Why is she giving you the silent treatment?
When your partner stops talking to you all of a sudden, it can be confusing. Is your relationship over, or does she just need some time? This depends on her reasons for stonewalling you, but for now, the important thing is not to panic. Don’t fall into the temptation of ‘blowing up’ her phone, apologizing, or begging. Stay cool, because this might not even be a big deal.
Maybe she is ghosting you, but maybe she just needs some space… There are really only two possibilities: either she wants you to chase her or she wants you to back away, and you can try both. Whether your wife or girlfriend wants you to chase after her or to back away, you can behave the same. Offer her both choices, test the waters, and see how she reacts. Try to decipher what she really wants to say when she’s silent. Here’s how:
1. Try talking to her, and stay calm.
Maybe she is willing to talk to you, but you haven’t tried to reach out yet. Find the guts to talk to her, even if you had a big fight before this happened.
She might even be waiting for you to get in touch with her to try to fix things. At least show a willingness to do that. This is a very important step that you can’t skip, and once you’ve done it, it will be much clearer whether she intends to break up or not.
Depending on how long it has been and what exactly happened, she might need more time, but once you’ve offered an olive branch, she should respond positively in a timely manner if she wants to be together.
When you try talking to her, don’t be aggressive and talk more about your own feelings than about what she did or said. If she’s open to meeting up, let her know that you’d like to discuss things with her. It might be as simple as that.
On the other hand, if she ignores you or gives a negative response, proceed to the following step.
2. Give her time and space.
If she refuses to talk to you, you have only one option whether she wants to break up or not. You have to give her time and space to clear her head.
During the first conversation, let her know that you’re available to talk whenever she’s ready. However, after that, let her be and ignore her entirely unless she makes a move.
She might need room to breathe because of work problems, family matters, or your relationship. So put some physical and emotional distance between you and her, and let her think things through at her own pace. Don’t bother her while she’s doing this. She might break the silence and reach out to you, in which case you can try talking again. Unless she gives you a sign, your best bet is to leave her alone for a while.
3. Consider what happened between you recently.
Maybe it was a big fight, or maybe it was something a lot less noticeable, but something probably happened recently that caused your wife or girlfriend to stop talking to you. Try to think of what you might have said or done that could have upset her. Think about what she might have found out from others as well.
If you can’t think of anything you did, it might even be about something she did. Maybe she cheated on you or did something else that you wouldn’t approve of. It’s one of the rarer, but still possible, reasons why a woman might stop talking to you.
Most likely though, it is about an argument you had or something you did/didn’t do. Keep in mind that things you didn’t do could be just as important as the things you did. For instance, maybe she went through something difficult lately and you weren’t there for her even though she needed you.
4. Consider whether she’s going through something.
A woman might withdraw because she’s going through a lot lately. Consider whether her professional life has gotten extra busy of late. Maybe she got fired, got a promotion at work, or a family member became ill. Whatever it is, it might be taking a toll on her to the point that she shuts down from you too.
Maybe something bad happened that influenced her mental health and she is stressed out, depressed, or suffering from anxiety.
On the other hand, maybe great things are happening to her and she is super busy taking care of everything. Consider her current circumstances outside of your relationship, especially if you still can’t figure out why she’s not talking to you.
5. Focus on yourself.
It’s time to stop worrying about her and focus on yourself for a while. She knows that you are willing to patch things up, and she’s been given the space and time that she needs.
So, enjoy your life and improve in areas that you think could be better. Spend time with your friends and family, hit the gym, go swimming, play a sport that you like, play video games, or throw yourself into your career. You can’t control her, but you can significantly influence what your life looks like. Make yourself happy and work on having the life that you want to have.
Think less about your love life and invest your energy into being who you want to be and feeling good in your own skin.
6. Get in touch with her again.
After some time, you can reach out to her again. Make sure that it has been long enough for you to approach this in a calm way. You want to communicate with the purpose of solving the problem. Put effort into crafting a good message where you tell her about your feelings and that you hope to see her in person to hash things out.
Send only one, good message, and don’t wait for a response. It might be a negative one, or you might not get one at all. Try not to think about it too much and focus on other things. You will probably get an answer eventually. If she responds positively, try to agree to meet in person instead of texting about such serious things.
7. Actively listen, show compassion, and communicate about her needs.
If you do see each other, make sure to be all ears and actively listen to her when she talks about her feelings and her needs. What could you do to make things better between the two of you? Show compassion for what she’s going through. Naturally, you might be harboring some negative feelings too, but try not to be aggressive or start an argument.
For now, you just need to start communicating again, and there’ll be time to calmly discuss your concerns while finding a solution together. Use more “I” statements and focus more on talking about feelings than who did or said what. If you need to apologize for something, do so, and if you did something wrong, ask how you can make it right.
8. Don’t ‘blow up’ her phone.
If she doesn’t agree to meet you, or you’ve met but haven’t talked afterward, don’t blow up her phone. Throughout this entire process, you get to talk to her at the beginning and at the recently mentioned step. That’s two messages, not hundreds of missed calls and follow-up texts. Don’t blow up her phone with desperate attempts to get back together.
Constantly asking her for the reasons isn’t going to work either. So just try to stay away from your phone and wait for her to give you a sign that she wants to talk to you. If this doesn’t happen, she might be ghosting you. However, if what you had was serious, she’ll probably get in touch with you again so you can talk.
9. See if you can find a solution together.
If you get in touch, try to see if you can make it right together. You can’t be the only one putting the effort into making it work. She’ll have to do her part too.
Once you’re finally talking, realize that it’s not over, but you shouldn’t continue fighting or ignoring each other. Work on your conflict resolution skills and communicate about your feelings instead of accusing each other. Don’t worry about who’s right or who wins the argument. Care about saving your relationship if you both still want that.
Even if she is just testing you, she’ll want you to care enough to react this way, not just let her go. So talk about how you can fix things together and consider including a therapist in your further attempts to improve the state of your relationship.
10. Realize that you might be breaking up.
Unfortunately, regardless of the previous steps, when your partner stops talking to you, you might be breaking up. She might be thinking about breaking up with you or has already decided to ghost you. Either way, there’s not much you can do besides the steps listed above.
Realize that you might be breaking up anyway, and find a way to cope with that. Practice self-care and show yourself self-love while you go through this. Focusing your energy on other areas of your life and on personal development is the best thing that you can do whether you’re breaking up with your partner or not.
So, continue with that step until you hear back from her, and if you don’t, she’s not worth the wait. Heal from the breakup and get back out there when you’re ready because that’s always the last step to take.
