Unfreedom: When Your Choices Revolve Around Someone Else’s Control

A SCARS Institute Scam Victim Recovery Insight

You probably associate freedom with having choices. You decide whom to speak with, how to spend your time, and what to do with your money.

During a relationship scam, you still performed many of those actions yourself. Looking back, that fact becomes a source of painful confusion: if you made the decisions, how did someone else control you? Why wasn’t it your fault if you made the decisions?

The framework for understanding this experience comes from political philosopher Philip Pettit, particularly his books “Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government” and “Just Freedom: A Moral Compass for a Complex World“. Pettit develops an older philosophical understanding of freedom as protection against domination. Within that framework, “unfreedom” describes your dependence on another person who holds uncontrolled power over your choices. Applying his philosophy to relationship scams helps explain how a criminal manipulates the circumstances in which you make decisions.

What “Unfreedom” Means

Pettit’s contribution concerns freedom as non-domination, rather than the invention of the word unfreedom. In practical terms, you need secure independence from another person’s uncontrolled power. Occasional kindness does not provide that protection when the other person retains the power to interfere whenever they choose. (https://ppettit.scholar.princeton.edu)

Applied to a relationship scam, this perspective directs attention toward your ability to question, refuse, and seek independent information. You retain agency, but you exercise it within conditions the criminal has manipulated. Understanding those conditions explains the exploitation without turning your participation into responsibility for the deception.

Imagine being told that someone you love needs money for emergency treatment. You believe that refusing means leaving that person in danger. You transfer the money because you care. The criminal has manufactured the emergency and misrepresented what your decision means, making an act of protection serve an act of theft. Which is exactly what happened.

How Your Choices Become Constrained

The pressure sometimes develops through apparently loving explanations. You are asked to keep the relationship private because others will misunderstand. You are discouraged from questioning an inconsistency because trust supposedly requires acceptance. Your need for time becomes evidence that your commitment is inadequate.

As these conditions accumulate, ordinary decisions acquire penalties. Taking an evening away from messages brings accusations. Declining a payment brings withdrawal or another emergency. Consulting your family threatens the supposed future you have been promised. You begin weighing your decisions against the reaction you expect.

You still see options, but some now appear emotionally unbearable. Refusal seems cruel, delay seems dangerous, and disagreement seems likely to destroy something precious. The criminal benefits from narrowing the choices you feel able to make. Romance scammers deliberately build trust and then introduce fabricated requests and pressure for money.

You may notice that these same situations also apply in coercive relationships with real people too.

When You Begin Anticipating the Demands

Control becomes especially difficult to recognize when you start adjusting your behavior before receiving an instruction. You check your telephone because you expect criticism for missing a message. You rehearse an explanation for spending time with someone else. You leave a question unasked because earlier questions brought anger or emotional withdrawal.

At that point, anticipated consequences influence your behavior even during quiet periods. You spend energy preventing a reaction rather than evaluating what you actually want. An affectionate conversation brings relief partly because you have avoided another conflict. The absence of a demand during that conversation does not establish that the controlling arrangement has ended.

Your affection also deserves recognition. You were responding to a relationship that held meaning for you, while the criminal used that meaning for exploitation. Understanding unfreedom requires examining that unequal arrangement rather than treating love, hope, or cooperation as evidence of personal failure.

A Practical Version of the Eyeball Test

Pettit’s eyeball test concerns your standing in relation to another person. It asks whether you have reason to fear their power or defer to them because of it. The image concerns equality and security, rather than your literal ability to maintain eye contact.

For a relationship, an adapted question is: Do you have a secure ability to question, refuse, and make independent decisions without intimidation or manufactured punishment? You deserve room to verify a claim, protect your resources, maintain other relationships, and reconsider an agreement. Your independence should survive the expression of a reasonable disagreement.

This does not promise a life without disappointment. You and another person will sometimes want different things. The distinction concerns whether you negotiate those differences with respect or face a pattern that makes submission the price of keeping the relationship.

Note that having freedom does not automatically mean that it does not come with consequences. If you behave in a way others do not like, you have the freedom to do it, and they have the freedom to exclude you.

Why Ending Contact Does Not Resolve Every Feeling

After discovery, you sometimes continue expecting the old consequences. You feel guilty for ignoring a message or anxious about protecting your money. You recognize the deception while still longing for the reassurance associated with the fabricated relationship. Those reactions deserve understanding rather than another accusation against yourself.

The criminal’s access and the effects of your experience require separate attention. Ending communication interrupts one route of influence, while recovery addresses the distress and expectations that remain. Persistent fear does not prove that the criminal still controls every choice you make, and continued attachment does not require renewed contact.

If distress persists or interferes with your daily life, seek assessment from a licensed mental health professional experienced in trauma. Difficulty concentrating, disrupted sleep, and repeated thoughts about what happened are reasons to discuss your needs. Professional help supports an appropriate response to those difficulties.

Rebuilding Independence Through Practice

Begin with manageable decisions that restore your participation in everyday life. Choose when to put your telephone aside, preserve time for a trusted relationship, and write down a question before making a commitment. When a request creates urgency, pause and establish what independent evidence supports it. Practice gives your understanding somewhere concrete to operate.

Your recovery relationships should also support your independence. A therapist or support provider offers guidance, explains its purpose, and makes room for questions. Difficult feedback sometimes belongs within helpful care, but accountability applies to the provider as well as to you. Respectful guidance helps you develop judgment and participate in decisions about your recovery.

You do not need to erase every anxious feeling before taking a considered step. You need enough support, reliable information, and practical protection to make that step manageable. Rebuilding freedom means gaining a more secure ability to act according to your values, examine consequences, and change your mind. Your future deserves decisions that no longer revolve around preserving a criminal’s approval.

Excellentia Per Scientia.™

Prof. Emeritus Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. DFin.
SCARS Institute ™
Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
Scientific Center for the Analysis and Research into Scams™
October 2026