Dad (60m) doesn’t understand my (25m) need for space, calls it silent treatment

Throwaway account

I (25M) am trying to set boundaries with my father about our arguments. To shed a little light on the situation, he and I are both hot-tempered people. In the past, we have gotten really angry with each other and had screaming matches that could have been simply resolved by one or both of us taking a breather and re-addressing the issue when we were calmer.

After another one of these crises, I sat him down and discussed a list of boundaries with him that I’d like to stick to. (Mind you, this wasn’t in a “You’re going to do this” kind of way, more of in a “If you do [X], I am going to do [X].” For example, “If you raise your voice at me, I am going to walk away from the conversation.”) One of these things was “I reserve the right to ask to change a topic, end a conversation, or take time and space away as I need to, for any reason and even if my reason seems unsound to you.” This might seem harsh, but the thing is, if I’m ripshit pissed and someone is trying to tell me I’m wrong, I may not be able to accept their criticism until I’ve calmed down, addressed what about the interaction made me feel unsafe and triggered my aggression, and can look at the problem objectively. Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, apparently that’s not good enough for him. He thinks you should be able to jump right in and fix the problem right away rather than “letting it fester” as he puts it. He also equates my needing space as “the silent treatment” and believes it to be abusive. He says he has dealt with the silent treatment multiple times in the past, and it makes him very uncomfortable when problems are not addressed immediately. The thing is, I don’t want to use my silence to punish him or anything like that. I just want to be able to address my problems in a mature way without hurting anybody, and in the heat of the moment, I often can’t do that. And frankly, his method of “jumping right in” doesn’t work most of the time since it either makes the other party more angry, or forces them to bottle up their own feelings to appease him. I’m not the only family member who has attested to this.

I did try saying that I would set a timeframe when I was okay to do so and as soon as I possibly could, but he did not seem to accept that. I’m going to be honest– if I’m really angry, I’m not going to be able to discern a proper timeframe in which we’ll be able to speak again, because my furious self will be thinking “I never want to speak to you again!” and rational me knows that’s not the case, but rational me also doesn’t know *when I’ll feel okay* again. At the very least I’d need like 5 minutes to calm down enough to do that. But even that didn’t seem good enough for him.

What should I do to make him understand that my need for space isn’t the silent treatment? And what should I do to make him understand that he doesn’t have the right to force me into conversations I don’t want to have– and CANNOT have for my mental health?

TL;DR Dad doesn’t understand the difference between taking space to regulate your emotions and the silent treatment.