Title. Gf (30f) and I (30m) have dates for almost two years. The last six months or so I’ve been treated to a new side of my partner: the silent treatment.
Here’s the thing: it appears seemingly randomly and out of nowhere. A lovely hike in the morning is followed by a total mood 180 in the (very long) car ride home. A bubbly disposition in company turns cold, my partner’s face drops into an almost expressionless, chilly look. She goes quiet, answers questions or responds to comments with one or two quick, blunt words. The silence and tension is palpable.
I used to prod her to try and get to the bottom of it: did I say something wrong? Inadvertently offend? Step on her toe? Forget a detail in conversation? She denies that anything is wrong, the silence continues through the night, sometimes into the next day, until I finally ask again and she lets me have it for some small infraction (for example, telling a long story among friends, not taking the bin out before trash pickup, not taking my shoes off walking into the house, complaining about the cost of rent too much). Now I don’t prod anymore, in hopes that she will communicate with me and not put us through the time consuming and emotionally taxing back and forth for a a whole day. But honestly, staying strong and not giving in is so hard, and the anxiety really is affecting my mental health. I’ve told her that this behavior makes me anxious. She seemed sympathetic, but instead of making a compromise of some kind suggests that maybe we’re not compatible.
I’m flummoxed. And tired. And emotionally drained. What’s the end game here? The silent treatment is truly horrible and I don’t see myself staying in this if it doesn’t change. It’s just not sustainable. Maybe that’s what she’s wanted all along…
TLDR: gf giving me the silent treatment. How do we end this vicious cycle and get rid of this horrible anxiety?
49 comments
The silent treatment is a form of abuse. I hate to jump straight to “dump her,” but she might be onto something when she suggests you aren’t compatible. (Which sounds like a very thinly veiled threat. “Don’t complain or I’ll dump you.”)
Maybe take a good hard look at why you stay.
The end game is to end it. She is testing limits and silence can be very traumatizing. Let her know that you would like to at least be told that she needs a bit of thinking time so you know not to bother her. If it continues, let her know your limits have been reached and you hope she finds exactly what it is she is looking for.
IMO the key to a healthy relationship is the ability to talk things out. If she is not capable or unwilling to tell you why she is giving you the silent treatment, I would consider couples therapy if she’s willing. If she’s not, I would consider leaving the relationship because she will more than likely not change.
At best, she’s being childish. At worst, she’s being manipulative and abusive.
Either way, you really want to keep living life with this person?
Some people lack the courage to break up on their own, so they force their partner to do it by undermining the relationship. She’s showing you you aren’t compatible, and telling you you aren’t compatible. She likely will continue this emotional abuse and manipulation until you finally break and do the deed for her. I wouldn’t wait to reach that point – be proactive.
I absolutely can not be with women like this, its emotional abuse and controlling.
Having to live on eggshells, and in fear of the mood bomb is no way to live, better to be single, or find another person who is not like this.
This is really pretty simple… Your girlfriend wants to dump you, but she’s too chickenshit to deal with being the bad guy. So instead, she’s torturing you until you break up with her, instead.
> She seemed sympathetic, but instead of making a compromise of some kind suggests that maybe we’re not compatible.
This is the part you need to be listening to… She’s LITERALLY telling you that she doesn’t want to be with you, anymore.
Wake up — break up — and move on with your life. She doesn’t love you, she’s just a coward.
>instead of making a compromise of some kind suggests that maybe we’re not compatible.
Sounds like she wants to end it but wants you to blink first.
I don’t want to jump to dump her like everyone else here but maybe look up avoidance attachment style. Either way, it’s not fair to make you feel shit. Hope you sort it bud
OP, a healthy relationship requires both partners to be able to communicate. If your gf can’t communicate her needs to you, y’all just won’t be able to have a healthy relationship. Her behavior is abusive and immature af
Up vote for using the word, ‘flummoxed’.
Tell her this shit ends here and now or your relationship does.
YOU ARE BEING ABUSED. SILENT TREATMENT IS A FORM OF MANIPULATION.
My advice????
1. BREAK UP WITH HER, BLOCK HER EVERYWHERE SO SHE DOESN’T HOOVER YOU, LOVEBOMB YOU AND GIVE YOU THE IMPRESSION SHE WANTS TO WORK THINGS OUT. She won’t. You’ll have a honeymoon period and SHES BACK TO HER OLD WAYS.
2. THERAPY. You need it. Otherwise you’ll fall for another chick JUST LIKE HER. You need to understand if a) you lack boundaries b) you are co-dependent c) your attachment styles d) trauma you experienced living with your parents manifested in you dating toxic women.
As someone else commented, **the silent treatment can be used as a form of abuse.**
If she is disconnecting from you and it is taking a toll on you, that is not good. Reflect on the relationship and ask if you are getting what you need. Ask if you are happy. Ask if it can be fixed.
You can’t be the only one putting in effort. It sounds like you are trying to communicate and you are not getting what you need back, only negative feedback.
**It may be time to step away from this relationship.**
*Side note: Someone suggesting that they are not compatible with you is the pushing you away as they are having doubts. Ask if you feel the same. Act accordingly.*
Was in a very similar situation. Eventually when you start giving her space when shes mad and dont beg her to tell you why shes giving you the silent treatment shes going to claim you obviously don’t care when she’s upset.
Silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse. She is punishing you and you are kept guessing about the infraction so she’s punishing you twice. I suggest you accept that you are not compatible and she is not going to change as the honeymoon is over. This is who she is.
Time to move on.
I was like that. I expected the other to know what I want. I was living in my head and when things did not work as I expected I will enter in silence.
Oof, my mom used to do this all the time. It’s toxic and abusive. As an adult it’s my #1 dealbreaker in a relationship and I wouldn’t tolerate it for a second,
Passive aggression is still aggression.
The silent treatment is never ok. When I’m upset I need time to silently process and I prefer no contact during that time so I can think calmly and rationally. I either say that I need some quiet time and then can talk, or I engage minimally, but not the silent treatment, it’s so contemptuous and aggression.
OP, I would say you are lucky, in a way. You are lucky because you can ‘see’ this when you are still young and with no children with your GF.
I was exactly in your situation but, stupidly, I got married and we have a child. Let me tell you that depression/anxiety is through the roof, bordering suicide levels. You cannot do anything because leaving means leaving your kid behind and that’s something that I could never do. Hell on earth…
Just run away from this person …
The silent treatment is abuse. My ex did this to me and it took me YEARS to recover. Hell I’ve been in a healthy relationship for ten years now and I still get extremely anxious and fearful when I do things that caused my ex to do this to me.
This isn’t a “we” situation. You’re doing nothing to deserve this treatment. You’ve done nothing that could earn you this abuse. It’s all on her. Even if you were doing things that upset her, abuse is not a valid response.
The only thing I could think of is perhaps looking up and sending her articles explaining how the silent treatment feels, how it affects people long term, etc. in the hopes that her understanding how bad it is makes her stop.
That would only work if she’s willing and if she truly doesn’t know how much this hurts, though.
You may need to rethink your relationship with this person, though. It’s incredibly unhealthy and will affect you long term
She sounds immature af. I’d break things off.
Does nobody else think she sounds depressed
OP, unlike the majority of people actually commenting, I’ve been in the exact same situation before.
You feel like you’re constantly walking on egg shells? Worried that you might accidentally say or do the wrong thing that triggers her to become silent for the next hour/hours/days? Then you sit in that silent treatment trying to work out what you said or did, trying to get her to tell you what’s wrong?
I have been through exactly that.
From experience, unfortunately it doesn’t get better, unless she gets help for whatever makes her do it.
Sure it could be her way of getting attention or her way to get you to think about what you might have done, like others have commented. But due to the fact that it’s pretty much a carbon copy of what my ex did, I’m pretty sure there’s something else going on, I don’t pretend to be a therapist, I’m just speaking from experience.
In my experience, it would happen especially when she was tired and she would “close” herself off and give the silent treatment for the pettiest of things (like the things you mention). Eventually it all boiled down to some sort of past trauma for her and it was her way of not “getting hurt further”, so she would essentially shut down until she felt okay again.
I tried for many years to help her not close down, to communicate how she’s feeling when she’s tired, sad, etc. even tried to identify patterns of things that caused it, compatibility came up sometimes, I altered the way I did things, said things for years and years so we could be in this together, but nothing worked, they need professional help (or they just can’t be helped) don’t try and be the fixer for the sake of your own mental health.
The mental olympics that you’re going through will be having a knock on effect on everything in your life without you realising it. Putting myself back in your shoes right now OP, my advice would be to break it off and give yourself that mental freedom, you are not your gf’s therapist, and she won’t change. You will thank yourself for it, I guarantee it.
Silent treatment is a passive aggression. It’s going to get worse. Move on.
Time to move on. Trust me on this.
Silent treatment is abusive, I got out when my gf started doing that to me. If they don’t have the maturity to talk about their issues like an adult then they aren’t mature enough for a relationship.
>”instead of making a compromise of some kind suggests that maybe we’re not compatible.”
There you have the answer she’s thought up. She is unable to break up with you because she seems like the conflict avoidant type – so she ices you out because 1) she doesn’t really care that much about your feelings anymore and 2) she secretly would feel relieved if you pulled the trigger instead of her.
People can only fix stuff like that if they truly want to work things out. She doesn’t. She should’ve broken up with you, but instead of waiting for her to get to the point of clear resentment, do yourself the favor and set both of you free. Her behavior isn’t your problem to fix since she clearly doesn’t even want to be in the relationship anymore. Move on, my man.
“but instead of making a compromise of some kind suggests that maybe we’re not compatible”.
Her saying this should be the only thing you need to boot her to the curb.
There are no reasons you need to tolerate a 30 year old playing these ridiculous games. Stop allowing her, or anyone else, to treat you so poorly.
Best case would be that she doesn’t have as much social energy as you have, when dating introverts this is a behavior I observed a lot: they need silence and a lot of time alone, not only emotional distance but also physical distance. If those needs are not met, they may get frustrated and require even more silence to be happy again. This would also be in line with your observations: having a good time together and then she suddenly turns cold — which I assume is that her social battery is drained. There’s a lot of strong emotions and dopamine in the beginning of a relationship, which might be why she hasn’t always shown that behavior. The solution here would be to find an arrangement with her to give her more space. But that would require her to acknowledge that there is a problem.
Another possibility is that she’s going through some personal problems and is not yet ready to talk about it, which might be totally unrelated to you or the relationship.
Worst case is that she’s unhappy about the relationship but cannot end it herself. Thus she’s putting in as little work into the relationship as possible, to get you to end it. If she continues to not want to talk about it, you might have to end it yourself, to protect yourself from getting hurt any further by this behavior.
Dismissive avoidant attachment.
Google it. Sorry
The silent treatment is a form of abuse. Do you see yourself married and spending the rest of your life with an abuser?
>Now I don’t prod anymore, in hopes that she will communicate with me and not put us through the time consuming and emotionally taxing back and forth for a a whole day.
NEVER do this. Don’t walk around on egg shells around her. If she is giving you the silent treatment, ask her directly – “Babe you are quiet again and giving me the silent treatment. What is wrong?”. She’ll say “nothing”, after which you tell her “you keep repeating this pattern where you’re giving me the silent treatment, say nothing is wrong and then tell me the reason the next day. This is not fair towards me and I will not stand for it. Either tell me what is wrong or this won’t work out as you seem to refuse to work on yourself but instead try and punish me for whatever reason is on the menu today.” Then gauge her reaction.
If she’s willing to work on herself, you two may work out. Otherwise, leave her as you will start resenting her and hating yourself for getting abused like this.
>She seemed sympathetic, but instead of making a compromise of some kind suggests that maybe we’re not compatible.
Your GF is probably scared to break up with you but is instead doing everything to destroy your relationship and provoke you into breaking up.
Is it possible she anticipated you proposing on this hike? My now wife used to be angry on the ride home from every vacation. Finally realized she wanted me to ask her to marry me. Every romantic trip became a let-down.
This isn’t an excuse for her but I almost wonder if she had undiagnosed mental illness of her own.
To fixate on such insignificant “infractions” and mood shift so suddenly seems like some signs.
But that doesn’t mean that you have to stay to tolerate any of this. If its a pattern and you stay to enable it then it’ll continue to happen.
I would suggest really reflecting on how this impacts your life and sit down and set boundaries for yourself with her.
If this relationship is super important to you and worth the investment (only you can decide) you can offer to go to counseling or you can leave this environment altogether.
Silent treatment is absolutely a no-go in a relationship.
She needs therapy. If you have communicated with her about your concerns and she’s not going to work on it with you, you need to get out.
Leave. My mom does this and it has ruined many family holidays and events.
I’ve been the victim of the silent treatment before and it’s devastating. You don’t know what you’ve done wrong and she won’t communicate. If she gives you the silent treatment over tiny infractions you’ll be walking on eggshells all the time. Sit down and have a serious talk with her. Tell her it’s emotional abuse and if this continues the relationship is over.
Stonewalling is abuse. It’s a control strategy that abusive people use to get angry with you. Instead of communicating normally they make you drag it out because it puts the victim in a position where if they ask they get in trouble and if they don’t ask they also get in trouble which is the goal of the abuser. In a healthy relationship, if someone is mad and they don’t want to talk about it. They make that clear and figure when to talk about the issue. This is not healthy.
Leave her. This what my ex-wife did for years. I won’t get into specifics but feel free to read through my posting history which should be all the clarity of what people like your gf and my ex are capable of.
Everybody is on the abuse angle, but it sounds like she’s done having to explain things and repeat things and tell or ask you to do things she’s certainly asked before (take the bin out, don’t wear shoes in the house, etc.). The fact you don’t recognize without being told what you’ve done to upset her when these appear to be habitual things is probably also compounding the frustration. It’s bad enough to forget to flush the toilet (e.g.) but when you continue to forget after your partner has told you 20 times, and then when you leave a turd in the toilet for the last time and she just chooses not to deal.
She’s handling it immaturely but it sounds like she’s spent and burnt out on being responsible for managing you. This isn’t a functional or healthy relationship for either of you. You both have growing to do – she in an emotional, social sense, and you in a practical, behavioral sense.
My ex-wife was like this, which is major reason she is now my ex-wife. I actually put up with it for years until I just couldn’t do it anymore. At time sit seemed like it took hours to get her tell me why she was giving me the silent treatment to find it out it was something trivial like you mentioned in your post. Trust me it doesn’t get any better just walk away for your mental health. The only reason I stayed as long as i did is because of my 2 daughters.
An alternative to all the other mentions of abuse & she wants to break up with you: she could be having some sort of mental crisis and is shutting down. It is still very unfair to you, you shouldn’t have to be on the receiving end of her harmful behavior, especially if she hasn’t attempted to communicate to you what’s going on, but it’s possible that she may not even know.
Im autistic and often act similar to what you’ve described — seemingly enjoying myself either with partner or in company (aka masking), then later crashing and disassociating because of the exhaustion of having to “act normal”. That sometimes will look like having a blank expression on my face and being unable to communicate verbally. Or having a short temper and lashing out because I’m approaching a meltdown/breakdown. If I didn’t have prior knowledge of autism I would have no idea why I was doing these things and would just assume that I’m a bad person, and would perhaps feel unable to communicate the “why” of it to my partner, because it would be unknown to me too. Having that knowledge allows me to establish boundaries and act with more compassion towards my partner as well as myself.
This is just one possibility, and a small one — but it doesn’t have to be autism! There are other neurotypes and mental conditions (or changes in medication) that have similar symptoms. If she isn’t already seeing a therapist or talking to a doctor about this, she should.
Of course, it’s also pretty likely that she is doing what others said and trying to push you to break up the relationship. EITHER WAY, it’s on you to decide whether you want to do so. Only you can decide what you want to put up with — abuse or your partner’s personal struggles. The latter isn’t really your responsibility, so don’t feel like you have to shoulder her burdens, especially when you are struggling yourself. That’ll just end up in animosity.
This happened to me but she also didn’t want to have sex anymore and hated when I touched/kissed her. We lived together in the same apartment. She did this for months, rejecting me. Until I snapped and I decided to check her phone. She was cheating on me with women. Multiple women. That’s why she was emotionally detached and treating me like crap. If she’s cheating, she won’t admit it OP. I suggest you dump her and move on, since she’s going to be treating you like crap.
The Silent Treatment is incredibly destructive to a relationship. It’s torture to be on the silent end of it. It’s a frequent tactic used by abusers or people who need to control the relationship – yes, even people who are doing it to protect themselves. If she likes controlling you by using it, i say think seriously about leaving this girlfriend.
Listen. 30 years old is too old to be playing these games. She wants you to break it off, or she wants to be justified in breaking it off when you flip out. Take her at her word. You two are not compatible and break it off. Regain your sanity.
There’s a lot of comments here about her wanting to break up with you, but I’m going to offer another perspective as someone who is actively trying to stop being silent when my husband has done or said something that I find hurtful.
Growing up as a teenager, if my Dad ever got annoyed at me for something, he’d go silent on me for days on end. He does the same thing to my stepmother, and for years, I felt unstable and unwelcome in our home. If I ever expressed or said anything that my Dad didn’t agree with, silence. If he asked me to do something and my silly teenage self forgot because I was focused on school or other things, silence. If I ever tried to raise something with him that was bothering me, silence. Heck, if I ever tried to talk about my feelings if something else in life was hurting, he’d sometimes even make fun of me. So, eventually, I just stopped expressing myself and having a voice because that felt easier than the passive aggression I knew I’d face. I never learned how to communicate healthily in relationships and thought staying quiet was the normal and best way to avoid conflict. I even ended up in a relationship with a guy who did the exact same thing to me and thought, “Well, this has been the norm for so long now, so I’ll just keep staying quiet to avoid making things worse”.
When my husband and I got together, I’d never express myself if something bothered me. It would take until he asked what was wrong for me to get it out, and I have been absolutely horrified over the years to discover how my fear of speaking up and addressing things as soon as they happen has made him feel. I am trying my absolute hardest to reverse this behavior and communicate with him better. I’ve been really lucky that he has been so patient (together almost 7 years) and has guided me through different ways of saying things to show that I am uncomfortable/unhappy, even as simple as just saying “I don’t like or agree with this”. I’m on a journey at the moment of finally acknowledging how my Dad’s behavior has influenced this and observing him still to this day continuing to do it to my stepmother, and it’s really sad. I don’t want to treat my husband this way, and I have apologized that he has experienced this behavior from me. I want to communicate better, and be a much better wife to him, and it’s been very eye opening to start addressing this but I am absolutely committed to changing.
Maybe there is a reason why your partner doesn’t speak up too? I’m not trying to defend the behavior whatsoever, and I agree (painfully) with the other comments here that it is awful and abusive, but as someone who is learning (at 28 years old) to try and change this behavior and communicate better, there could be a similar reason your partner does it too.
Hi!
I used to be like your gf in my last relationship, my mood would change and being in silence is a defense mechanism that lets me process my emotions, sometimes it’s true that it has nothing to do with the other person. After my last relationship I realize this probably was really hurtful for my then BF.
All this to say that if this is something that has been happening for two years, I don’t think it’s going to change if she doesn’t see it like a problem and it’s going to keep hurting you. My advice would be have a conversation when she’s not in silence, in another more neutral moment, and put your foot down. And follow through with whatever your final decision is. I agree that maybe is a compatibility issue, because is how she process her emotions and that’s something difficult to change…