How to handle a chronic sulker?

[FridaMo]

I've been with my OH for 7 years now and we are getting married next year. We are generally peaceful and happy but he has a very bad flaw of sulking when he's annoyed. Sometimes it's justified annoyance at me, sometimes less so. He's definitely quick to grumpiness.

My natural urge is to make peace. I want upsets dealt with quickly, including my own, but after so many occasions where my attempt to mend fences was rejected ive become humiliation-averse and i really get annoyed at the sulking now so sometimes i join him and we end up in a deathly silence for days on end. Til he's finally ready to move on. It makes me desperately unhappy. My tolerance for grumpiness and sullenness is very low, i find the protracted punishment painful and unnecessary, and i feel so dispensable. But despite several long, calm conversations about how we handle conflict/how i feel about sulking, and even after regretting missing out on fun plans because he's keeping us in Coventry.. He still defaults to this horrible mode.

I am feeling a bit hopeless and upset.

Any advice.

Child = ignore.
Adult partner = leave them (you did say it was "chronic").

You don't have to 'handle' him at all. He's an adult. Tell him to sort himself out and behave like a decent human being. That's how I'd handle it.

That's really interesting from the perspective of a reformed sulker! I do think his sulking is an emotionally immature way of distancing himself from the hurt feelings.. As well as partly a way to send a message to me (an attempt to be controlling but not intentionally so) I wonder if he feels i dismiss his feelings by wanting to make up so quickly?

As its a real issue now, it will get even bigger when you are married. I would postpone all nuptials until he can show you for a year he has improved his sulking. You will be back on these boards in a heart beat. There are so many threads from women who married their boyfriends who sulked thinking things would improve, they just got worse. The silent treatment is abuse. If you are happy to marry an abuser because he is quite nice other times then please realise that it wont change because you have a ring on.

In fact, putting the ring on tends to make things ramp up - the more entangled you are, the harder to leave,. Abuse tends to get worse the more "trapped" you are.

I've seen a lot of queries on here get an overwhelming 'leave him' response but in reality how someone handles their negative emotions within a relationship is something to work on surely. Blowing up a happy healthy relationship for human flaw and frailty cannot be the first option. These aren't daily or weekly rows im talking about. Im talking about much more seldom

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?.

This is far more than he just displaying "negative emotions" and my guess is that you do not sulk for hours and or days when you have a problem. He is doing this to punish you for some unforeseen transgression you have committed in his head and actively enjoys your discomfort.

Abusers are "nice" sometimes because if they were not no-one would want to be with them. What has happened here I think is that he chose you deliberately and singled you out for this treatment. He sensed something within you he can and indeed has exploited for his own ends. It does not have to be all that frequent either for this to be abusive; the nice/nasty cycle of abuse here is a continuous one.

I can imagine too that he is all sweetness and light to those in the outside world; it is behind closed doors that his true nature emerges.
He is angry because he is abusive, not because he is angry. He has a problem with anger, YOUR anger, when you call him out on his unreasonable behaviours. He does this too because he can. Such men too hate women, ALL of them.

That's really interesting from the perspective of a reformed sulker! I do think his sulking is an emotionally immature way of distancing himself from the hurt feelings.. As well as partly a way to send a message to me (an attempt to be controlling but not intentionally so) I wonder if he feels i dismiss his feelings by wanting to make up so quickly

When I read the title I assumed this was regarding a child. Zero tolerance with a child to help them snap out of it and learn quickly that no one will respect them in adulthood with that attitude. If it’s an adult then I’m afraid I’d walk away. It’s manipulative, controlling behaviour. It’s abusive and he needs to realise it and get counselling.
Good Luck OP.

And your reformed sulker in the thread wanted to change and went to lots of therapy - has your bloke got any interest in doing the same?

You can't do it for him.

If you don't wish to leave and he won't change his sulky ways then you need to find a way to accept/ ignore / laugh at them.

There is NOTHING to work on here; this works for him to do this and its likely also to be deeply rooted within his own pysche. I would think that either one or even worse both his parents do this too.

If he can sulk at you now and without serious consequence i.e leaving him (which is your best option going forward) he will certainly pull this abusive behaviour on any child unfortunate enough to have him as a father.

@FridaMo

I've seen a lot of queries on here get an overwhelming 'leave him' response but in reality how someone handles their negative emotions within a relationship is something to work on surely. Blowing up a happy healthy relationship for human flaw and frailty cannot be the first option. These aren't daily or weekly rows im talking about. Im talking about much more seldom. But it is a real issue i agree. Which is why im here looking for thoughts

But it isn't happy or healthy if you now deal with discord by both sitting silently for days.

Or that you feel as you have described here.

Can you imagine spending the rest of your life avoiding disagreement so as not it have to sit in sulky silence?

It isn't flaw, it's an unpleasant and controlling character trait.

If you don't believe me consider how he deals with conflict with his male friends or at work. Does he only sulk at you?

Sulking is the worst.

Only cure is a shovel and the patio.

Run now.

@FridaMo

That's really interesting from the perspective of a reformed sulker! I do think his sulking is an emotionally immature way of distancing himself from the hurt feelings.. As well as partly a way to send a message to me (an attempt to be controlling but not intentionally so) I wonder if he feels i dismiss his feelings by wanting to make up so quickly?

You mean you are wondering if it your fault he sulks?

If your urge to prevent discord makes him want to sulk?

Really?

"I do think his sulking is an emotionally immature way of distancing himself from the hurt feelings.. As well as partly a way to send a message to me (an attempt to be controlling but not intentionally so) I wonder if he feels i dismiss his feelings by wanting to make up so quickly"

He chose you carefully and he is making this all out to be your fault or doing. Your relationship bar and boundaries in relationships (perhaps already damaged/low from past poor life experiences which made you very attractive to him) need urgent revising upwards.

You do not think he is intentionally controlling; I would beg to differ. You are in his web.

@FridaMo

I've seen a lot of queries on here get an overwhelming 'leave him' response but in reality how someone handles their negative emotions within a relationship is something to work on surely. Blowing up a happy healthy relationship for human flaw and frailty cannot be the first option. These aren't daily or weekly rows im talking about. Im talking about much more seldom. But it is a real issue i agree. Which is why im here looking for thoughts

You're minimising what your OH is doing.

Someone who sulks like this, seeks to punish and control you, even if it isn't every day or every week, is not good relationship material.

You say you tend to keep the peace when he does that. Or that you both end up in a deadly silence until he's willing to let the thing go. Neither of those things are part of a genuinely happy, healthy relationship.

What he is doing is not just a "flaw." Or human frailty. It is a nasty and manipulative way of behaving within a relationship. Does he do this at work? I'd bet everything I own that he doesn't. Because the consequence would likely be that he would lose his job. So he does have the ability to not sulk, to not send people to Coventry. . . yet he is doing this within your relationship.

IF he acknowledges that this is a maladaptive way of being, and IF he seeks out therapy to look at why he is doing it and how to stop. . . then there's hope. But is he? I get the impression that the whole scenario is on his terms.

In my experience at least, sulkers (of either sex) don't change once married. And they don't change once they have children. They just carry on being sulky (and probably find more things to sulk about.) Living with a sulker is soul-destroying.

Fast forward a few years and imagine him giving your beloved child the silent treatment or ruining a DC's birthday because of one of his moods. You will be treading on egg shells and kicking yourself for not ending the relationship back in June 2021. You deserve better.

but it's not a happy relationship is it?

Happy healthy relationship my arse! By all means waste another seven years of your life on this emotion dementor but ffs don't marry him!!

Life is too short.
It will only get worse.
Don't waste anymore time.

If you think this is a happy, healthy relationship then I really think you need some counselling as well.

He is abusing you. It might not be physical, but it’s still abuse. And that’s such a sad way to live.

Sulky and grumpy? What do you want a brooding ominous sulking presence in your life for?

Are you still with him as you're caught up in having invested years into the relationship and/or you want to be married sooner rather than later?

Sulkers are a pain the arse. A grown adult sulking is rude and petty, I just can't see what's attractive about someone like that.

Have you thought you could do better?

Advice?

Don’t Marry him.

Bin him

If you think you’re unhappy now… just wait. He’ll ruin your life, he’ll destroy every last shred of you.

This is what those who use silence as a weapon do to you.

There was a long running thread about someone like your “P”

The agony that woman went through because she had to divorce him, sort kids etc

You don’t have to do any of this, and you CAN (and absolutely should) walk away.

Well, your choices are, off the top of my head,

leave him

make marriage conditional on him first accessing some sort of therapy to teach him how to not sulk like a kid (talking of kids, if you have any/intend to have any, start them in therapy early so sulky daddy doesn't fuck them up when he turns his pouting on them when they aren't being appropriately submissive)

Refuse to sulk with him and just get on with things without him until he's finished being childish.

Tell him to grow the fuck up

Take the piss

Buy him a dummy

Start using a star chart

Change yourself so that you never argue with him at all. Embrace your inner stepford wife.

Don’t get married to him.

And If you haven’t already, please don’t have kids & subject them to this

OP, there's a series of linked threads on the Relationship board from someone called Jemaisjedors about her long process in escaping from her sulking STBXH. The latest thread (no.5) is called something like "Divorcing sulking DH: it WILL happen in 2021".

Her husband is (still) a huge sulker and still trying to control her. You may find more answers there, from her and her responders. Good luck - but do please at least consider delaying getting married and/or having children whilst he's still behaving this way. 🌹