Genuine need for space… or abusive?

[GoingOffScript]

DH reacts to conflict in a very different way to me. We’ve been together 17yrs. When there’s a disagreement between us, I like to get it “out”, discuss and try to “sort”, then move forward. He has the compulsion to go silent. He can ignore me for days or up to a week. He might move into the spare bedroom or actually go away for a week. He has a job which involves travel so, this isn’t uncommon if his silence falls in a “working away from home” time. I tell myself that he does this to create space/time to calm and think because he hates conflict. All good. Just different coping strategies. But, here’s my problem.

Before his “exit”, he always, without fail, threatens to end our marriage. This devastates me. I then have days of feeling broken, can’t eat, don’t sleep, replay the disagreement over and over in my mind, and I always approach him by email, in a state of emotional exhaustion to try to open up a dialogue. I calm the situation, he accepts he may have overreacted, always is sorry and on we go.

I could accept that his need to distance, reflect and take “time out”; work through his own struggles and then come back to discuss, is his “process”. However, the way it’s done, with the devastating impact of threat of divorce, is taking a heavy toll on my self esteem, my confidence in the relationship and my mental health.

Please be gentle in your response MNs. I do love this man and want to understand what’s going on here.

I think the silent treatment is generally considered to be abusive.

And he is regularly threatening divorce? I would be taking him up on that.

Going silent or withdrawing for an hour or 2 would be normal. But stropping off for a week after threatening to end your marriage? Where you always have to go cap in hand to put things back together again? That’s emotional abuse I would say. His behaviour is dreadful, it’s really bad that he’s done this multiple times.

He gets completely overwhelmed and has difficulty expressing his emotions. And I accept, some people would rather distance, calm and reflect.

His way of coping though, is deeply wounding to the relationship. I often bite my tongue and just smile through something rather than speak out and provoke the “I think we should end this relationship” reaction.

He says he doesn’t know why his “go to” is divorce. The thought never crosses my mind because I believe that everything can be discussed, maybe reach a compromise and hopefully, resolved.
This has happened every year of our marriage.

Yeah I think it’s disrespectful to go silent for a week and threaten to end the marriage. Bet he comes back like nothing even happened. It’s almost a control mechanism.

This is not a coping mechanism, it is a way of attempting to control you. He knows this and of course he cannot say that, so he says he 'doesn't know why'.

A coping mechanism would be 'I can't deal with this and I am leaving now/going into the spare room for 24 hours so I can get my head straight. Let's talk at lunch tomorrow'.

Threatening to end the marriage, like the silent treatment, is designed to shut down discussion and to get what he wants.

The only way to stop this is to end the relationship, because if you stop being controlled by these tactics, he will switch to things like verbal and physical abuse. You may believe he isn't capable of this, but controlling people will always escalate to try keep control if their usual tactics don't work.

I'm not sure it's always about control and you know your partner best.
Mine used to not return home, stay in the car overnight if we had words before he'd gone out. Did it a few times and we talked about it ours after I shouted about how scary it is having no contact and thinking all sorts (he has depression)
I think some people go into hiding / freezing mode when they don't know how to respond especially if the other partner (me) seems to want to talk and talk.

I wouldn't continue to tolerate it though, it's one thing trying to understand, it's another tolerating and allowing the performance. I wonder if you said ok to the divorce if it'd make him see sense or would he bury his head more ?

What are you getting out of this relationship now?.

The silent treatment he metes out along with the rest of it is abuse. Abuse is about power and control and he wants absolute here.

This is abusive behaviour from him and your marriage should be at an end.

He’s probably all sweetness and light to those in the outside world and does not treat his work colleagues like this either.

Seek legal advice re divorce, knowledge is power.

Silent treatment is abusive.

And where does he go to when he goes off in a strop for a week? If he threatens to end the marriage and then goes off it sounds as though he is giving him an excuse not to behave like a married man when he is away. Combined with the fact he works away in would wonder if he has some sort of double life.

This isn't an equal relationship and he has conditioned you to see his behaviour as normal. You are actually excusing his abusive behaviour as being acceptable because " that's the way he is"

You deserve better than this OP.

Threatening to end the marriage is a way of controlling you. And it works, doesn't it? Because you are left upset and worrying while he ignores you and then you reach out to him and try and smooth things over.

If you want things to change, you have to change the dynamic and how you respond. Next time he says it, don't spend your time worrying and stressing - find yourself a distraction, exercise, spend time with friends or a project within the home. Don't go running to him trying to smooth things over. Leave him to it.

He'll soon realise he's cried wolf once too often and you're not playing his game any more.

After the silent treatment does he then talk openly about the situation that led to that point? If not then his tactic to withdraw doesn't actual work in any way other than to freeze you out. That would be the difference for me between abusive behaviour and not...if he genuinely does need this time away.
The throwing out comment of ending the marriage I would say is abusive. I'm rather fiery though and my response is likely to be 'go on then'!!!! I'd have to say that this threat is totally unacceptable to say ever again...a bottom line of things i would not accept.

If it was a genuine need for space and processing time, why doesn't he choose to kindly and respectfully say "I just need some quiet time to myself to get my head straight, but I do want to get things sorted and I'll be back to chat at X time/day?". That's what considerate and emotionally literate people would do.

Whether it's deliberately abusive and controlling, or the actions of someone who cannot self-regulate, is neither here nor there. The impact on you devastating and if he loved and respected you he'd be actively seeking to work on minimising that.

There is a very black and white view of 'silent treatment' on here. You've seen it already. It completely ignores, as one poster has more helpfully offered, the 'freeze' response, and as you've already identified, the response of someone who is not emotionally intelligent/mature/literate to express how they feel. I also find it funny that many will strongly advise 'grey rock' which is basically the silent treatment.

However - in your situation I think your DH is completely out of order. It is not ok for this behaviour to be repeated multiple times and it is 100% not ok for him to threaten to end the marriage. He must learn to at least say that he feels he can't talk right now and needs some space. He needs to work on himself to resolve this problem - it's not enough to just say he can't cope etc.

Have you done couples therapy? This is exactly the sort of thing you could helpfully work through with a therapist.

Do you have children OP? I imagine this dynamic could be pretty damaging to witness.

What you describe is emotional abuse.

Couple’s therapy isn’t appropriate when there is abuse.

Grey rock isn’t so much silent treatment through as it is not engaging in attempts to manipulate / escalate / cause conflict. Or that’s my understanding. I agree though in this case it is abusive because it’s a mechanism designed to get a certain response from you as opposed to something he is openly working through.

Does he know how much it affects you? Because if he does and he keeps doing it then you have to wonder why he thinks it's ok to treat you like this.

Break the pattern.
Calmly and assertively agree to end the marriage. He won’t expect this, won’t have considered a life without you and will be shaken by it.
Whatever you do, don’t contact him while he’s away.
Maintain your cool when he returns as you now have the upper hand. He needs to realise and learn what he’s been doing to you is wrong.
Completely change the way you have been reacting to his threat.

Of course he has to pretend he “doesn’t know” - he can’t very well say “because if I scream ‘shut the fuck up, cunt’ you might decide divorce is better and this seems to work for getting my needs met.”. That’s what he wants though, for you to shut the fuck up.

This is a very damaged and angry man who cannot and will never take responsibility for anything that he says or does which is destructive to the marriage. Trust me, this is it, it will never improve for you, this is how he communicates and look at how much you are jumping through the hoops for him.

It is a pity that you love someone who abuses you (what the hell is going on there!) because you should leave him. He has no need to treat you decently because he still gets his needs met whilst he treats you like shit.

I often bite my tongue and just smile through something rather than speak out and provoke the “I think we should end this relationship” reaction.

This is why he does it. He is training you to always bite your tongue and never challenge him.
You believe in talking things out to find a resolution.
He believes in shutting you up and getting his own way.

Take him up on his offer of divorce.

So his ‘coping strategy for dealing with conflict’ is to be abusive?
Don’t make excuses for his shit behaviour and threats. Call him out on it. Tell him (and mean it!) that if he storms off again he should pack his stuff because the locks will be changed by the time he gets back. It’s either that - or get ground away. Something drastic needs to change and if he can’t be trained to respond better then he’ll have to learn how to, somewhere else.

What if someone told you that he knew exactly what he was doing? That he had learnt a long time ago that you accept this behaviour from him, and therefore he feels emboldened to do this again & again to you, knowing there will be no real consequences, and that it's an effective way of punishing you?

Yes he could be an avoidant person who wants to avoid conflict, but it's unlikely.

If he was that conflict averse, do you actually think he would do this drama-filled flounce out of your house, every time there's a disagreement?? Threatening to end your marriage like that, and then leave you hanging???

No OP. It seems he doesn't mind conflict actually, or quite enjoys it even.

YOU'RE the one who is trying to resolve conflict by talking about your issues in a healthy, productive manner, and he has no interest in doing that. What he wants it to exert his upper-hand over the situation by squashing you into submission, making you afraid that he'll leave you or never come back just because you've disagreed over something.

It's time to take that away from him OP.

This. He's learnt that this is his ACE card OP, and you can't have a healthy relationship like this.

Be prepared that when you do divorce, sooner or later he will have a massive panic, beg you to stay, grovel, cry - the lot.

None of that will mean he's sorry though, because if he was really remorseful, he wouldn't be behaving like that in the first place, and definitely not for this long.

Interesting isnt it? You have learnt to modify and adapt your behaviour to prevent provoking him? That's why he does it. It might not be conscious, but it is real. And I would be asking yourself honestly how MANY behaviours ans actions you have learnt to change- from asking him to step up, to.going out/not going out according to his preference to having sex when you dont want it to the choices you make about clothes/good/exercise.

What about the underlying argument? When he comes back, does he acknowledge his part? Or does it all just get swept under the carpet? So he never has to take accountability or responsibility?

I'm also surprised you aren't more upset that during these periods I assume hes opting out of normal.family life? Childcare? Housework? Planning?

He sounds awful.

Exactly.