{"id":17927,"date":"2018-12-16T01:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T09:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/datemixstaging.wpengine.com\/?p=17927"},"modified":"2021-05-31T10:04:25","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T17:04:25","slug":"silent-treatment-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoosk.com\/date-mix\/relationship-advice\/silent-treatment-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Silent Treatment Abuse?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One minute your partner seems fine and the next, not so much. The only answer you can get out of your partner is an, \u201cI\u2019m fine\u201d but they don\u2019t seem like they’re fine. They seem angry, but they won\u2019t tell you why. You\u2019re on edge, never feeling safe or comfortable around them because it feels like you did something wrong and you don\u2019t know what. You\u2019d do anything to go back to normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the silent treatment. And it\u2019s a game that\u2019s played far too often. It\u2019s also a form of emotional abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is emotional abuse?<\/strong>
\nBefore we get into the silent treatment, let\u2019s break down the term emotional abuse. It\u2019s a term that gets thrown around sometimes, but it\u2019s never something to be taken lightly. Emotional abuse is any attempt to control a person in an emotional or psychological way. While physical abuse controls a person through physical violence, emotional abuse is often harder to see but can be just as psychologically damaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many examples of emotional abuse. If a person attempts to prevent their partner from seeing their friends, that\u2019s abuse. If a person threatens to leave their partner to get their partner to change their behavior to something they\u2019d prefer, that\u2019s abuse. If a person tries to call their partner out on their behavior and their partner makes them feel like they’re insane, which is called gaslighting<\/a>, their partner is being abusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can often be one of the hardest aspects of emotional abuse is that the abuser often has no idea that they’re doing. They convince themselves that their victim needs them to control their behavior, as if it\u2019s for their own good. In a lot of cases, emotional abuse has been normalized, which can especially be seen with the silent treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is the silent treatment abusive?<\/strong>
\nWith a lot of emotional abuse, it\u2019s a bit easier to pinpoint why and how it\u2019s abusive. Of course it\u2019s abusive that your partner doesn\u2019t want you to see your family. That seems somewhat straightforward. But how is it abusive when someone you love won\u2019t talk to you about something?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As humans, we need human interaction. Some interaction is bad, like your boss yelling at you in front of your team. Other interactions are good, like coming home to your partner at the end of a long day who wraps you in a hug. We rely on them to provide certain things, like love and support. With the silent treatment, all of this is stripped away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your safe place is gone. Those bad interactions are now occurring in your own home. Your stress level is through the roof. You don\u2019t even know what you did to make this happen so you\u2019re walking on eggshells to try to prevent is ever happening again. You\u2019re being conditioned to do what your partner wants, at the expense of your own sense of self and happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around your partner, you become more submissive, less likely to argue even when an argument needs to happen, and more likely to allow any form of abuse to continue. All because you’re desperate to get that connection and communication back from the person you love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is this still a thing?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s easy to make excuses for the silent treatment. We often hear things like, \u201cMaybe he just isn\u2019t ready to talk yet,\u201d or, \u201cMaybe she just needs some time to herself.\u201d Both are totally reasonable things. But here\u2019s the thing. If you do need a break or time to think over what happened before talking to your partner, your partner deserves to know that. It doesn\u2019t take much to say, \u201cHey, I don\u2019t like that this thing happened and I need a little time to think it over.\u201d Otherwise your partner is left in the dark and you’re causing them pain. In this case, you might not even realize that you’re giving them the silent treatment. So reassess your actions and do right by the person you love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But sometimes people do give the silent treatment and they know full well what they’re doing. A lot of us found out about this manipulative method thanks to media. It\u2019s a ridiculously common film and tv trope that\u2019s often played for laughs. It\u2019s been in everything from Roseanne to Scrubs to South Park to Rick and Morty. To hear something talked about so cavalierly, it can normalize it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to know that it\u2019s not normal to issue any form of punishment on a friend or partner. If there\u2019s something wrong, the best thing to do is quite the opposite of the silent treatment. Talk it out. Even if you think you\u2019re talking to much, it\u2019s better to over-communicate than under-communicate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When someone you love won\u2019t talk to you about something, it can hurt you in ways you wouldn’t think, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":17928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[891,898],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationship-advice","category-relationship-problems"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs the Silent Treatment Abuse?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With a lot of emotional abuse, it\u2019s a bit easier to pinpoint why and how it\u2019s abusive. 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