I've got myself a sulker... what to do?!

[24Ls]

Hi everyone! Currently needing a bit of perspective/help on how to deal with a major sulker!

We have been together for almost 3 years - currently in the process of saving for a house (we have saved but just need a final mortgage meeting before we can get the ball rolling) and are very much happy... 95% of the time.

My partner seems to have sulks at the exact same time every few months. I can predict exactly when they will come and feel myself start to dread them. They go on for a few days and then he snaps straight back to normal as though nothing ever happened.

The current one has resulted in me coming home to stay at my parents as I can't be in the house with him when he's so low and miserable. He will wake up in the morning and not acknowledge me and leave the house with just a 'bye'. Usually he would give me a kiss, ask about my day and say 'love you' as he left. He stomps about and slams doors, and makes it blatantly obvious he's in the same room as me but won't acknowledge me at all. When I try and start a discussion he just grunts or gives a single word and then back to stone cold silence.

I should add for the rest of the year we're absolutely great - we share a lot of mutual interests but spend our time apart (me with the gym, him with the gym/pub), we go travelling a lot together and have no arguments, just minor disagreements that resolve within the same hour. We aren't a couple that struggle to communicate, but during these few days a year there is no getting anything out of him.

I just want to know if anyone else experiences this with their partner and what they do to combat it?! I'm sick to death of having days every few months where I feel I have to remove myself from his life as we life as two strangers.

My ex husband was, is, a teacher, and there was a time when I really, genuinely feared that he would lose his job. Then I realised that he could behave perfectly well at work, and I was the one who bore the brunt of his abusive and controlling behaviour, which did included sulking from time to time.

OP, as others have already pointed out, he can control this. He does not sulk at work, he can't possibly.

I really don't think he'll change.

Sorry.

I am divorcing my husband who for many years has used the silent treatment on me. For weeks and weeks at a time. It is one of my unreasonable behaviours on the divorce petition. He said that he goes into silences in order not to exacerbate a situation, but I think there is a large component of punishment involved. In any case, he is very bad at open communication and I used to be / am too intimidated to bring up any important issues for fear of his reaction. So we can add anger into the mix.

We are still living together but I am now being subjected to the mother of all silences. I am effectively dead to him. And my poor DC are living in this toxic atmosphere.

I am trying to deal with this by thinking that thank fuck it's the last silence I will have to put up with. He is making the divorce difficult but there is an end in sight.

Very sad. But I have got over the feeling sad but and now just want to survive.

Bit not but

Have you suggested counselling to him. I mean individual counselling? He may really find it useful.

Don't knock the "LTB brigade". You are asking for advice and most people's advice is that they wouldn't put up with the protracted ignoring because, whatever his reasons for doing it, the effect is hurtful and abusive. Many would give that message by ending the relationship.

And now he's acting all butthurt because you couldn't stand being around him in that mood and, quite understandably, took yourself away from the situation. He is expecting you to tolerate his moods more than you do.

Yes, nobody is perfect. Needing space and quiet isn't unusual. DH and I are both like that. The difference is that, even if we're both not at all chatty, it's a companionable silence. No haughtiness. No atmosphere. Neither of us is afraid to pull up the other for the times we cross the line into irritable.

Try living with someone who behaves like this when you have DC.

It’s not a minor thing.

Op I don't think I can add anymore, there's alot of well thought out advice and experiences already on here. Just wanted to say that writing Ltb is easy when it's not yourself, whatever you do I hope you find some kind of resolution between yourselves as I hope you won't endure what some previous posters have shared.

Sorry but you are excusing his way of 'coping' and the fact you are doing that is basically accepting it. You are being very very unfair if you bring a child into this mess.

My father was a sulked and I wouldn't wish it on any child. I still wish my mother got a backbone, it's ridiculous! Bet he doesn't do it to colleagues.

If you want to carry on without even considering you may have to leave then good luck to you. Just don't be selfish and subject a child to it.

Do you plan on kids? If so, try to imagine how a 3, 5, 9 year old etc would feel being shunned by their Dad and then ask yourself if you're OK with his behaviour. One of my parents was emotionally abusive and withdrawing/sulks were part of their MO. It is horrible to be on the receiving end of it and very damaging. I'm still unpicking the impact it had on me & I'm in my 40s.

Surprise surprise he's 'back to normal' today - talking to me as though nothing has happened

^ That's some grade A gaslighting bullshit right there! Honestly, you really don't have to put up with this shit. Life's too short and it's the only one you get - it's not like your 20s are a rehearsal and you get a 'do over' if you realise in hindsight you wasted them on a twat.

One other thing to consider - if this is learned behaviour (and it seems like it in some cases from other posters) then do you want your children to learn this too? A new generation of sulkers? Even if they don’t, it doesn’t seem a fun way to grow up. At the minute you are enabling his behaviour. Why should you leave your home? Interesting that you moved out this time and you almost got a sorry - you weren’t around to give him a face to face reaction which interrupted his behaviour pattern.

I think there's a huge difference with your DP feeling shit and basically just wanting to wallow and turning inwards during these periods to what he's doing which, imo, is abusive.
Stress and/ or sadness doesn't equate with banging about like a bully. Sounds like he just can't hold his behaviour in check at home. He's learned that this behaviour is tolerated, no reason for him to stop.
It will escalate

And when he said, 'I've had a horrible week, you didn't have to go home', did you say,'it's all right babe! Love you!' Or 'I went home because this behaviour is killing my love for you.'
If he's seen his parents do this and you don't challenge it why would he change? Why would he even know he should?

It’s not just his sulking that’s toxic OP.

If his parents are like this, it will have a negative impact on your life. My PILs are awful and I resent having to have their malign influence in my life, it’s a constant source of stress.

The thing is not that he has a demanding job he sometimes struggles with but that the upshot of the struggles means he is abusive to his live in partner.
I'm sure his job is dire at times. But the solution is to see a counsellor / work it out in the gym /keep to himself for a few days to calm down/ go on some course to boost his confidence or learn to relax. It is absolutely not to 'let her see what it feels like' or 'make her angry/ distressed so I feel better', 'I'm sad so she should be too' or whatever the mentality is for sulking.
In the long run you are on tenterhooks waiting for the next bout, suppressing your anger at the time of the behaviour for fear of making him worse, unable to speak your mind as he is the 'vicitim'.
All of which are bad for your health and can result in anxiety and stress.
Perhaps if he willingly read up on the issue realised it was his problem and made major steps to resolve it it is worth being with him long term.
I am interested to read of the partners mentioned who did not react to the sulk. I would have thought that a partner not reacting to a sulk was proving to the sulker that they didn't care about them, leading to more sulks. But it seems that is not always the case.

As much as you love him, being the emotional whipping boy for an adult will kill your love and respect for him. He can help it, otherwise he would be doing it at work, he chooses you because you're a convenient and enabling target.

This is who he is and if he isn't willing to do something about his behaviour then this is how he'll stay, don't complete the cycle by bringing children into it.

You can not help someone who refuses to help themselves, especially when they've decided that taking their crap out on you is preferable.

Feeling sorry for someone to point where you let them treat you with disrespect, is an unhealthy role to choose to play in a relationship dynamic.

What happened when you got home, OP?

LTB

Hi everyone - sorry I went AWOL. We had a weekend away booked with his family so I've been off grid.

I pulled him up on his shitty behaviour and he has been making more than the usual amount of effort with me - been trying to chat with me all the time all weekend and bring me into conversations I was happy being on the outside of. I admit (I'm disappointed at myself for this) that I have been playing the silent card ever so slightly this weekend and I know he picked up on it, I just genuinely haven't known what to say to him without blowing up and I knew it just wasn't the time or the place.

He went off to work this morning after obviously trying to get a conversation out of me so I'm hoping I can sit him down and have a proper chat today. He opened up to me whilst we were away that he's been worried about a medical condition he may have (last weekend he brought up his G'mas death and how he has the same symptoms, something I've been nagging him about going to the GP for for a long time). He said since our chat last weekend he's been worried sick and was trying to discuss with me this morning but this time I was the arsehole struggling to have anything to say.

Very worried now as I seem to have completely gone into myself and am essentially playing the same card as he was last week - some hypocrite I am.

Oh and a big addition to everyone's points - this is something that for some reason is now coming out at school too. I know he used to be able to go to school and block his feelings but last week his phone was on the table beside me when one of his colleagues text to ask if he was 'okay' and mentioned that his personality recently had been off. As bad as it sounds this comforted me slightly as this is obviously something coming out in all aspects of his life.

If you were being withdrawn out if the blue you'd be a hypocrite, but why should you have to pretend he hasn't hurt you? He has to face up to the fact that his actions are hurtful and have consequences. I suspect he wouldn't have went away for a weekend with your family when he was in one of his sulks...

FlaviaAlbia He knows he's hurt me but I am usually one to discuss - this time I just want to sulk and be a misery! And he definitely would... he will do anything when he's in a sulk, he's just sulky in the process.

I think you may be confusing deliberately hurting someone else by sulking, and genuinely feeling upset and struggling to find the right thing to say.
It sounds like he is doing the former and he is doing the latter.

*you are doing the latter.