by any means make for a healthy relationship.
3. Things may become further complicated
In some cases, excessive guilt can damage a relationship so severely that the guilt tripped partner does the opposite of what their significant other wants. Feeling demoralised by the constant feelings of guilt, the partner will try to gain back their freedom and self-esteem by doing whatever it is they want to do, instead of what the partner wants.
Making someone feel guilty may motivate them to change their behaviour so that the guilt goes away. Still, ultimately, they are likely to feel manipulated, which damages the relationship and can even lead to its downfall if guilt tripping becomes a pattern.
Put the brakes on guilt-trips
Check in with yourself. Does the thought of agreeing to what’s asked give you a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach? Tension in your neck? Ask yourself. Am I being rational? Overly emotional? Am I right in saying I can’t do this? Once you’ve answered those questions, you can make a clear-headed decision without any guilt about whether you want to do what’s being asked.
Call it as you see it
Let the person know that you know the issue must mean a great deal to them because they’re trying to make you feel guilty for saying no. Tell them that you don’t want to feel stressed for saying no or resentment for saying yes, so stop the pressure. Perhaps start by saying something like this, “I don't like to do things out of guilt because it makes me feel resentful. I like to do things because I feel led to it and I know it is what I'm supposed to do.”
Rewind and start again.
Ask them to ask you directly, without the criticism or the tugging at your emotions.
Tell them to respect your right to say no.
This is important for the sake of your relationship. Let them know that when and if you ever say yes, it will be because you really want to, and not because you feel forced to do so.
Deflect a trippy request with love and kindness.
Affirm the guilt tripper’s value to you by letting them know that you love, care for, and value them and what’s important to them.
When a partner repeatedly guilt trips you, it can lead you to feel angry and resentful, which ultimately damages the relationship. If guilt tripping has become an ongoing problem, there are some ways to respond.
Listen empathetically
When someone is guilt tripping you, there is typically an underlying motive. For instance, they may be hurt but unsure of how to communicate that. Listen to what they are trying to say, and ask some additional questions to get to the root of the problem. And they may eventually unveil the actual problem and talk to you about it.
If you can get to the root of the guilt trip, you will be better able to arrive at a solution that doesn’t involve your partner manipulating you or shaming you into changing your behaviour.
Communicate how you feel
If you want to figure out how to stop someone from guilt tripping you, you’re going to have to communicate your feelings. Once guilt tripping has become a pattern in your relationship, it’s time to express to your partner how guilt tripping makes you feel. It’s possible that your partner isn’t aware that they’re guilt tripping, but clearly stating your feelings can alert them to the issue.
You may have to set firm boundaries with your partner if guilt tripping continues to be an ongoing concern. For instance, if you’ve communicated your feelings to your partner and tried to get to the root of guilt tripping, but it continues to crop up in the relationship, it’s probably time to tell them that you’re not going to engage in a conversation if they’re merely going to make you feel guilty.
This is especially necessary if guilt tripping is done as a calculated form of manipulation. So long as you tolerate/enable their behaviour, it will continue, so it might become necessary for you to walk away from a guilt trip manipulation and tell your partner you’ll be happy to discuss the matter when they stop using guilt tripping tactics. If you wish to support them, be a supporter and not an enabler. There’s usually a fine line between the two.
If the above strategies for dealing with guilt trippers have not proven effective, you may have to consider therapy, or in some cases, walking away from the relationship.
Guilt tripping in relationships can allow one person to get what they want from the other, but it is not a healthy way of managing conflict and communication in relationships. If you’ve been a victim of guilt tripping, you may even become quite resentful of your partner.
The best way to deal with guilt trippers is to listen to them and stand up for yourself and your feelings. Ask them what may be bothering them, but at the same time, communicate that the guilt trip manipulation makes you feel lousy.
Suppose guilt tripping has become an ongoing problem. In that case, a therapist may get to the root of the issue and help the guilt tripper develop healthier ways of communicating and managing relationships.
If you’re struggling with guilt tripping in relationships, a therapist can help you and your partner learn healthier communication strategies. Therapy can also be a safe space for discussing and overcoming issues from childhood that have led to guilt tripping behaviour.
If you’ve been a victim of guilt tripping, talking with a therapist can help you overcome guilt and shame. If you struggle with guilt alongside a mental health condition like depression, a therapist can help you devise new coping methods.
If you are experiencing feelings of guilt or related symptoms of anxiety, stress, or depression, talk to your health care provider or a mental health professional. They can recommend treatment options such as psychotherapy or medications that can help manage symptoms and improve the quality of your life.
Your doctor or therapist may suggest a type of therapy called cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), which may help reduce inappropriate guilt feelings. This type of therapy can help you identify and change the negative thoughts and cognitive distortions that can contribute to feelings of guilt.
Your therapist can also help you learn to recognise the signs of a guilt trip—and help you practice strategies to cope with this type of emotional manipulation.
For support in facing guilt-trips, or if you have other concerns and do not know where to start, PlusVibes professional counsellors or volunteer crisis responders are available 24/7.
By checking in with yourself, setting boundaries, and communicating directly and with grace, you can stop a guilt trip while preserving your sense of self and protecting your relationship. If you or someone you know has thoughts of death or suicide, having difficulties coping, or simply in need of someone to talk to, you can call Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service (03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392) Talian Kasih (15999 or WhatsApp 019-261 5999), Befrienders Kuala Lumpur (03- 7627 2979) or contact a medical professional, loved one, friend, or hospital emergency room.
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