Silence treatment in a relationship

[3sausagedogs]

Help… Whenever my boyfriend gets cross with me he ignores me. Sometimes he just ignores me for ages, this time it’s been 2 days. We messaged about plans over the weekend and for some reason he’s obviously got angry because he’s not replying, I’ve asked him what’s happening and asked him to communicate with me and he is just giving me the silent treatment? Does anyone else have this and how long does it last? Is he ending things? It’s horrible getting the silent treatment

@3sausagedogs

we’ve been together since the start of the year. He’s been fine up until 2 weeks ago

Maybe he's taking the coward's way of dumping you?

I grew up in a household with a dad who liked to use the silent treatment to punish my mum and us DC. Two weeks was the longest he went without talking to us. It was so awful and it IS a form of emotional abuse. Do NOT consider a future with this man if you want children, OP.

I'm 38 and just got out of my 8 year marriage partly due to this crap. I'm not saying we are old but we are definitely too old for this behaviour!

My dad did the same to me! I jokingly once told him to shut up and he didn't speak to me for 3 weeks. I even bought him chocolate as an apology and he still continued to ignore me. Stuff like that never leaves you does it? The atmosphere growing up was awful.

Sadly I followed what I knew and ended up marrying a narcissist myself. Can see it all as clear as day now thankfully!

There is not coming back from this is there?

Say he contacts you again (they always do) one of three things will happen.

He will blame you for some supposed slight.

He will act like nothings happened and expect you just to be grateful he’s decided that your punishment is over.
He will have some shitty half hearted apology/excuse. He had a shit childhood, he doesn’t know how to communicate, he thought it was best he stayed out of your way for a while, he’s got a lot going on etc etc etc

He has SHOWN you who he is. Good, decent people who care about your feelings don’t treat people they claim to love this way. If they need space, they communicate that. If you have upset them, they talk it through with you.

There is NO reason at all to do this to you, other than to cause you pain and upset.

Nothing he can say can excuse this behaviour and it’s not your job to work out why he does this or try to fix it. So many women who have been through this are screaming the same things. If you forgive him, you are giving him the green light to do the same thing again and he will. We teach people how to treat us, we show them what we will allow and where our boundaries are so if you tolerate disrespect, he will continue to disrespect you.

I know it hurts, but you need to run far away from this man. He is not a safe partner.

I'm so sorry you experienced this too. It doesn't leave you. I remember feeling so bewildered that my dad wouldn't answer us. It was beyond cruel.

I'm glad you saw through your ex. Thankfully my DP is like me and can't abide sulking!

I’ve thought this might be a cowards way to end it which is why I started the post to get feedback

Sounds like it could be. Have things been a bit shaky between you?

Nope he told me a week ago he can’t live without me and we were on holiday!

Ugh. I'd be inclined to call his bluff by sending a text saying that you're taking his sulking to mean it's over and you don't want to be in a relationship with someone who uses the silent treatment as a form of control. Then block.

It might be, but you need to consider what YOU want, and what he is happy to put you through, whatever the reason. This lady is super insightful, loads of videos on her channel . You got a textbook example it seems. Sadly there does seem to be a lot of them about. He will be back before you know it, love bombing, future faking and having you think you found your soul mate, before he starts with the next bout of mind f**kery. This is not your fault, but if you go back I promise you will regret it. It may not be easy to break free, but it gets harder with each cycle/devalue/discard xx

He shouldn't be playing those kind of games. It's pathetic. And it is a form of emotional abuse. I'd cut your losses and move on op you deserve better. Being on your own can be better x

@3sausagedogs

This is categorically emotional and psychological abuse. Please understand this.
It is deliberate. Please don't spent another second trying to understand why or figure it out.

"I haven’t slept for 3 night and a permanently feel sick".

This is the point of silent treatment. It's a manipulation tactic. Of course he can't say what you've done wrong and ask for space. That isn't the point of the silent treatment. The goal is something else.

Please don't consider staying in this relationship. The only options with behaviour like this is to leave.

Pathetic immature arsehole. Put him in the bin, he’s an idiot.

This.

Block him.

Please stay strong and never contact him again, and block him (it's all he deserves if he's silent treat-ing you).

He's training you. You're responding to it, as any normal person would - feeling sleepless, sick.

If you carry on with him, you'll end up fully trained and fully miserable.

Why does he do this? Because he can't handle a relationship. Not an adult, constructive, connecting one. Either he doesn't have the emotional equipment to or he's plain bad.

NLisa
To the posters that say they ignore, act like normal and the behaviour changes. How do you ignore and act like normal? Do you still communicate with them like normal and they just don’t respond. Or do you mean that you just ignore them back and go on with your life not including them?

I can only speak for myself but I've been on this earth a long enough time to know, I'm not so afraid to go through heartbreak that I'd put up with a shit man. Heartbreak is horrible, agonising - but it's survivable. We don't die for lack of a man. Also a narcissistic man that you give up your self-respect for will eventually despise you and dump you. So it's a loser situation

I can easily ignore sulky men because I find sulking unsexy. Can't imagine jumping into bed with a man after he'd ignored me for several days or weeks. It must feel degrading

Re this post the OP could have been dumped anyway. She's no way of knowing.

So an update. I heard nothing from him for 2 weeks and it’s my birthday on Saturday. I messaged him asking if we could talk and if nothing else could I get my things back. When I heard nothing I went to his house tonight to just see if we could have an amicable chat and he went crazy saying it was done weeks ago and he didn’t want me. He said he wasn’t never going to tell me it was over as I didn’t deserve anything from him. He said he didn’t want me, threw my clothes at me and shut the door on me, all with his kids watching. He was very cruel and unkind. I don’t know this man. He said he felt nothing for me and hadn’t for weeks. I have blocked him.

Jesus op that’s awful. God where do these men get off on this?

its not you though. It’s him. He is a dysfunctional human.

He tried to make out it was all my fault as we had been arguing, but we hadn’t. I’ve never been spoken to that badly by anyone before. It was just pure anger! And so just dead.

OP we all told you to leave it, then he made it clear it was over by ignoring your messages, and yet you still tried to push him to talk you then turned up at his house. It was never going to go well with an arsehole like him. Thankfully he was only verbally abusive.

I’m glad you have blocked him. Never give him the chance to be cruel to you again.

Take some time to work on how you got to a place where you allowed him to treat you like he did.

You’ll have a better life without him in it 💐

Leaving it in the dead zone felt more abusive. I think everyone should get closure. Mine wasn’t nice but I think it’s still better than not knowing. Silence to end a committed relationship is a cowards way out. And I needed to see him to get my stuff back. He really didn’t want to give it back today. I got it and I blocked him and above all I was polite so when I look back I know I behaved with integrity.

@3sausagedogs this is really bad behaviour. One of my exes did this, to the point that he dumped me three times by hanging up on me in the middle of a phone call and just not speaking for months, but he also used ST as a form of control when we were together. It is an emotional abuse tactic which causes all the reactions you’re describing. With me it’s now causing problems in my new relationship, three years down the line, as I was already sensitive to rejection and now I can’t deal with it in any form and even get anxious if he wants to ring off the phone and get some sleep. My ex also once told me that I was getting ST because he wanted to hit me and was afraid he would if he didn’t blank me/walk out/whatever form the ST took. I would frankly rather have taken the beating rather than knowing I’d done something so bad he couldn’t bear to be around me, or rather “knowing” because the triggers were objectively fairly minor. He was always sweet when he came back but that’s part of the abuse cycle.

He won’t be back! He was so nasty and angry! He made it clear he was done and had no feelings for me! It all came from nowhere tbh so it makes me think I couldn’t have changed anything! He lied and said we had been fighting and we hadn’t. I’m just pleased I got my things back! One of the dresses meant a lot to me and I couldn’t replace it! He wanted to bring my stuff to my another time, I refused and said I wanted my stuff now I don’t want to see him again or have that hanging over me. I blocked him for me!

Yay! Well done OP.

The trash took itself out, as they say.