I got a letter or email I should say from a reader who is experiencing this. Holidays are great but the holidays regardless of what it is for brings out the worst in others. My prayer to my reader as I’m turning your question into a full blog is for you to get the strength to know that silent treatments of any kind is a form of abuse. That you know that the silent treatment should never be okay in a relationship of any kind…
Silent treatment will work if you want to break a person down. What will you do once you have them broken? Reprogram them to fit your miserable mold?! Than what happens when they figure out you ain’t worth the dirt they walk on? Your hold won’t last forever.
There is a unique difference in taking a cool down period when dealing with others. Sometimes as a parent you have to take a cool down so that when you attempt to actively deal with a child you are doing it in the correct spirit. Sometimes in relationships you have to take a cool down to allow you effectively communicate. However the art of ignoring a person to break them is a form of abuse. I literally do not care in how it is being done there is never good will when using the silent treatment. Oh and by the way it doesn’t matter if a man or woman does it. It goes both ways!
If you want to break a person to see just how loyal they can be it works. A person who is being silenced will go above and beyond to get you to talk to them. It’s a way of feeling this sense of love from a person. You plead with the aggressor and want them to talk to you only to fall on death ears. The aggressor knows you want their attention. They play this scenario until you are about ready to cry because it’s a point of control. So you plead some more. Finally the silent treatment is broken temporarily until the next time. You feel better so you walk on egg shells in hopes not to upset the aggressor again. This is a cycle that can only be broken by You who is being treated this way.
News flash adults are not kids. Even kids should never be treated this way. But if two consenting adults have to be treated like kids the relationship can last 20 years but it won’t be a happy relationship. Your mate isn’t your child no matter how childish they make act. It’s a pet peeve of mine to hear couples talk to their mate like kids, tell others their mate is a child, or to berate them in public or private. You don’t own another person. People aren’t puppets.
Some parents pull these stunts too and it works. However I’ve never known for it to have long lasting effects of positivity. You aren’t teaching the child to comply to gain your love or do to what you say. You are simply at the point of inflicting a silent pain that is almost effective as hitting them. The sad part and the statistics don’t lie it’s just as equal. So you think you are handing the child well? You case the child out. Go out of your way to be in that child’s presence just so you can ignore them. You win but really you lose. You have just made this child reach down into themselves to figure things out without you. Sounds like good parenting skills until that child realizes you are a negative point of contact.
Eventually for the stronger child they are able to recover. They turn off emotions to the aggressor and sometimes go towards others in a romantic relationship who employ this same sense of “love.” We teach our kids now a days that love doesn’t hurt. We push this to make sure the child doesn’t get into an abusive relationship but we fail to remember that emotional abuse is just as bad if not worst. So what happens to your precious little girl goes for the man who uses these same tactics and has your little girl doing the most just to see if that man loves her? Yes she’s not being beaten but she is being emotionally abused and under the man she ran to who gave her the same love you did.
Silent treatment in any relationship is bad news. It needs to stop. It’s abuse. You are attempting to break a person. A broken person is no good to you or to themselves. This is why people gravitate from this form of emotional abuse to physical because the lines are almost blurred to be the same. We say why would a woman or man allow someone to control them? The mind is a very powerful gift and sometimes a curse. To break them inwardly is to control how a person thinks and therefore it’s the first part of how an aggressor works. This is why so many say the man or woman they were with didn’t appear to be bad news. They wine and dine and say the right things until they start to employ these tactics.
If you are in a relationship and are of age get far away from this type of personality. Most times this is the type of person who can’t be satisfied. Nothing won’t be okay because they themselves have either been broken or lack the ability to go after what they want without tearing down others along the way. There is no reason to ask another adult a question more than twice and for them to look you in your eyes or you know right well they aren’t deaf for them to ignore you until they feel like you are worthy of an answer. Or until they feel like gracing you with an answer or dealing with you. If you are giving them the vibe of not wanting to be bothered more than they like to be around you, get out. Why stay? What is going to change? Oh yeah you will say or do what they want and then be good enough to be around? You know the answer is you will NEVER be enough, do enough, or act accordingly.
Get out! Get a plan to be out but get out!!
