The silent treatment is not only silent, but can be deadly. Deadly, that is, to relationships. Deadly, more specifically, to the trust, love, safety, communication and intimacy that preserve and nourish relationships.
The silent treatment (also known as stonewalling) entails a partner’s (the silencer) passive-aggressively refusing to communicate with the other (the silenced). Unlike avoidance (a conflict-aversion defense), the silencer deploys the silent treatment with toxic purposes in mind.
The silencer’s aim is, above all, to silence communication. More specifically, it is to render the other invisible and, in so doing, induce in the “other” feelings of powerlessness and shame. (Note that the experience of powerlessness often evokes shame.)
The silent treatment is a statement of contempt, relating, “You aren’t worth the energy it would take me to acknowledge your existence, let alone your feelings or needs.”
The silent treatment tactically communicates, You have done something wrong, seriously wrong—wrong enough to warrant my repudiation of your existence.
Its message is menacing and extortive—menacing in its implicit accusation of guilt, and extortive in the lose-lose proposition it makes: either you confess to a “crime” (against the silencer) you may be unaware of having committed (a degrading concession), or, if you don’t, the silencer continues to blot you out.
The silent treatment is a technique of torture. This may sound hyperbolic, but human beings need (on the most basic level) recognition of their existence. The withholding of this recognition, especially if protracted, can have soul-warping consequences on personality. (Just consult attachment theory for proof of this.)
It is deeply disturbing to be silenced (stonewalled), especially by someone you love, or someone you believe (or want to believe) loves you. The silent treatment aims, therefore, to exploit a very deep, elemental vulnerability.
Understandably it is the kind of vulnerability from which one desperately wants relief. And the controlling, abusive silencer holds the cards—he can provide relief by deciding if, and when, to reinstate his recognition of your existence.
However, like many abusers, he may require something of you first–namely, your capitulation. From the silencer’s perspective, “capitulation” may involve his metaphorically bringing you to your knees, meaning he may demand that you appeal to, plead for and/or beg his forgiveness as a condition of his readmitting you into his good graces.
As noted, you may feel coerced into admitting something you didn’t do, say or mean. This, after all, is how false confessions occur: the accused feels so exhausted, disempowered and helpless to be heard against the monolithic accuser that, simply to escape the hell of being disbelieved, she relents (and confesses).
Or else she may begin to wonder, under the prolonged, accusatory assault, whether she’s crazy; whether maybe she is, in fact, guilty of a crime that not too long ago she was mystified and/or outraged to be accused of.
As I suggested in The Pathological Self-Confidence of the Sociopath, it’s not so hard to jar the confidence of, and foment doubt in, others. While we invest some degree of trust in our perceptions, that trust can be surprisingly fragile. Because we tend to be built with more uncertainty than certainty, we are prone, especially facing another’s prolonged, implacable invalidation, to feel self-doubt rising like flood-waters.
The abusive individual, whether narcissistic or sociopathic, exploits this natural psychological frailty. For this reason (and others) he will prize the silent treatment for its capacity to sow insecurity, dread, even terror, in its intended target.
(My use of “he” throughout this, and other, posts is a convenience and not to suggest that women are incapable of the behaviors discussed. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
DEAREST GOOD GRIEF,
I am saying the following from my own pain and experience. When you are ready you will listen , understand, and agree. If it takes more pain and betrayal for you to see the light – well I can assure you there is more to come – much, much more – in fact a lifetime if you like. You could probably convince her to get back together – when it suits her she will. And when it suits her she will leave again, and again and again.
FOR 22 YEARS I HAVE LIVED THIS – ARE YOU LISTENING?????
And my kids lived it – and will for the rest of their lives!!!!
LAst night my daughter was so depressed I would not leave her alone in the house and made her take the drive to my counseling session. Thank God , my AWESOME counselor agreed with no prior notice to take her for the session and talk to her. THANK GOD!!!!! I could not stand the pain she was in – and she can’t even sort it out or identify it.
My house is re-mortgaged to the hilt – was paid off.
He is selling evrything to pay off HIS DEBT – even though the lawyers are fighting it out.
Now he has put the shore house up for sale – the ONE asset we have after 22 years – and I WORKED FOR ALL OF IT TOO!!!
WE ARE IN DEBT _ TO SEVEN FIGURES – AND NONE OF IT IS FROM ME!!!!
Are you LISTENING>>>>>>NO ONE!!!
Get yourself a woman who will LOVE YOU – not someone you have a built a fantasy around.
I’ve done it and now have to undue the damage at %@....... years old with two kids to raise.
Go look for some of my other posts.
No one here means you any harm – this is a place of healing!!!
But I myself just changed counselors to get my own ass in gear – get the love out and sense in!!!
And it’s working…go read all of Steve Becker’s articles – he is an awesome guy and full of compassion.
But he won’t let you hide your head in the sand anymore…
and he’ll help you figure out why you even want to.
Good grief,
Saying it with love and prayers………..
“You are out – stay out. I wasted 22 years and not one of his dramas of love and reconciliation were sincere!!!!”
Now he will devastate me financially – since he left he is so VILE AND CONTEMPTUOUS and have never seen him like this.
It gets worse.
REBUILD YOUR LIFE- MOVE ON
GoodGrief,
This letter is journaling. It feels like you’re writing to her, but what you’re really doing is getting your feeling and thoughts down on paper. This is really good for you to do.
When I was journaling my way through my recovery, I wrote hundreds of letters to my ex. In the beginning, they were a lot like what you’ve written here. Reasonable, loving attempts to reestablish friendly contact with some hope of rebuilding the love. I tried to do it with while holding onto some dignity for myself, and not seeming too needy. And I tried to say things that would remind my ex of what was good between us, hoping to trigger his feelings.
Later, as my feelings and thoughts evolved, so did the letters. And I admit that I sent some of these letters to him. But it was never a good idea. The only things that he cared about in reading these letters was whether there was an opportunity to get something he wanted from me, or whether he could use them to bolster up his contention that I was a “crazy ex-girlfriend.” (Important to scare his current girlfriend away from talking to me, and to counteract my efforts to keep him out of my industry.)
So what I’m saying here is write away. You seem to have the impulse to do this, and it’s really a good thing to help speed your recovery. “Thinking on paper” helps us see what’s going on with us. Sometimes, if you take a look at something you’ve written a week later, you see it in an entirely different way. And especially, you can see what you’re doing in the letter — what your emotional condition really is, what you’re trying to get from the other person, and how it matches up with some of the hard realities of the situation.
My recollection from the other posts is that you have quite a story with this woman. I did too with my ex. A really powerful mixture of great moments and hellish ones that were very hard for me to reconcile. I was always on an emotional rollercoaster, right until the end, and then for sometime afterwards. One of the oddities of these relationships is that, after their gone, we find that we almost don’t even need them around to stay on that rollercoaster. We’re in love with them; we hate them. We want them. We want to run away. We’re angry. We’re forgiving. It’s like some big spoon stirred our emotional systems and everything’s up in the air.
Which is another reason why it’s good to write it out. There’s a lot of dissonance inside of us, conflicting ideas and feelings that make it almost impossible to think straight. For a lot of people, like me and maybe you, writing makes it easier to start looking at those contradictions. For me, it was looking at moments.
Like, when he moved in the last time, he said he was researching places we could live — like in the Caribbean or the south of France — where the age difference wouldn’t matter, and I was feeling optimistic and happy. Before the week was out, he was sneering a me and giving me reasons why he couldn’t possibly be involved with someone like me, and I was starting to cringe every time he walked into the room.
Writing helped me put these things beside each other, so I could look at them. Maybe not understand him, but at least understand why I felt so disoriented. And why I longed for him and was scared of him at the same time.
Later I used writing to figure out whether or not he was a “bad person,” something I needed to know at some point. I think because I was so used to feeling responsible for whether he was okay, and I needed a reason to stop feeling that way.
At some point, I used writing to figure out why loving him was a really bad idea. I think I made a list of everything I had lost in that relationship. Money. My business. Homes I loved. Friends. Self-respect. The feeling that I was attractive or anyone would ever care about me again. That was at the verge of finally getting angry.
And it went on, but I did it all in letters to him. I know other people journal in other ways, but this was how I did it. They’re all in a file now, the history of my progress of getting free of him and then turning myself into a person who — finally! — was figuring out how to make myself happy, rather than depending on someone else to make me happy.
So, my advice would be to write away. Write her as much as you want, but don’t send them. (Make a rule that you can’t send anything for one or days after you write it, no matter how tempted you might be to push the “send” button. Then stash it in the “drafts” file. If you’re like me, the next day, you’ll be writing a whole new letter to stash in the drafts file.)
When you get to the point that you can write, “I want more from a relationship than you can offer. It was a mistake to get involved with you. Don’t contact me again,” you might be ready to send a letter. But at that point, you probably won’t bother.
The truth is you do deserve more. You might not see that right now, but you will. In the meantime, it might be more useful to work on yourself and figure out why you don’t believe you deserve more, than trying to re-recruit this woman who made your miserable.
Kathy
Dear Good grief,
You are obscessing and ruminating over this woman continually, she is alive and well IN YOUR HEAD. All the things you say to her are still to try, I think, to get “closure” or to have her “see the light and come back”
THE LIGHT IS THAT SHE DOES NOT WANT YOU. She used you.
Right now, you do not want to believe that, but it is the TRUTH. Her ACTIONS tell the truth.
Since she is NOT contacting you, what makes you think she wants to hear from you? Or would value what you wanted to say? Or gives a big rat’s behind what you think? She doesn’t. She is DONE WITH YOU. she got what she needed and now she is moving on with someone else. Somewhere else.
You have been duped and dumped, devalued and discarded. That is a hard HARD thing to accept, but it is true.
Keep on writing your letters until you are bored with them. I worte letter by the dozen to my P son, my egg donor, and thank god I didn’t mail or send most of them. The ones I did simply bit me in the arse.
DO NOT try to contact her, she doesn’t care or want to hear from you. The truth. Not pretty, not nice, but the truth! (((hugs)))) and my prayers for you GG.
OXY,
Glad you chimed in. I put in my 2 cents this morning because it is so raw for me too – but through Steve’s counseling and you folks at L/F – the light is making it’s way through.
Of course the N/S ‘s recent stunts are infuriating as to his callousness.
MATT
Where are you?????????
HE HAS NOW PUT THE SHORE HOUSE UP FOR SALE!!!!!!!!!!!!
S O S !!!!!
Goodgrief:
I can so relate to your letter….I’ve written several just like them myself AND sent them! Let me tell you where it got me….28 continued years of what you feel now. Desperation, yearning, just knowing we could have something good IF YOU ONLY could SEE IT, and now a nasty divorce (that I never wanted) that involved kids and investing 28 years of my life….The majority.
I wrote my letters to manipulate him into ‘seeing’ it, getting the S back at any costs, trying to reach a heartstring…. that was NEVER THERE!
Oh, I reached him….every time…..and every time it ended with the same…PAIN! Prolonged inevitable!
You are in a desperate mode…..That letter is sick and quite frankly a lie (from what you stated here).
You DO CARE WHY IT ENDED. (you try to let her off the hook)
You bring up an old letter she wrote you. (Only to create a familiarity bond for her to hear you).
You bring up your business….(trying to lure her with either money or security of some sort).
You bring up old memories (DUDE, we all have them….she was there with you, she hasn’t forgotten, she doesn’t CARE).
You mention no bad memories and refer to her in a ‘loving-cute’ way as a dumb ass (pure frustration, she DOES’NT think like you)
You try to lure her with mention of your dog and another familiar time. (Your NOT going to bring her back).
Okay ,goodgrief ONE MORE TIME. STOP IT!!!
Or maybe my advice to you should be …go get her, go experience the agony of another round…it’s get’s more painful each time because you add the fact that you took them back and YOU KNEW BETTER.
You WILL feel the pain….either now or later…..YOU WILL FEEL IT, YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE IT!
I’m not a gambler, but I could make a few bucks betting on your future misery if she did take you back, or you could ‘get’ her back. Read some of the old postings….that’s where you’ll be in a few years. GO READ EM…..they are all sad, scary and downright bad. NOTHING GOOD about any of our stories. GET OUT WITH YOUR with your heart, finances and dog….WHILE YOU CAN!!!!
Or….maybe you just need to go back and have regrets later? WHo knows…your in control!
Oh, I do believe you would get a response from your letters, either one…..any of them………….she would give you the response you were looking for….”oh your right, we had so many good memories, Oh, don’t know what I was thinking, I’m just in a weird place right now, I’m sorry for hurting you, Oh’ how can you ever forgive me, Oh, your the best, Oh, I love you more than anyone else, Oh_______fill in the blank, yadayadayadayada” You would allow it to remove the pain and tension in your heart (for NOW)….it would be a relief to you which would allow you to forget it all….UNTIL…….she farchs you over, even better, the next time. You think what your feeling now is overwhelming……wait until the next time!
Gain some self worth, self esteem….YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN THIS GIRL!!!!
Put your effors elsewhere….like on YOURSELF!!!
Are ya happy currently……doesn’t sound like it….ask yourself WHY?
My advice……write letters to yourself….not her…..do not allow yourself to give her an ounce of your head…….you know the truth, you know the facts, you feel the pain……MOVE ALONG! Allow yourself to grow through pain….hard lessons. It does suck….really bad suck….sucks sucks sucks…..nothing good about the feeling….I’m not fooling you……sucks, horrid, desperate, pain, lonliness, BUT ESSENTIAL TO LEARNING, HEALING AND MOVING ON!
Your obsessing and it’s not healthy….we rationalize when we obsess.
You said it yourself…you know not to send it, but your heart say’s to…..
This is the conflict between heart and gut…..currently you MUST listen to your gut and shut your heart out of the equation…..it’s getting you in trouble. Your gut lead you here, to seek out the ‘why’s…continue your journey with your eyes wide open and STOP WRITING THOSE LETTERS KIDDO!!!
In time, you will heal….I assure you.
YOUR REACHING OUT HERE…..you have been seeking advice, you landed here because you were researching the WHY is she…..
OxDrover said:
“You have been duped and dumped, devalued and discarded. That is a hard HARD thing to accept, but it is true.”
Yeah, this is the hardest string of words to accept, but it’s true and to the point. It certainly hurts like hell because you cannot do anything to make these facts different. It is also a blow on the ego (or whatever is left after being with the s).
Good grieff, I can also prepare you for the future; please be strong. There might be more unfanthomable things coming. I am not saying that any of these might happen but just so you know that it’s possible. You might run into your s and she will humiliate you or mock you. Or you might run into her with a new mate, baby on her arms, driving a super car all happy and decked out. All this time you thought you were the one moving forward in life. Then you see the s-ex with this perfectly constructed fake facade and you will feel hurt allover again. You know it’s all a lie, but cannot tell anyone because people would think you have sour grapes (except the people on Lovefraud)
Then bit by bit you realize that this is how the s operates. Use and discards. The new prey will be discarded as soon as he/she does not play along with the s.
Hi Good Grief….
Been off a few days…you crossed my mind…Did he…or didnt he??? WOW! He didnt YET!….Pretty impressive there dude!!! Will he or wont he??? Time will tell…but even your letters are starting to take shape (slowly)…but you are doing what many of us were unable to do….work through this yourself…write it, face it, read, re-read, bounce it off others, reach out to the other side (when all you want is to stay nestled in the safe fantasy of it all)….you are reaching and growing and learning right on the heels of it. No skillet for you yet either!!!! Way to go…
Awesome advice and support… with it comes the need for you to be able to read it and digest that too… Not skim it over or file it away…read it, soak it in with an openness that says these people have been here and done this before…I am in a place of unbelievable opportunity to save myself from years of pain and heartache….or I am in a position to be closed to everyone and everything around me — except my unhealthy addiction or burning desire to win to be right to show her I was right.
Remember you were right in all that you did. But she was wrong in what she did. The end result was a bad toxic relationship for you. One you have a hard time accepting. WE ALL DID. But its (say it with me…..:))….its a process…and Im proud of you for trying to sort out your sense of self – respect and self- value and self- trust mixed in with her total disregard and disrespect and devalue and deceit and mind @.......@@.......@ she did on you.
I also thought if I stated I wasnt mad — he wouldnt feel threatened and read more of my letter..I also made low selfesteem statements in my letter to such as:
What’s in the past is in the past and I personally don’t care and I don’t ever want to talk about it –wtf she has your permission to do it again, you wont care and even better you wont mention it, just deny it!
What’s done is done so whatever. — wtf when you write its done Ill believe that one !!
You showed me your dark side and I’m not scared. I always told you I could handle your ass….–wtf — you may not be scared but you should be saying wow Im willing to go back to and experience more unhealthy craziness and declare to her I can handle whatever she dishes out no matter what it does to my psyche?!! Wow Im willing to live trying to make her happy and give my heart and soul = for nothing in return – except her presence — might wanna be scared about that part of you and seeing why you are willing to sacrifice YOURSELF for THAT GIRL OR ANY GIRL.
just wanted to see if we can pick up where we left off — hmmmm… are you sure about this one> do you remember where you left off? her lying that she was gonna call you — her telling others its over but not telling you — her myspace status….do you really wanna pick up where you left off –the reality part of it that is>
Maybe we can get back to that moneyness (if that’s a word) that we were — Do you mean your money??? or her charging her credit cards and you doing the same to yours FOR HER….moneylessness for you soon enough Good Grief,
I must have done something terribly wrong for you to dislike me so much that you dont want to even know me…. HOLD YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD GOODGRIEF ON COUNT OF THREE IM BOINKING YOU…1, 2, 3,.. BOINKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!! ID LOVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANNA CONVINCE YOURSELF YOU DID WRONG.. AND THEN ID LOVE TO REFRESH YOUR MEMORY OF THE RELATIONSHIP SCORECARD OF RIGHT/WRONG WAY TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP….AND THEN ID LOVE TO REMIND YOU THAT THEY DO WHAT THEY DO CUZ THEY CAN…IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU…SHE DOESNT WANT TO KNOW HERSELF LET ALONE YOU…SHE WANTS FANTASY…FUN…YOUR MONEY…YOUR HONEY…YOUR MOUTH CLOSED…YOUR ARMS OPEN FOR WHEN SHE WANTS TO POP IN AND OUT…SHE ONLY CARES ABOUT HERSELF…IF YOU WANT A CHICK WHO IS A PARASITE IN A RELATIONSHIP… RIGHT NOW SHES THE ONE! HOW CAN YOU SAY THERE ARE NO BAD MEMORIES?? RETHINK THAT AGAIN AND DONT PUSH THEM AWAY – RELIVE THEM CUZ THATS WHAT YOU ARE ASKING TO COME BACK TO YOU — MORE BAD MEMORIES UNLESS YOU SELL YOURSELF SHORT.
“You did things your way (as you always do) and I don’t hold that against you — wtf? who gave her a freepass to rule your relationship
HIGHLIGHTS!!!!!!! BEST PARTS…..FOCUS ON…..ADD MORE…..
I DO FEEL UNDERAPPRECIATED
THIS TIME APART NECESSARY AND GOOD FOR ME
IVE BEEN ABLE TO FOCUS ON ME /MY BUSINESS
YUP, YOU’RE CRAZY! (HER)…
Lastly, Good Grief, Some higher power actually gave you a second chance at life….consider it…long and hard…honestly and truthfully…
Get to know yourself and what you deserve… you did nothing to deserve this…. you hooked up with a toxic bad unhealthy person….life is too short to convince yourself you need to get her back…she will never change….you cant change her….you can only settle for being treated poorly and used and emotionally abused by her.. Choose a second chance at life….you will be SO GLAD YOU DID!!!!
Good Grief:
Now that you understand the sociopath, another subject you need to educate yourself on is the Smear Campaign of the Abuser.
This girl may be running a smear campaign on you right now, unbeknownst to you, of course. She may be calling YOU the crazy-stalker ex-boyfriend.
Based on your posts, there is a disturbing pattern in this girl’s history with men, where all of her ex’s seem to fall into the category of “crazy” and “stalking” her.
What are the odds? And why do you think you will be the exception?
Still want to send that letter?
That’s another thing, you are totaly right Rosa, the smear campaign. It’s not to make you paranoid, but it’s good to be aware of it for your own protection.
You are nothing to the s at this point, except a subject/object of mockery. If you let it be known that you are still thinking about the s, it will give the s tremendous sadistic satisfaction.
Contacting the s will bring NOTHING but shame, humiliation and more hurt.
Please, please Good Grief do not contact the s.
In the eyes of the s, their victim is always the over-reacting, hysterical, obsessive, borderline, stalking one. The s does an excellent job telling all your mutual friends, your in-laws, your children and your parents and siblings.
He will say you are weak, mentally unstable, no longer attractive (let yourself go) obsessed with the relationship. He will say that you base your self worth on the relationship and cannot let go of the honeymoon phase. He will say you have no outside interests.
This is years of years of mental brainwashing, telling you that your friends and family suck. Years of putting you on the pedestal just to cut you down severly with an abusive comment. Years and years of gaslighting, control and survailance on you. But still you are the crazy one!