The Silent Treatment: A form of abuse

[CZBZ]

The Silent Treatment - A Form of Abuse

(parts of this article have been gathered from message boards and forum comments)

I believe the silent treatment (feigned apathy; cold-shoulder; silence; distance, and ignoring you) is the worst form of emotional abuse. It is a punishment used by abusers to make you feel unimportant, not valued, not cared about and completely absent from the abuser's thoughts. It is used as a form of non-physical punishment and control because the abuser mistakenly thinks that if they don't physically harm you then they are not abusers. The truth is, they are far worse at doling out abuse than the physical abuser.

Silent treatment is a form of banishing someone from the abuser's existence without the benefit of closure or a good bye or a chance at reconciliation. In a word..it's meant to torture someone you profess to love. Should I meet someone again who uses this tactic just once he will not get another chance. Because the silent treatment is something that the abuser repeats over and over again. The silent treatment is CONTROL, and a safe means for them to avoid any  'uncomfortable' topics, issues in the relationship, or issues within himself (or herself).

The silent treatment is a method the abuser uses to 'kill' you for something you have done. In a sense, you have been psychologically 'murdered' by them, but your physical life goes on.

In my current relationship (over as of this last abusive episode) I have spent more days getting the 'silent treatment' than not. Yes - I believe it is the 'worst' of the emotional abuse tactics - and this is where I have been most harmed and damaged, and where I will need most of my healing from. At my age I definitely don't need this. Relationships aren't supposed to be about pain and hurt. Why in goodness name I have allowed myself to suffer through all his forms of power, control, and abuse for years will be a forever question mark in my mind.

I used to love him, even when I was angry with him, or hurt by him. My love stopped during the last episode - or maybe the one before. I really can't remember when my heart shut off the love valve. Maybe it was a gradual thing. However, the love is gone, truly gone - and this current episode just made me commit to not going back into the relationship. Truth be told, if I were to walk in on him today and find he had died from a heart attack or something, I think I would just be relieved, and not experience any grief or sadness at all. I know that sounds inhuman and evil, but what abused partner hasn't wished for the abuser to just stop abusing, even if it's by death?

As with most abusers, they are in denial over their own abuse. They may use the excuses:

I needed to have some space

I thought you needed some space
 
I was feeling depressed and didn't want to drag you down with me

I thought we both need a cooling off period

I felt threatened/insulted/hurt and reacted with fear and isolation
 
I just needed some time alone to think
 
I didn't want to fight
 
You told me to leave you alone
 
Problems from my past came up and I needed to sort them out

Of course these excuses are just one more way for the abusers to blame somebody or something else for his abuse



Some victims of the Silent Treatment have said:

"He uses it to punish me on a regular basis"

"I've had times where my husband used this tactic on me so bad, that I ended up wishing that he would just hit me and get it over with-why? Because at least then I would know I existed, and that I wasn't a ghost or invisible."

"I've learned to love the silent treatment. For years, it devastated me and I felt that it was the worst of the abuse...but it's not...at least not for me.   ...and yes, I felt that it was a punishment. It made me feel not important, subhuman...like I didn't even exist."

"That's all it took & he wouldn't speak for days sometimes. Then he would start talking like nothing was ever wrong. Ignore your problems & keep up a front. I couldn't live like that anymore."

"There was no rhyme or reason, it could happen at any time, go on for days and usually erupted into an outburst of rage. Trying to figure it out, was mind boggling and yes, punishment!"


The reality is (in most cases) that the more someone ignores you the more you actually want to resolve the problem. It's almost an involuntary need on the part of the person being ignored. And that's the whole point to the ignorer. It puts them in control AND it gets them attention. However, that's in most cases - in my case the more he pulled the silent treatment, the more I saw him as a very emotionally-sick and an immature, abusive person and the LESS I wanted to resolve our problems. I would just pray for him to leave, or sometimes I would fantasize that I was in another healthy, loving relationship, and that he and I didn't even exist as a couple, or I would pack up some clothes and try to leave myself. Of course, part of his 'control' was in knowing the fact that I couldn't leave my children or my job...which I would have had to do to leave my home. This gave him all the authority and power over me as he so chose.

But that authority and control truly isn't love - that controlling power and abuse is an insecure person's way of trying to not be abandoned - by abandoning you, and probably when you needed them the most. This way they feel that they had a psychological and emotional hold on you. That you can't abandon them. The problem is, are they too stupid to realize that being abandoned is exactly the result that they will eventually get? To be abandoned by their victim? Maybe not always physically abandoned, as abused people can take abuse for years and years. But they abandon their abusers mentally and emotionally, closing their hearts and souls to them, and killing any love at all they may have once felt for the abuser.

Isn't that leaving? I should think so!

Abuse is abuse. And abuse is never ok. In one way though, the silent treatment is far worse than other forms of abuse, because it indirectly says to you that you are not a person, you are an object, you are invisible because they choose to make you so because you are not worthy of their time. THAT is one of the most hurtful and abusive things to do in my book. It is a horrible feeling, being ignored and denied affection.

For me personally the silent treatment was dished out when I did something he didn't like, when I was wrong, or when I showed him he was wrong. The link was as clear as flipping a switch and seeing the light go out. POW, KABOOM! I got punished and he wouldn't speak with me for days on end, including choosing to not even be in the same physical area with me. He would hide away or disappear for hours, and even sleep sitting upright in a desk chair every night for up to a week (or more) just to avoid being in the same room with me. He was almost childlike in his behavior. I finally said, "screw this". I couldn't live like that anymore.

[betterdays]

Is it abuse on our part if, when N does the Silent Treatment, and instead of continuing to try, we go silent, too?  I have always felt it was not, since it seems like a defense if we do it to counter their meanness.

[misshorizon]

No I do not think its bad for the abused to retaliate with the silent treatment because, after all, what are we to do?  Try to get them to talk to us? Expect them to act like they are emotionally healthy enough to resolve the problems? No--I've been down that road before.  Its much easier and less painful to use that silence to work on yourself.  Create an exit strategy, strengthen yourself, build your confidence, etc.  Its much better that you show him (or her) than tell them.  So ignore the N but do not think malicious thoughts (they will only make you bitter on the inside, which is in fact punishment)..instead use this time to gain clarity.  I am currently ignoring and being ignored by my N and its painful but freeing because I am consciously not allowing myself to be affected by his child-like ways.

[Proud2B]

The best way I've found to deal with The Silent Treatment is to carry on, and remove myself from the presence of the person trying to give me the special treatment.

It took me a long time to figure out that people who love and care for each other do not subject one another to TST.  It's one thing to say, "Hey, I don't want to/can't talk about it right now".  The Silent Treatment is abuse at it's most insidious.

Proud2B

[Litha]

Towards the end of my relationship with exN, whenever he would try to pick a fight or triangulate a drama I would call him on it. Then he would get all "wounded" and say something like "maybe I should just hang up" (most of our interactions were by telephone) and I would say FINE and hang up on him.

Then I would wait for him to call back, sometimes it took days. In a way I was giving HIM the silent treatment by refusing to engage in dysfunctional conversations. I'm sure that is what he told his family/friends.

Eventually he would call back as if nothing had happened. I would press him for an apology and he would make noises that sounded like apologies but were not.

[smp]

I think I spent the last two years of my "marriage" in the silent treatment phase!! It was truly hard on me. I think that is where I actually started to grieve the loss of the marriage. Wasn't expecting all the biker gang and porn stuff to come out at the end. I actually thought he was having an affair with his office manager. At times now, I do find myself wishing and dreaming of just verbally telling him off. Won't happen. I find that when I write or talk with others, I get some pain relief.

I am back to yard work - the fun project stuff! I am so caught up at work it isn't funny!! I feel professional and creative.

I find today I am anxious - was told divorce papers would be ready to sign Friday, or maybe Monday (today.) That will be a big hurdle, then I have the day where he will come and get his stuff. Then I have April Fool's Day, when  he is SUPPOSED to be out of the house next door, he is also to be out of the limo garage next door that day - but has until May 15 "just in case."

I am hoping that there isn't too much nonsense in those days/situations. I am realistic - anything can happen. But, I am preferring to hope for the best anyway!! I will know what to do when the time comes - fully prepared as best I can be under these circumstances,  yet I just want to look at the future optimistically!!

[NewWings4MeNow]

I'd like to just quickly chime in and say that I think it's normal and happens to people all the time that a period of silence can happen in the same room when you've been actively arguing, that one person can be so angry that they just have to keep quiet to figure out what's going on and handle their mood or frustration. 

Am saying this re: how d and I sometimes interact.  She gets very concerned and defensive whenever I give her the silent treatment, as though it's a rejection, and we have to work through it.  This might be during 15 minutes, an hour, in the course of one tense moment.

I'd like to think that this doesn't constitute "abusive" treatment since everybody gets mad and gets quiet at some point because they don't know what else to do right then?

If I had to live with such treatment for days and weeks at a time, I couldn't.  Because it would feel to me like living with strangers, or like cohabiting in a rooming house, and I couldn't consider that a marriage or a family dedicated to each other above all else.  This is one reason why, at our split, when XNH moved his things to an upstairs bedroom, talked on his phone behind closed doors, walked around our house literally looking straight through me and at the same time told me to make his meals and do his laundry as long as he lived there, I couldn't (with this + his d&d at the same time) in good conscience allow such a set-up to continue.  So the next night I told him, "It's clear that you can't stand me, and since that's the case and I don't love the person you've become, I don't want to be married to you any more and I think you should leave tomorrow."  And he did.  This comment may not flow with this thread, but it's what comes to mind about the topic.

NewWings4MeNow

[Proud2B]

NewWings,

Often when the exN was giving me the silent treatment there was no prior argument!  He would just withdraw and stop communicating verbally.  There were lots of other communications though - body language, facial expressions, actions and such.  The message was ALWAYS "You screwed up".  Many, many times the storm would pass, and I would never know why or what caused it.  It was always clearly my fault though - at least I was the one he took it out on, and I can guarantee it was some sort of ego slight he'd suffered - real or imagined, by me or at the hands of others.  Even our therapist acknowledged he was (still is) extremely 'fragile', which I interpret as being hugely 'ego defended'.  ha! 

I agree that becoming quiet or still during or after an argument can be normal.  Certainly I may be quiet afterwards, but I am looking inward, thinking, considering, trying to see multiple points of view.  My silence is not intended to hurt the other person.  I am examining myself for 'culpability', and genuinely seeking a solution.  My ends and means are diametrically opposite to that of the exN's.  His goal was to silence the opposition and maintain control at all costs.  I used to remind him about that old quote when things calmed down - the one that goes, "...just because you have silenced a (wo)man does not mean you have convinced he(r)."  I don't recall who said that - a Greek philosopher I think.

Proud2B