Manipulative behaviour?

[Jinglejangle11]

I’ve had a row with my partner that had been ongoing for 2 days. It started off with something I can’t really give detail about but although he agreed it was right to have issue with it, the next day he still practically ignored me all day. He claims he was just “staying out my way”. Rather than being loving and trying to make things right between us. This has since escalated and a couple of more things have been mentioned such as I feel he is crossing the line on how much he messages a female friend. He’s now absolutely furious & wont speak to me at all. No reassurance or “don’t be silly”, just complete outright anger. We live together so tonight has been very uncomfortable. Is this normal behaviour? It’s like anytime I try to address something he doesn’t like or agree with he refuses to discuss it or I will get the silent treatment.

@Jinglejangle11

I really don’t think he’s that spiteful, he just believes what he believes

I'm truly sorry, but if it were simply that ''he believes what he believes'' and that he is ''stubborn'' then he wouldn't need to resort to giving you the silent treatment for 3 fucking DAYS!!

If that was all that was going on, then you'd have been ''rehashing'' the argument daily ( but calmly) and finally deciding to ''agree to disagree'' about the issue.................but that's NOT what he's done !

My DH and I have several things we simply do not agree with each other about, but we have either come to an agreeable compromise, or just respected the others differing views. We have never tried to 'punish' the other, or tried to 'enforce' our views on the other.

The dynamic your DP and you have is not healthy, and it will get worse the longer it goes on.

It is all deliberate and it serves his purpose to have you desperate to cling onto him by pushing down your own views/ beliefs etc.

Op, intention isn't magic. It doesn't change an emotionally abusive behaviour into something else. He doesn't have to set out deliberately and maliciously to abuse you for it to count as abuse. I think a lot of people get stuck there, they think it doesn't fit with the man they believe he is, do somehow it doesn't apply.

The silent treatment and stonewalling and what you have described are emotionally abusive behaviours. Whether he means to do it, or whether it's all he knows how to be, it doesn't change the effect on you and how toxic and unhealthy it turns the relationship.

"But I still think this is his way of dealing things rather than what you have said. I have a friend who doesn’t talk to her husband as for up to 2 weeks if he upsets her. Unhealthy yes. But that’s just her way of dealing with things".

Well you would like to think so but you could well be wrong here. This is how they deal with problems, they ignore other people's feelings and only consider their own. Would you want a child to not consider other people's feelings and opinions are of equal merit to their own?. No.

Their ways of "dealing with things" are hurting the very people they purport to love. They do not love their partner. This is not them dealing with things at all, this is them imposing their will on others via control. If your friend is not talking to her H for up to two weeks if he "upsets" her then that is she emotionally abusing him. Do not excuse the inexcusable here. There is no justification or excuse acceptable for her abuse of her H nor your partner's abuses of you.

I feel he is crossing the line on how much he messages a female friend. He's now absolutely furious & won't speak to me at all.

Oh dear. I hate to ask, but how much of a 'friend' is she to him?

@itsbiganditsorange he’s known her years, well before we met, she wasn’t and isn’t really an issue it was just one of those things I dropped in there whilst in the middle of a row.

And as Atilla says regarding your friend giving her partner the silent treatment, that is also an emotionally abusive behaviour.

It's not a choice between someone being a complete abusive monster and being alright really - people are nuanced, they have shitty emotional toolboxes and pasts, and don't necessarily set out to be abusive, and certainly don't think of themselves as abusive. They think they're right, or it's the only way they know how to deal with conflict. It doesn't mean the tools they choose aren't abuse.

Your friend clearly has emotional difficulties herself and uses stonewalling and avoidance to cope. These make for a shit relationship. Don't use that as a yardstick.

if I bring something up he doesn’t agree with (which is 75% of the time) I will get this treatment
Yet you want to stay with him because when he snaps out of this mood things are good

Are you really that desperate that you will settle for a pathetic apology of a man?
Do you have any self esteem?
Any self respect?

It doesn’t matter if he treats you badly and without respect intentionally or not. It doesn’t change the fact he is treating you badly and without respect.

It doesn’t matter if you sometimes say things that you perhaps shouldn’t, it shouldn’t trigger this kind of response from him.

You shouldn’t have to tread on eggshells while you wait for him to snap out of his mood.

People who love one another and are for one another don’t behave like him.

Care for

It sounds like you are that frog in the pot of slowly boiling water OP....dont be that frog. His behaviour is unacceptable however much you want to justify it away. It will get worse, your mental health will suffer then you cling on to the relationship because you have put so much time and effort in to trying to make it good. Don't be that person. Quietly get your ducks in a row.

How are you doing, OP?

Why would you want to be in a relationship with someone who decides not to speak to you for days on end because he doesn’t agree with something you’ve said?

OP, you don’t sound like you believe what is happening is emotional abuse and you’re making excuses for his behaviour- which I completely understand. It took me 4 years to realise, finally, that my ex was emotionally abusing me. I put it down to stubbornness, I walked on egg shells and constantly worried about saying something he wouldn’t like- which I eventually learned was almost anything.

Please don’t let yourself be sucked in to believing that it’s “just the way he is”. He will chip away at you again and again and again.