I’m at my wits end, truly.
My fiancé, quite literally, cannot communicate when we are in a disagreement. As soon as there is an air of slight tension between us, he turns into a stone statue. He just sits there staring off into space. He completely shuts down, like he’s a robot and someone cut the power cord. It’s one of the most bizarre and frustrating things I’ve ever experienced in my life.
I’ll try to initiate a discussion about, for example, the dishes weren’t done when he said they would be. I’ll wait until a chill/appropriate moment, and bring up an issue from my perspective (“I” statements, not finger pointing) and he just completely disconnects.
Sometimes I give up and just walk away. Sometimes I stay and just talk to myself while he sits there. When I ask him what the heck is going on, why are you acting like this, he’ll squeak out an “I don’t know”. But that’s literally it. We can sit there for hours, same thing. I can leave, give him space for several hours, and try to restart the discussion later and same thing.
At first, this would just make me so so mad. I would think… the audacity! We’re supposed to be partners and he just checks out and refuses to be a partner. So rude! It shouldn’t be this hard for him to just talk to someone he claims to love so much! I can do it, why can’t he?!
Then I started to feel really bad for him, obviously this isn’t healthy? Is something wrong? What is wrong? What could have caused this kind of response? Am I being too harsh?
I’ve spent years going over this again and again in my mind and just… can’t figure it out. I have no idea what could be causing this. I’ve tried backing off and giving him space in hopes that he will come out of his shell when he’s ready, but he never does. He will just wake up the next day and act like the argument never happened. Nothing gets resolved, same issues occur, rinse and repeat.
As far as I know, his parents (mom and step dad) are both loving and communicative towards each other and the kids. His bio dad did pass away when he was a teen, so I’m thinking maybe it stems from that? He suppressed his emotions as a way of coping with the loss of his dad and has been suppressing them ever since? He also has trouble expressing emotions in general, so this is my main theory because it checks out. I’m no doctor, though.
He went to therapy but stopped after 3 months. When I asked why he, naturally, couldn’t provide any reason or explanation. “I don’t know”.
*I don’t know* what to do. We end up “arguing” about the same things over and over and over again because we can never work through our issues because he can’t speak to me. By argue, I really just mean me talking to a brick wall. I just sit there, talk through things to myself, and then just go to bed.
I thought I’d be able to deal with this but I can’t. When we aren’t arguing, he’s a great guy. Upbeat, talkative, energetic, fun to be around. But we’re supposed to be getting married in June and I’m panicking. I’ve realized that, by him not working through issues with me, that our issues never get resolved. And although I’m always able to move on, I’m actually making huge compromises each time because I’m forced to completely concede on whatever the issue is because he cannot or will not be involved.
**What is this?** How can I, as a partner, help him? *Can I even help him*? Should I cut my losses and move on now?
I feel so lost and alone. Please help 🙁
**tl;dr – My fiancé seems to be afflicted by an extreme form of conflict avoidance where he shuts down completely, physically and emotionally, whenever there’s a disagreement. I’ve spend years compromising and conceding on issues that are important to me because we literally just cannot talk about them. We’re supposed to be getting married soon and I’m concerned. Does anyone know what this is, exactly? What can I do to support him and help him? This isn’t healthy, he can’t live like this with or without me.**
32 comments
What makes you think he isn’t doing this on purpose?
By now he knows it works, it gets you to shut up and stay in your place.
Why would he change now?
>By argue, I really just mean me talking to a brick wall.
Yeah, the behavior you’re experiencing from your boyfriend is called *stonewalling*. It’s a deliberate tactic some people use for dealing with conflict. It’s a form of emotional abuse. He is deliberately withholding communication from you to raise your anxiety and make you feel isolated and small. In the long term, it can considerably decrease your self-esteem and make you start to doubt yourself. You may start to notice that you’re blaming yourself for all of the conflicts in the relationship, even when responsibility falls on both parties.
It makes me sad that you’re so focused on what *you* can do to help *him* when, in reality, he’s the one who’s mistreating you.
I wouldn’t tolerate being treated this way by anyone. I would seriously consider leaving, especially considering he’s reluctant to work on himself (referring to your comment on him dipping out of therapy there).
This seems tactical.
This sounds like it works well for him and he’s getting what he wants out of this strategy.
You can feel bad for him and still decide this is unacceptable.
You cannot help if he will not acknowledge this is a problem, and work towards addressing it.
It’s probably time to let him know you’re seriously reconsidering marrying someone who cannot, and will not even try, to do better than this. And trying, in this context, means serious, consistant therapy with an action plan. Not a simple “I chat with them about feels”, but a “I have a problem and we’re going to take planned steps to address it and I will be accountable to my therapist and myself about that plan.”
I was in a long term relationship like this. I’m quite anxiously attached, so I’m no saint either, but I used to bring serious issues up with my ex and he’d turn into a stone. It would literally turn into him running out of the house to avoid talking. I always felt like I had a 3 minute window to discuss things that were upsetting me before he’d shut down. Like you, they were always the same issues repeating themselves and never able to be resolved.
The term for it is stonewalling, and it’s a manipulative tactic to get you to back off and stop talking about it. The aim is to get you so panicked over being ignored, that you push your own feelings aside just in order to get them speaking to you again.
Your partner probably isn’t doing it on purpose. He probably has an avoidant attachment style and this is his coping mechanism in response to feeling overwhelmed by perceived criticism or confrontation. If his parents were loving and happy, they might still have had issues behind closed doors about expressing their own needs to eachother. Sweeping things under the carpet. Maybe he learnt that’s how relationships work through watching them deal via avoidance.
Doesn’t sound like he’s fully aware of his this, but only he can agree to changing his behaviour with couples therapy. If I’m dead honest, minor things like this turn into big things eventually, and you’ll spend your life in a constant state of anxiety if you don’t do couples therapy.
If you’re constantly in this mental state, it can be bad for your health. Not just mentally, but prolonged cortisol can affect your body. Address this and it can be fixed if he loves you and is willing.
It a clever move by him to shut you up. Worked in the past and will continue to work for him. My guess is that after your wedding there will be more personality surprises.
I’ve watched my friends stone wall their toddlers tantrums like this. A mom or a dad would just zone out while kid freaks out, kid gets exhausted and stops, parent reanimates again. Super unhealthy. It seems like this is an intentional tactic. He’s not willing to care about your emotions, just sits there until you’re done so he can go back to doing what he wants.
Don’t marry him. Whether he does this deliberately or not doesn’t matter. He’s incapable of negotiating conflict and solving problems, which means he’s incapable of being anyone’s life partner. He’s ABSOLUTELY incapable of being a good father, if that’s something you’re interested in.
Question for OP…
Does he ever bring up issues in the relationship to you? If so, how does he do that? Also, how do you respond in those situations?
I’ve dated someone similar. He had an avoidant attachment style that flared up into this type of extreme avoidance/stonewalling when there was any whiff of an argument or implication that I wasn’t happy with him. Similarly loving family, but this issue can often be a result of a type of “over-loving” — a mom that gets all her happiness and emotional needs met through her son, so that he grew up feeling pressure to please her, letting her down in any way could feel catastrophic, and there wasn’t room for his own feelings or disagreement. This is purely a speculative theory, but maybe his mom heavily relied on him emotionally when his dad died or even before that.
The reason doesn’t really matter. The important point is that this is who he is — it’s a behavior that was programmed into him from the time he was a child. It’s highly unlikely to change, especially if it hasn’t eased after years of being with you and increasing his trust in you. There’s nothing you can do to magically help him.
The choice for you is whether you can accept this and marry him. I’d put conflict resolution up in the top few most important things in a partner. Without workable conflict resolution, there may eventually be an important enough conflict that it tanks the relationship. Or enough small conflicts where you’re never heard, causing resentment to build up (as it already is) until there’s no love anymore.
If you do want to try to find a workaround, a key I learned is to frame any potential conflict as a neutral request. Instead of, “I feel frustrated that you didn’t do the dishes again after saying you would” or “why didn’t you do the dishes?,” it needs to be something like, “hey hun, could you do the dishes right now?” If he also doesn’t really care to do what you ask of him, then this relationships is probably unsalvageable.
Dishes may not be a great example because it’s so oversimplified and makes it hard to tell whether this is something you can live with. Would you like to offer any other examples of things that you feel you’ve had to compromise on because you just can’t talk about the subject?
I dated someone similar for 4 years and it didn’t change. it drove me insane. I’d get so angry when he’d shut down on me, because we never ended up solving the actual issue and it just kept repeating.
I ended up leaving. I’m much better for it.
I’d say you could give him an ultimatum of therapy or you’re out, but frankly you’d be better off just going – he needs to see that his lack of communication skills will affect him in his relationships, and usually leaving is the only way to get through to people like that.
Do you want to marry someone who can’t even give you basic communication when he disagrees with you?
Are you ok with never being able to express yourself, your wants, your needs for fear of his shutting down?
How will the two of you make major decisions when his way of handling anything he disagrees with is by shutting down?
Stop making yourself crazy trying to justify his manipulative behavior. I see so many of my girl friends do this; a man behaves badly towards her and she’ll think and think for days trying to figure out how it’s her fault and what she did to make him at that way.
Your fiance doesn’t want to do the dishes or have difficult conversations, and he’s found that this is a good way to avoid his responsibilities. It’s not that deep.
All I can do is impart some information that I have picked up over the years from being in therapy:
It is important to understand that this type of behavior is not necessarily personal, nor intentional. It’s just a shitty way he deals with difficult emotions.
If he’s receptive, he should definitely speak to a therapist to address the origins of these communication difficulties and learn new ways to cope.
You need to keep healthy boundaries. No matter what, you need to keep communicating your needs and feelings clearly to your fiancé and to be open to hearing his responses as well. If it’s a conflict between the two of you, try to use “I” statements to express your feelings in a non-blaming or non-judgmental way.
It’s important to understand that change takes time, so try to be patient and compassionate with your fiancé. But don’t forget to take care of yourself. If he can’t make the moves necessary to grow in a healthy way, he may not be the one to spend the rest of your life with.
I’ve noticed similar tendencies in myself, started reading “Hold Me Tight” by Sue Johnson and it’s helped me realize why I (and we) fall into the same argument patterns. Might not work for everyone but it’s helped me catch myself before I withdraw from perceived criticism.
Girlie, he’s doing this on purpose. My ex did the same thing and when I would finally give in and just do the dishes, he would come up behind me and be all sweet and affectionate. But he still wouldn’t help out around the house and would “shutdown” when I tried to talk to him about it.
It drove me fucking nuts.
Know what I did? I broke up with him. I wasn’t about to spend the rest of my life doing literally everything because he was weaponizing his incompetence.
Look at your life right now. Really look at it. NOTHING is going to change if you don’t end things because he’s not going too, he “can’t”, remember?
His gaslighting, his *shocked pikachu face*, that everything is fine- “what are you talking about, babe? Our relationship is perfect”- WILL NEVER GET BETTER. IT WILL GET WORSE.
This will be your life a year from now, 5 years from now, 10, 15, 20, etc.
Do you REALLY want this to be your life? Because it will be if you don’t end this “relationship”.
He’s wearing the argument out of you. Even if it is a coping mechanism m, he’s aware of it and refuses to help fix it. It’s intentional.
I’m gonna stay away from the comments because I know how this is going to go.
OP, he could be dissociating. He could be stonewalling. He could also be on the spectrum. My husband would do this prior to being diagnosed. Sometimes he still shuts down, but usually we can avoid it through communication and many, many years of therapy have helped as well.
I think you guys should consider him getting assessed by a psych. Just being honest, this post is very familiar.
I grew up in an emotionally repressed family (for negative emotions) and was like this too. You probably couldn’t tell from the outside there was anything off with my family though. I honestly couldn’t help the shutting down – I couldn’t talk about my feelings when my mind just literally went blank when tensions came up.
The next step is couples counselling. If you want to, otherwise it’s just to break up. If you do that it would be a kindness to outline the problem for him specifically or even write it down, so he can take that to a therapist in the future to work on, if he ever wants to.
You’ve spent an awful lot of time trying to psychoanalyze this guy and not a lot of time asking yourself why you said yes in the first place.
That’s where I think your focus should be here. Because obviously you shouldn’t marry him, I mean, duh. Once you two break up, spend some time figuring out why you dedicated *so much* effort to trying to fix someone and so little effort asking if the whole arrangement was actually working for you.
Nobody can know this but him. And if you want the marriage to work and also if HE wants the marriage to work, he will have to get his ass out of that comfort zone and march back into therapist’s office where he will continue to work on this until it gets resolved. I wouldn’t marry someone who doesn’t work through this and I would tell him exactly that ” I can’t be married to someone I can’t communicate with in difficult times and to someone who also refuses to work on something that’s obviously a very unproductive coping mechanism that can very easily destroy our marriage. It’s a two-way street and I can’t be the only one talking and communicating when there is an issue.” I don’t think you can help him overcome this, only support him and push him to work on it, it seems like a real issue that requires a professional guidance and help with but you can make it clear that is not the dynamic you want in a marriage and that you will either wait for him to fix it (assuming he starts in near future) or you will walk away.
Sounds like unintentional stonewalling. I do this quite a bit but i’m not sure if my reasons and experiences with it will be different on a count of my autism. Couples therapy may help. You can also write him a letter expressing yourself and in the letter ask him to write you one explaining and expressing what he feels. Less of a trigger for him to shut down and block everything out than talking about it face to face as of yet
Hi!
He is:
– experiencing a fight or flight response that makes him and capable of using the logical part of his brain (natural) due to the high adrenaline levels
– experiencing a mental health traumatic issue (like PTSD)
– then later, he is choosing to stonewall the issue after calming down
– and, choosing not to work on his issues by no longer attending therapy
As a couple, both of you have two options:
– for him to go to individual therapy and continue to work on his inability to express emotions and also his inability to communicate through problems. I am not a therapist, I’m not at anything, but this sounds like some cptsd to me, and the only way that he can get treatment is inside of therapy.
– for both of you to go to couples counseling, wherein, the counselor will *immediately* tell your boyfriend that he needs to go to individual therapy.
**He needs therapy.** Full stop. Bold face. End of sentence.
I cannot stress enough how terrible of an idea it is to get married to someone who is unable to communicate and work through problems. Communication and problem solving is the very foundation of a relationship.
Don’t marry him. It’s inevitable for conflicts and disagreements to come up during even the happiest marriages — you can’t marry someone who refuses to engage with you!
It sounds like YOU have been contorting yourself into knots trying to figure out why he behaves this way and what might change it, and HE has done nothing. This is not anything that you can fix. He needs to be the one to recognize that his conflict resolution strategy is piss poor and choose to take steps to improve it. Except….for him, his strategy is working out great. Every time you get upset, all he has to do is wait you out until you eventually give him everything he’s asking for and drop the issue. If he doesn’t even recognize that this is a toxic dynamic, I don’t think he ever will.
If I were you I’d give him one last chance to understand that his behavior sucks and restart therapy. If he doesn’t express any desire to improve, it’s time to go.
>I’ve spend years compromising and conceding on issues that are important to me
Unfortunately I can’t advise you on possible psychological issues around this. But since he won’t seek counseling/therapy on this then all I can say is: Welcome to the rest of your life with him. Please accept this issue or cancel the engagement.
I would NOT marry this man. Period. He’s 30, and trust me, this avoidance and stonewalling isn’t going to change. I was with someone like this for 8 years. We broke up 4 years ago because he found someone else who wouldn’t ask anything of him. It was the “easier” path, at the time, who knows how he feels about that decision now.
Honestly, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was doing ALL OF THE emotional work for two people. I truly did not realize how exhausting that had been for so long. I was sad for a long time after, but when I realized how much lighter I felt, everything was worth the pain.
He is asking you to be his mom, at the end of the day. He knows that if he just ignores stuff, you’ll end up doing it. Not doing things is just not a thing. He’s an ADULT. He needs to do a ton of therapy work. If this is something that he actually wants to change about himself, he would have booked the therapist and gone with you. It very much is a thing of, if he wanted to, he would.
My advice to you is get out. Don’t ever feel stuck with a person who isn’t making you and your feelings a priority. I am now married, 1 month (ahhh), to the most amazing man. He always takes my feelings, needs, and wants into account. There’s other men. There’s men who will treat you like you should be treated. You don’t deserve to feel like you’re asking for too much or like you’re alone. All the love and support your way.
Sadly, I don’t think you have a partnership here and I would not advise marrying someone you cannot work things out with in a healthy way. Don’t get sucked into the sunk cost fallacy with this relationship. Is this really how you want to spend your time in a relationship? He won’t follow up on therapy so change isn’t a priority to him, you need to be your own advocate for your best life knowing that you can only change yourself.
Why would you think this is something you can somehow fix *for* him?
> He went to therapy but stopped after 3 months. When I asked why he, naturally, couldn’t provide any reason or explanation. “I don’t know”.
Well, he needs to back.
Until he’s gone to therapy, stuck with it, and gotten some real results, you absolutely should not marry him. (You should probably figure out how long you’re willing to wait for that to happen, though you don’t need to tell him what you’ve decided.)
At root, this relationship is fundamentally broken. The break is on his side and it can only be repaired through his effort. He needs to make that effort and you need to see that he’s doing so and that it’s working. If he’s unwilling or unable to do that then the relationship needs to end. You need to make those terms totally unambiguous and you need to hold to them. He needs to do the work, himself.
> Does anyone know what this is, exactly? What can I do to support him and help him? This isn’t healthy, he can’t live like this with or without me.
If anyone was going to know what this is, it would most likely be the therapist he stopped seeing (or the better, new one he refused to find). How should you support and help him? By following the advice of his therapist. He can’t live like this? *Guess what*, that’s what therapy is for.
> I’ve spend years compromising and conceding on issues that are important to me because we literally just cannot talk about them.
Stop conceding. If he refuses to talk about something, then you do exactly what *you* want. If he wants something, he has to talk about it. Whether his behaviour is intentional or not, it’s a lot easier for him to avoid addressing it if it tends to get him what he wants.
You would probably also benefit from therapy of your own to figure out why your pattern has been to accommodate him at your expense. Elsewhere in replies you say he’s not even a capable adult in your eyes. It seems very clear that he’s just not a suitable candidate for marriage. What’s driving you to ignore that?
Dated someone like this once. When the relationship started going south, he tried to flip things around, blame me for everything, and insinuate I was abusive for trying to talk through our issues. Ex for a reason.
My super talkative, upbeat, optimistic boyfriend often turns into this during arguments/when he’s upset. And I also get the dreaded and eternally frustrating “I don’t know”
However, this doesn’t happen during all arguments, and he is self aware about this. I see his active efforts to get better with this too. He has talked openly about why he does this, what goes on in his mind, and how he can avoid doing this.
In general, he tends to be a people pleaser and a perfectionist. According to him, he goes into that silent mode because he doesn’t “want to say something in the moment that will make things worse”. He says he feels conflicted in his mind trying to find the right thing to say or do, so he completely freezes up. Often, it is simply the easier thing to do than to actually argue.
However, together we have decided that
1. We *have* to eventually talk about all conflicts, no matter how complicated or uncomfortable it is. It *has* to be resolved.
2. We have to be as honest as each other as possible, with as little hurt we can inflict. If you got something mean to say that you think is important enough to say, you say it, in the nicest way you can.
3. When first breaching a difficult topic or situation, ask the other person if they have the energy to deal with it now. We offer one of three choices: decide on a solution, give emotional support, distract with other things like physical intimacy or other conversations
4. If you want to reserve a topic for later, we actually have a code word for that. We say it, and the other person will then drop the topic, *for the time being*
In conclusion, conflicts will only be resolved when you have the physical and emotional energy for it, but IT MUST RESOLVE. And it is in both of our interests, and both of our responsibility. We are, therefore, on the same team as a couple, no matter how angry/upset with each other we are in the moment.
Easier said than done, we often falter with these rules, but they are the groundwork on which we continuously improve our relationship and ourselves
Sorry for so many things about myself, but maybe you can tell him these things, and see if it brings about any change.
My boyfriend did this. We had one conversation in which I was kind, clear, and firm (vetted by my therapist). He got the message and he’s my husband now.
You aren’t gonna get a husband out of this man. Not one you want.
He is not marriage material. Period. End of discussion.
This will not improve.
He doesn’t know why he stopped going to therapy?
Wow
Break up now. When he had gone to therapy and becomes functional then reconsider.
So very sorry.
Can he write his thoughts? I’m not as bad as your partner but I definitely struggle with ‘blank mind’ during arguments. I then text or write a letter to my partner either that night or the next day so I can get my thoughts out.