Stonewalling is when someone shuts you down from communicating. He just “bails” on your efforts at communication, refuses to take you seriously; refuses to engage a discussion of your concerns.
He may ignore or dismiss you, express fatigue with you (and your concerns); he may listen without offering a thoughtful, respectful response, and then credit himself for having listened, perhaps even listened at a length he may complain about.
In any case his unthoughtful, lazy, dismissive, or flat-out non-response to your feelings and concerns captures the essence of stonewalling and will reflect his pure contempt for which he’ll take no responsibility.
Rather, he may depict you as a boring windbag who doesn’t know when to “stop talking,” or who’s always making or looking for “trouble,” without recognizing or owning how his insistent refusal to listen, his determination NOT to listen, actually provokes, passive-aggressively, your very instinct to “talk” and “pursue him” until he gives a meaningful response.
He may flat-out tell you he’s bored by, and uninterested in, the concerns you raise, regardless of how strongly you feel about them, and regardless of how strong your need to discuss them is. It may be that the more urgency you feel to broach your concerns, the more he’ll contemptuously stonewall you.
When your concerns pertain to the relationship itself, his rebuff will feel especially cruel and leave you feeling especially helpless. It will also very likely be dripping with some form of passive-aggressive, if not aggressive, contempt.
Now this is stonewalling, and stonewalling is a nasty, hurtful thing to do to someone; it leaves the stonewalled party feeling as negated as a person can feel.
You don’t have to be a sociopath to stonewall. Plenty of non-sociopaths stonewall. But many sociopaths are stonewallers, and the act of stonewalling itself, especially when it’s intentional, often contains the cold, callous attitude of the sociopath.
The stonewaller’s absence of empathy for the stonewalled party, perhaps even the relish the stonewaller takes in messing with the stonewalled party’s head, in watching her twist and squirm and perhaps make humiliating efforts and bids to be heard—there can be something actually sadistic about this.
Stonewalling will tend to elicit some common feelings in the stonewalled party—among them shame, anger, rage, infuriation, humiliation, desperation (to be heard), helplessness, and a sense of being driven crazy.
Stonewalling, then, is a form of “gaslighting” insofar as it can leave the stonewalled party feeling as if she’s speaking a foreign language inaccessible to the stonewaller even though she knows perfectly well the stonewaller speaks the language, literally, but either refuses to speak it or “acts” like he doesn’t.
This can have a “crazy-making” effect, as if he’s accusing her (as he may very well do) of speaking incomprehensibly.
Stonewallers, whether sociopaths or not, are seriously disturbed communicators. Their indifference to the stonewalled party’s experience, as noted, can be chilling. Their stonewalling often reflects character pathology, in which case they won’t change—they will always be stonewallers.
Stonewallers are destructive partners whom it’s best to avoid, and even leave, for your sanity’s and dignity’s sake. I make this strong suggestion in cases where the stonewaller refuses to assume total and genuine responsibility for his stonewalling, which is not always, but too often is, the case.
You need to stop banging your head against the “wall” (the pun is apt) trying to reach the stonewaller, because he is not reachable. Futility is what you are left feeling again and again, until you feel depressed and hopeless. The futility is not in your head. It is real, and will always be the experience with the stonewaller, who disowns responsibility for the suffering his stonewalling causes you.
Identify the stonewalling partners in your life; if they can’t, or won’t, take charge of their stonewalling, get them out of your life as best, completely and fast as you can.
(This article is copyrighted © 2012 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of the male gender pronoun was strictly for convenience’s sake and not to imply that females aren’t equally capable of the behaviors and attitudes discussed.)
this phrase is great: ‘seriously disturbed communicators’. lots of applicable situations at my former job. Especially the new E.D. SOOO glad to be out of there!
persephone7, i wish you all the strength and wisdom you need to remove yourself from him, irrevocably and forever.
one/joy: Thanks for your wish, it means alot to me. I read what you said to Hens about safety becoming a prison and that “it becomes more painful to stay the same than change.” I think sometimes that’s what it takes to see we’ve let ourselves get pushed into a boring little corner.
I still have financial challenges ahead and decisions to make about my home, also if it would be good to move even temporarily to get back on track. But at least I have options and I’m grateful for that. My heart goes out to NewLife and 20years as they’re in situations where they have to have contact with spath father because of their kids. So I really admire them for their strength in trying to keep their integrity and attitudes intact for themselves and their children.
I’m making an effort right now to get more rest and just be quiet. But I also want to gradually add getting out more. I don’t want to date, I just want to meet some new people and reconnect with old friends I’ve not gotten together with because I’ve been too busy or too depressed when I’m not getting enough contentment or joy back in this relationship.
I googled stone walling and here is what I got, very interesting
Stonewalling consists of:
1. Refusal to negotiate a conflict in good faith
2. Refusal to discuss honestly one’s motivations
3. Refusal to listen to another point of view with openness
4. Refusal to compromise
5. Refusal to collaborate
6. Refusal to support the other person’s plans
7. Refusal to accept influence
Stonewalling is a widely-used strategy in most unsatisfying relationships. Stonewalling alone without any other more coercive tactics probably does not limit the partner so much that a relationship can be termed abusive. That is because someone on the receiving side of stone-walling still has options to end the relationship, or get needs met elsewhere. In a business relationship, stonewalling makes no sense because the other party would just take their business elsewhere.
A clear and definitie “no” may be part of non-cooperation but it is not stonewalling. Part of the deliberate intention of stonewalling is to keep the survivor ‘on the hook’ and not really able to pursue alternatives because the issue is still ‘open’ in some technical sense.
However, in an abusive relationship, isolation and threats are usually present, and the survivor has no safe options to pursue needs except through the primary aggressor. Most ’nagging’ is usually a survivors attempt to overcome stonewalling. In an abusive relationship, stonewalling may become a fundamental tactic, because it is a way to apply pressure that seemingly can’t be confronted, because it is exactly “not doing anything.”
Stonewalling benefits from male privilege, because an uncooperative man will usually still get taken care of by a female partner anyway. A female partner that stops housework or other care for the primary aggressor in response to stonewalling may incorrectly be viewed as “starting something.”
Sometimes, survivors will avoid discussing a primary aggressor’s demand because they are attempting to put together an indirect “no” where a direct “no” is not safe. This is not stonewalling, especially if there is cooperation (or submission) overall. Stonewalling is a complete pattern of non-communication and non-cooperation that only works from a position of power.
Here is the link: http://www.abuseandrelationships.org/Content/Behaviors/stonewalling.html
I have also found stonewalling a tactic that people at work will use rather than cooperate. Not necessarily psychopaths but definitely uncooperative.
persephone, I’m glad you are still here and lurking and also posting. Yes, I remember you, and each of us must make the split in our own time and when we are ready.
I’m glad that Steve’s article gave you some information that you needed to help and guide you toward that split.
Until we finally make the split and DO IT…get out of denial, which causes us to endure, get out of the malignant hope, which causes us to keep on putting up with the stone walling.,…we can’t DO it. We can’t ACT.
I’m glad you mailed his stuff back to him.
Yes, the sores, fever blisters, do come when you are stressed. That virus lies there dormant until stress craps out your immune system and then it attacks.
Keep on with your healing, being good to yourself, and it’s okay to cut the phone off….or change the number. (((hugs)))))
Oxy, thanks for responding – I’m so glad you care enough to still share your thoughts with everyone…I always feel I have this invisible friend I can go to in you. In a way, I’m not happy I am still here yet it has been my lifeline. I’ve done therapy as well with therapist who I don’t think really ‘gets’ these relationships in the way we all do, however he is and has been patient with me, knows me well and essentially told me that ‘this guy is an albatross around your neck’ – and that at the very least, he is disordered and I can never expect a healthy relationship.
So it is a matter of putting away my own insincerity with him in continuing to fight and then be the one to act as if I can still accept, forgive and keep going on with being treated disrespectfully – I’m too smart for that, we all are here! And now age has shown me that my own family’s dysfunction has had huge repercussions in instilling me with some kind of self-disrespect or self-hate. And now i ‘get it’…finally…I’m not perfect but I’m me, unique and still able to give back to others and have a happy life if I get out of my own way and other’s bad energy.
Thanks again, Oxy – I’ll keep reading and am now ACTING more in all areas of my life – sometimes when you do find yourself in a corner, at least you find out you still have options and you can gain confidence from knowing you CAN be your own best friend and advocate by taking action. It did feel good to mail that box…!
All the perpetrator asks is that bystanders do nothing-
Interesting quote from the abuse site.
I’m ruminating on this. Doing something means what?
At some point in the game, there is only one thing to do: GET OUT and that is something only the abused can do.
Until then, people can talk, be there, listen, empathsize and then they have to go about their lives.
At some point we in the escapee position have to realize that the rest of the world can’t stop and that the pace of it can’t slow down for our distress.
Its like pulling onto a freeway, You have to go as fast as everybody else for everyone on the road to be safe.
Healing and getting free takes a lot of energy, courage, counsel, time, money, information and will.
It isn’t easy.
But its always worth it.
Keep your expectations low for others and reasonable for yourself and keep your focus on the goal.
Its the only way.
There is no easy solution.
It took me years. And if I had it to do over again, it would have taken a lot less time.
But, we are too soon old and too late shmart, eh?
Keep going. It will get better.
silvermoon:
Absolutely! Keep your expectations low for others…yep! I have decided that if I do that, I will be much better off. That has always been a problem of mine…I expect as much from other people as I give to them and no way is that how the world works. Good words to remember!
Oxy:
Thanks so much for the Stonewalling definitions. I got the most from the part about keeping the victim “on the hook” and keeping the “options open.” That’s what mine did and even admitted it when I asked him!!
Silvermoon, Amen.
That’s the other thing…I know the world does not revolve around or should have to tolerate my own insanity or weakness in not standing up for myself and walking away. For some time now I have not seen him, only spoken on phone and stayed grey rock till I saw what his actions were, gave myself a deadline. But I haven’t spoken about ‘the relationship’ with friends anymore or with family but they’ve known he was still in the picture, like my ongoing little secret that is actually the ELEPHANT in the room. My therapist said that none of my good efforts in other areas of my life would bear fruit if I stay in this relationship.
‘My man’ said to me once, ‘you talk a good game’ and I know I’ve thought that was a major projection on his part – especially in this last deal-breaking situation with him promising money, day after day. But I also know I have been guilty of not following through at times, usually in my own self interest and I’m doing my best now to be the person who just shuts up and gets things done.