The Silent Treatment
Considered the number one weapon in the arsenal of passive-aggression, the silent treatment keeps your partner on tenterhooks while providing you a false sense of empowerment.
It makes demands of a sort of mental and emotional perfection from your partner that, quite honestly, exists in none of us.
Ignoring someone in this way can be extremely hurtful. The psychological effects can be lasting. And, quite frankly, it is so very unfair.
Why The Silent Treatment Is A Form Of Abuse
‘Abuse’ is such a loaded word. Nobody likes to think of themselves as abusing another person. We conjure up images of twisted individuals doing horrible things to others when we think of that word.
But giving someone the silent treatment can be a form of abuse for these reasons.
1. It’s a means of exerting control over someone.
In any type of relationship, both parties should feel free to act how they choose. Yes, they may make bad choices and do things that hurt others or themselves, but they do so of their own volition.
Of course, a person can have boundaries and can assert those boundaries when another person crosses them.
But the silent treatment doesn’t assert those boundaries in a healthy way. It doesn’t communicate precisely what the boundary was or what the other person did to cross it.
The silent treatment screams: you should know: (1) what you did wrong; (2) how I feel; (3) what you need to do to end this silence.
This puts the other person on the back foot, which is a form of control. By giving the silent treatment, you are inferring that you are in the right and they are in the wrong and that it is their responsibility to fix this.
You give them no choice in the matter – if they do not do what you want, the silence will carry on.
2. It’s a means of punishing the other person.
When disagreements occur, of course you are going to have some ill-feeling toward the other person. You may be hurting and you tell yourself that hurting them back is justified.
And so you stop all communication, you stonewall them, and you do so to punish them.
You want them to feel bad for making you feel bad.
But consciously choosing to make someone feel bad is an abusive act. It is you saying that the other person deserves to suffer.
3. It makes the other person feel anxious.
If one person uses the silent treatment on a regular basis, it sows the seeds of anxiety in the mind of the other.
After all, they may never know when it will be used against them. That unpredictability is sure to put someone constantly on edge, anxious that they may trigger another period of silence.
This, again, is a form of control because it gives the one who wields the silent treatment as a weapon the upper hand. They aren’t the ones who have to feel anxious about what the other may do.
The silent treatment also causes anxiety during the event. Whilst one person closes off, the other is left searching for ways to make peace, though they also don’t want to make the situation worse, so they feel nervous when they try to make amends.
4. It can be used as a threat.
A threat is one person saying, “If you do this (or don’t do that), you will suffer the consequences.”
You can see, then, how the silent treatment can be seen as threatening someone.
It says, “If you don’t fix this, you will continue to face more silence.”
It says, “If you don’t fix this, we’re over, we’re through, I’m done with you.”
It says, “If you make me mad again, I’m going to make you pay again.”
Though it may not instantly appear as threatening behavior, the silent treatment can do just as much emotional damage as more obvious threats.
5. It makes a person doubt themselves and their actions.
Sometimes, the silent treatment can be used over small matters; things that shouldn’t bring out such a strong reaction.
In these instances, it serves to sow seeds of doubt in the other person’s mind. Do I deserve this? Am I stupid for acting the way I did? Am I a terrible person?
This doubt can stop them from acting freely in the future. Of course, if they really did do something to cause hurt, they should try not to do it again. But if the silent treatment is a regular occurrence, they may start to wonder if anything they do is right.
Then there is the effect it can have on a person’s self-esteem. If they are met with silence again and again, it conveys the message that they are not worthy of open and honest communication. They are only worthy of suffering.
6. It withholds affection.
When the silent treatment is in use, there can be no closeness, no love, no affection.
And whilst the person being silent may be okay with that (for a time, at least), the person on the receiving end almost certainly won’t be.
They seek resolution. They want to be touched, hugged, affirmed with words.
But they get nothing of the sort. They are left feeling unloved and uncared for. This is just another form of control and punishment.
7. It lays all the blame at one person’s door.
When one party takes a temporary oath of silence after a disagreement, it is their way of telling the other person, “You did this. You are to blame. I am innocent.”
This is rarely the case, of course, but that doesn’t change the message the silencer is giving.
Again, this can adversely impact the other person’s self-esteem because they will feel like they are flawed in so many ways.
They will start to believe that everything really is their fault and will begin to accept blame for things that are not their responsibility.
8. It wears you down.
The effects of abuse are rarely instantaneous. Instead, they build up over time.
The silent treatment, when used again and again, eventually breaks the spirit of the other person until they no longer have the strength to fight it.
They simply cave in as soon as the silence begins, begging, pleading not to be subjected to it any more.
Of course, the person doing the silencing sees this as justification for their actions. Silence works to make the other person back down, to admit fault, to feel diminished, and so they continue to use it, much to the dismay of the other person.
