My bf and f 50 absolutely hates any form of disagreement or argument .

[conservationcontract]

We've only ever had approximately four in our two years together and he almost runs away.
He cannot handle any form of disharmony or upset.
He almost cowers.
He is not afraid of me of course but he shuts down and then comes round when he has settled himself.
I find it so weird.
I'm desensitised to it now because I think it's so immature and pathertic and I certainly don't run after him. I continue with my life and don't feed into it.
He comes back when he is ready to talk.
Any tips dealing with this ?

I’m the same as your BF. I need time to gather my thoughts in order to cope with any form of disagreement. And by far the best way of achieving that is to retreat. I don’t think that’s immature, I think it’s a considered and constructive response to (in my case) dysfunctional role models in my childhood.

I understand that and thanks for replying but it feels like I'm being given the silent treatment and being ignored

I'd say it's a response to being exposed to levels of arguing that terrified him as a child. He literally can't cope with it now.

Even though you know from experience that he’s not ignoring you but instead is settling himself to come back when he can?

His parents were very strict and authoritarian but he never saw them argue .

When I contact him after a row he does not respond for days

The way you ‘deal’ with it is by recognising that people can be different from you; and can have emotional responses to situations that are not the same as yours. Judging others as weird for being different from you only shows your inability to recognise it.

Your BF is 50. His way of dealing with conflict isn’t abusive, so there isn’t an issue here really. Only with you, maybe.

I never saw my parents argue either. My mother always did what my father wanted. The one time she stood up for herself, he committed suicide.

In my case, I explained to my DH why I respond to disagreement as I do, asked him to give me space so I could gather myself (and accept that I wasn’t ignoring him), and then let me talk at my own pace when I was ready. I find it very helpful to set a time to talk about a difficult topic so I can prepare in advance.

I do come back to DH after a few minutes, or a couple of hours at most. rather than days though.

Mn has told me time and time again that stonewalling,, ignoring and giving silent treatment for days are the hallmarks of emotional abuse.
Regardless.of what we are doing or what we have planned, he will leave the event or location with immediacy with no discussion.
Often, he is driving and I will not have transport so I must go too.

I agree with everyone above. He is dealing with it in the way that works for him. I am like your bf. My mother used to rage on at me for hours when i was a child, i was never allowed a say. This makes any conflict so difficult fir me to deal with as my instinct is to clam up and shut down. I need time. I know all this now after lots of self reflection.
Sounds like you and your bf could do with a talk about it, not during a time of conflict, about how to best support each other when there is a disagreement. Obviously you dont like feeling shut out and you have a right to tell him how that makes you feel too.

Do you ever manage to resolve any disagreements then, or do they all just get ignored as he can deal with it?

I was listening to a podcast the other night, and the author spoke about the two kinds of silent treatment.

One is done as punishment, and you might even get them to admit they do it as punishment. They will be able to switch to warm and friendly if someone else turns up.

The other type the author said was a form of self protection. It’s a form of flight response.

I suffer from this second type.The feelings the disagreement has generated are so intense you don’t know what to do with yourself. You might temporarily dislike the other person, but you hate yourself even more. I need to go away and calm down before I can even think rationally. As the other poster said, mine is also due to a dysfunctional childhood.

I think it stems from a time when as a child, you weren’t listened to, or had arbitrary rules applied which to your child’s brain were manifestly unfair. The overriding feeling is hurt and sadness and not anger.

I don’t know what the solution is. I know I always wished my mother would come and find me after I had run off to my room. She used to stand in the doorway, ask “what’s wrong” I’d reply “Nothing,” even though something obviously was, and she’d disappear. Eventually I would go back downstairs and everyone behaved as if nothing had happened.

What I wanted was her to come and sit with me, until I could feel safe and confident enough to share my thoughts. Even as a young child I sometimes knew I was being ridiculous. I was a perfectly behaved child except for this.

This.
I can't deal with disagreement now due to my childhood and then an abusive partner.
If me and DP argue I end up in tears very quickly.

DH used to disappear at the first sign of a row. Turns out that as a child his DF and his much older sister used to have terrible, terrible rows - saying horrifically hurtful things to each other. He and his mum used to go for walks to escape.

My family are much more happy and functional sp, after we'd been married a few years, I explained how we rowed as I grew up. Never let the sun go down on your anger was one of my DM's adages. We didn't say vicious things. I promised him things could be different and he trusted me. Eventually he was OK with what we used to call "a frank and free exchange of views". Unsurprisingly he grew to much prefer my family to his own.

how long is "days"?

I can understand not wanting to talk to someone if you've had a row. Does this happen with rows or just with minor disagreements?

It could be three days sometimes.
Then he says he's struggling and doesn't know how to cope or what to say .

Oh I think that's fine, sorry.

I react to conflict the way your BF does, OP. It's an anxiety-driven flight response.

He can't help it and you won't change him. You have to decide whether this is something you can put up with or not.

Have some empathy. How your family managed conflict when you were growing up has a massive impact on how you manage it as an adult. Conflict terrified him then and he's hardwired for it to terrify him now. If you grew up with a healthy, balanced approach to conflict then lucky you (and you're probably in the minority).

DH and I have the same problem - his natural response is Fight, mine is Flight. Fight can just be verbal but being "attacked" as I see it gives me complete brain fog. Afterwards I struggle to identify what the conflict was even about.

What do you want to change in his response?

‘Then he says he's struggling and doesn't know how to cope or what to say’

ok. You seem to be wanting people to tell you he’s abusive but it sounds like he just needs to work on his communication skills and have therapy. Has he said why he hasn’t done this so far?
FWIW I hate arguments of any kind and simply would not be in a relationship where there was a need for them.

I do not want anyone to tell me he is abusive but every single thread I have ever read on MN regarding ignoring,stonewalling and silent treatment suggests abuse.

I think there’s a big difference between people who use silence as punishment, or as a means of withdrawal.

I couldn't deal with that in a long-term relationship. I'm wondering ending it with my DP atm because of how he deals with disagreements. He just tries to ignore them!

So, I'll raise an issue that I feel we need to resolve, but his reaction is to tell me I'm trying to cause an argument and I'm being horrible and blah blah, and then he will just shut down and not want to talk to me. Says he doesn't want to argue. Then when he feels better, he just wants to carry on with life and ignore the issue I raised. It makes me feel like he just wants to stick his head in the sand, fingers in his ears. How does anything get resolved if I'm not allowed to raise it? Suppose I'm just supposed to ignore it too?

Disagreements are a normal part of any relationship. I don't think I've ever met a single person romantically, platonically, or who are in my family, that I have agreed with everything on. A healthy relationship is able to have disagreements and communicate properly about them. I've certaintly seen my grandparents have disagreements and they've been married 50 years! It's not healthy to pretend you agree with everything.

Going against the grain here and while I appreciate PPs points, I see this as a form of control.

By shutting down and effectively either running away or giving you the silent treatment, he controls the dialogue between you. I think it's normal and natural to have disagreements and arguments in the early years of a couple as you start shaping the direction your relationship is going in. With so few arguments or disagreements, I'm assuming very few changes have been made or big issues resolved.

You say he didnt grow up with shouty parents, but even if he did, i would say the solution to that is to work on yourself and how you deal with conflict, not to inflict days of silent treatment on your partner who was presumably just looking to broach something that mattered to her.

In short although you didnt ask: YANBU.