11 Day Silent Treatment Followed by a Return: Advice Wanted

[Hummingbird22]

Hi everyone, I would really like your input on a situation, but first here’s some context. I’ve been with someone exclusively (he’s almost 40) for about a year and a half. He said that he really wants a serious relationship and to be with one woman forever, but that EVERY woman he was with cheated on him and left him. For the past few months I’ve noticed a big change - he has been cold, distant, less communicative and extremely secretive. He stopped asking to see me altogether. Prior to this in the summer, his only idea of a “date” was that I drive to him to sit in his house or play tag along to something he already made plans to do without me rather than plan something together.

Any time an issue arises, he falls into a silent treatment which can last for days and will not contact me or initiate any repairs. It always has to be me to initiate repairs. It started getting so toxic that he’s tried to break up with me 3 times during minor arguments when I tried to hold him accountable for things and has been extremely rude. He has denied he’s giving the silent treatment and said he’s just not talking because he “thought we agreed it’s not working” or he “doesn’t want to bother me if I don’t want to talk to him” or accuses me of not being interested in him. This is gaslighting as none of those things were ever said. He also says I’m just “trying to argue” when I bring up an issue to try to resolve something that has happened or that bothers me. He never apologized for anything once.

Lately, he was constantly making plans with male friends but constantly blamed me as to why we don’t see each other when he never asks and is always unavailable. He planned an entire trip for one week overseas behind my back and did not tell me until less than one week before. While he was on the trip, he was online often and did not contact me once. He didn’t want to tell me who he went with (presumably a friend again) or what he even did on the trip. The secrets got so ridiculous that he didn’t even want to tell me he went to a concert when he got home. He’s been making plans without me and keeping me completely in the dark about EVERYTHING. I honestly feel like he’s been living an entire secret life.

I confronted him about the constant secretive behaviour and me being left in the dark about pretty much everything and he completely ignored me/did not respond, withdrew himself and did not contact me at all for 11 days - full on silent treatment. I considered the relationship to be over because he disappeared with no contact. In this time, he’s been non-stop hanging out with his married buddies making videos of themselves and planning for their musical show (which he also didn’t want to tell me about or invite me to). I did not chase him or message him during this silent treatment as enough is enough of the bs. On day 12 it was my birthday and he sent me a message early in the morning wishing me a happy birthday like nothing happened and he didn’t apologize for giving an almost 2 week silent treatment/ghosting me. He has not said anything since.

My question is, should I write him a message to say it’s over, or just don’t contact him ever again and go no contact? I don’t know if anyone has seen something like this before but it’s not normal behaviour to me.

There's something wrong with him in the head.

Block.

You deserve a regular, friendly, caring relationship.

He can't ever be part of such a relationship as he's got something hugely missing.

Hope you're ok - it's very upsetting when someone behaves like this. Take care of yourself

Glad to see you’re in therapy as I think the most concerning thing in all of this is why you let someone treat you like that for so long! You seem to have full awareness of what gaslighting is and that his behaviour was out of order but continued to keep going back. Sounds like you need to work with your therapist on why you don’t have the self worth to put healthier boundaries in place (most likely stems from childhood experience) and why the attention of someone who treated you so poorly trumped opting out at any point and being on your own. If you don’t address these things you might see the same patterns appear in many / all of your relationships romantic or not. I can see that you have him all figured out now and rightly take some pride in that but you really should dig deep in to what has been going on for you in the past 18 months. He will have gotten under your skin so projecting outward anger at his behaviour will only get you so far, you won’t have learnt a great deal if you don’t unpick your part in facilitating it. Good luck and be kind to yourself x

OP, next time you know deep down a man is spinning you a lie, please don’t ignore it ! Be on alert, call it out, or preferably just leave.

I’ve been there before and it’s understandable why we overlook some things as we like others aspects of a man, but really it only emboldens men like this to lie more as they’ll now believe they can pull the wool over your eyes and see you as the perfect victim to manipulate.

I once met someone online that was highly manipulative. When I called BS on his stories about ex-wife and last girlfriend and then also declined his first date invite, he didn’t like that at all . He was fuming I wasn’t falling for his lies or him, and blocked me the next day after I gave a curt reply to his last BS text.

He clearly knew I was not going to be his next victim and that I’d lost interest so he ran. And that’s what you want - to repel the bad ones! Men like this depend on choosing the “right” women who they feel they can manipulate.

PS. Your therapist sounds great and very straight talking!

Give this moron the silent treatment back. Block and move on!

Every woman has cheated on him indeed - sounds a bit like "my ex is crazy"

You owe him nothing, he’s not a man worth having.
Don’t even trouble yourself to let him know. Just block him on all media’s and let him add you to his fictitious list of women who’ve cheated on him and left.

He’s an arsehole. You deserve better.

I haven’t read your full post but being ignored for 11 days is enough for me to say block him and forget he existed and don’t let him come back from this.
I suspect he is the cheater not his exes.

I think he really dumped you back in the summer. Why have you chased someone that doesn’t want you for the best part of half a year?

I actually think he made it very clear to you but you’ve ignored it and put it down to gaslighting. He’s told you that it wasn’t working.

I dated a guy who told me I wasn’t invited to his friends wedding and berated me saying it was my own fault for being (his words) rude and unsociable and that this couple don’t like me.
I ended it shortly afterwards because I had enough of his lying, gaslighting and never being in the wrong.

Then earlier this year I crossed paths with the couple who were really lovely and friendly. They told me they had invited me to the wedding and he’d told them I couldn’t make it then arrived with his ex as his plus 1 - I laugh about it now because I saw through him and nothing surprises me any more but that’s the lengths of lying these gaslighting tossers go to.

The proof is in the pudding, not words.
As soon as anyone treats you so disrespectfully cut them off.

After each silence/row and re-approach - are you so relieved that he's talking to you that he gets sex? Just a thought.

Absolutely just block and delete the guy. You don't owe him anything at all.

Save yourself the hassle!

Looks like he was trying to play the victim to show he was such a nice guy who was so hard done by women

Totally. And saying to someone that they would never leave them and it would have to be the other person break it off is so totally deranged as well. It shows he doesn't understand what a relationship is. He just wants to attach himself like a limpet to someone because he doesn't like himself and can't be on his own. If he wasn't the controlling one, he could seriously open himself up to a really abusive relationship with that mindset (suspect he observed and suffered from one while growing up). I wish I believed men like this are rare but I've met several and the difficulty of detaching yourself from them is no joke. So well done for getting out.

I get the feeling that even if you block him and don't see him for 3 months and get yourself a date - he'll go round saying you've starting cheating on him.

All his ex's probably just thought 'sod this for a game of cards' after a week of being ignored and got themselves new fella's 😆

He's a prize prat. Don't waste any more thoughts on him.

I agree 100%! I would just like to add that his stories of everyone cheating and leaving him didn’t add up because he still had one of his ex’s on his Facebook page and she would sometimes comment on things although she moved on and now has kids with another man. If she was so bad and he was so hurt I’m sure he would have removed her.

Wow! He was basically saying similar things to me! This was his best friend’s wedding who he goes on vacations with and concerts and sees every week! He claimed he wasn’t given a +1 to the wedding which I did not believe and then he tried to back his friend by saying it was a small wedding and if I was invited then they wouldn’t be able to invite important people and then slipped into blaming me and being rude as to why I wasn’t invited. It was here that I started seeing that something didn’t seem right.

My thoughts exactly! He probably slipped into long silent treatments and didn’t contact them after arguments so they assumed it was over (as you can see I did in my original post) and then started dating someone else! It would be hard to believe he treated them any better!

The summer was an odd time where he would either: ONLY say that I should go over to his place to see him (which is not a date that’s a booty call) or he would make his own plans ahead of time to do guy things HE likes without considering me in the plan and then after the fact asked me to play tag along to things a lot of women would not be interested in and I wasn’t interested in going to. It was rather selfish.

I didn't consider either of these to be dates.

Yeah OP, you are right it seems like it is over and he lost the balls to end it amicably himbself.

The silent treatment is a fsign if immaturity and lack of communication skills on his part.

I wholeheartedly agree. He did not have a capacity for self-reflection, accountability, or empathy. Everything was fine up until I ever tried to bring anything up that bothered me. He even told me that I had no right to bring anything up about him not seeing me because (to paraphrase) if I had wanted to see him I would have spent so much time with him somehow in the summer by only going over to his place like a cheap booty call or playing tag along to events that he already planned to go to without consulting me first and that he went to regardless of me not wanting to go to them. Dates should be planned WITH your partner.

If I brought anything up he said I was just arguing and that he didn’t want to have the same argument over again, despite the fact nothing was resolved from the first time the issue was discussed due to him giving me a word salad or the silent treatment. He wanted a fair weather friend but relationships sometimes have conflict which he didn’t want to deal with at all.

I think he probably had a +1 and didn’t want me at the best friend’s wedding as well. His defensiveness about it was a serious red flag. I wrote about this in a post just a few seconds ago above - something was fishy!

To be tossing me aside, I feel like maybe he met someone and started dating them behind my back. I had actually confronted him about that but he denied it. I think he will definitely tell the next woman I cheated and abandoned him when I did nothing other than try to work on things.

I took his silent treatment as a sign it was over and he’s an emotionally immature man child. I did not expect a return. The thing that was even more odd to me is that he has the audacity to contact me for my birthday on day 12. Like what the heck was that? If you want to go because I’m so bad you have the door, stop being a troll and looking for attention on someone else’s birthday.

His obsession with his mates was TOO MUCH. I get that he wants to have friends and nobody said he can’t, but once you are in a relationship, your partner should be your priority. Based on his actions, his top priority was being with his married mates - vacationing with them and doing other activities. While he was giving me the silent treatment he was with them non-stop making weird videos of them sampling foods, hanging up posters and trying to pretend they are famous. He was behaving like a teen and not a man of almost 40.

Block, bin and move on.

I think it's plainly obvious that he's lost interest. He's a coward for not just being honest and saying 'this is not working for me, we need to end our relationship'. He's making plans without you, going away without you, being secretive and giving you the silent treatment. This relationship is over. I wouldn't be contacting him, to be honest. He's not worth the bother, time or energy.

It’s all a game to him, he gave you crumbs, made out women treat him badly and that he’s after the love of a good woman, pushes you away, ignores you but made sure you could see pics on social media of him having fun and then would get off on you still wanting his attention. If you don’t get in touch in his 11 days of ignoring you he has to get in touch to check you’re still interested and the cycle begins again. If he finds you don’t go running after him and you’re angry at his treatment he will act sad, tell you he was considering a future with you because of his strong feelings for you blah blah blah to get you hooked again and the cycle begins again. He probably has a collection of woman he can toy with when he is ignoring you/them or get rebuffed so he has a constant supply to feed his ego as in his eyes he is the dogs bollocks and women letting him treat them so badly but still hopeful confirms it for him.