After more than 11 years together, Gwendolyn and Jim Mulholland found their marriage on the brink because, she admits, her use of the silent treatment had become a go-to weapon whenever problems arose.
She fully realized that it completely shut down communication — her goal — because she didn’t want to deal with issues then and there and knew it was punishing Jim while giving her a sense of control.
“The silent treatment is caused by a combination of hurt feelings and an inability or unwillingness to talk about them,” says Tina Gilbertson, a Portland, Ore., counselor and author of “Constructive Wallowing: How To Beat Bad Feelings by Letting Yourself Have Them” (Viva Editions). “It’s easy to think of the silent person as holding the power in the situation, but in reality (she) often feels small and powerless. She really has no idea what to say or do when hurt, so she withdraws.”
“Ultimately, it has nothing to do with the argument but needing to feel like you are in control of something when everything else around you is spinning out of control,” echoes Mulholland, of Royal Oak, Mich.
But it’s one of the worst things to do for anyone who values their relationship. New York therapist Jane Greer calls the silent treatment the “equivalent of a deadly emotional assassination. The reason it’s so deadly is because it eclipses the purpose of anger, which is to use it constructively to bring about positive change going forward in a relationship,” she says.
Referred to as the “demand-withdrawal” pattern by researchers, it can occur when one partner “constantly nags, asks questions or makes demands while the other partner responds by withdrawing, avoiding or giving the silent treatment,” says Paul Schrodt, communications professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
The lead researcher in an analysis of 74 studies involving more than 14,000 participants, Schrodt says the silent treatment is one of the most frequently occurring, and potentially damaging, patterns of interpersonal conflict in marriage and romantic relationships. The findings were published in the March 2014 issue of the journal Communication Monographs.
Even worse, it’s a very difficult habit to break because each partner sees the other’s behavior as the start of a fight.
The demanding wife, for example, will say she is constantly approaching her husband because he is so withdrawn, while the withdrawn husband will say he’s closed off because she is constantly nagging him and making demands for a change in the relationship, says Schrodt.
Although he had published two other studies that looked at the withdrawal-demand pattern, Schrodt has been pleasantly surprised at how much this issue has resonated with the public since the paper was published.
“To me, this is further evidence of how common this form of conflict is in relationships,” Schrodt says, “and more importantly, how damaging it can be and how challenging it can be to overcome.”
Learning to change
Cameron Postelwaite, of Provo, Utah, hopes talking about his habitual use of the silent treatment will serve as “penance for the torture” he inflicted on past girlfriends.
“I knew I was doing it,” he says. “I’d be at their apartments, and if we got into an argument, I’d just say, ‘OK, well, I think it would be best to leave,’ in a really cavalier way, and then not talk to them for days, expecting them to come apologizing. This would be proof I was right — whereas now I realize there often isn’t a right or wrong side of the argument, just two people who aren’t getting their wants and needs fulfilled. Often she’d be the better person and come apologize, which would reinforce my lame behavior.”
Postelwaite says he eventually broke the pattern out of loneliness and the realization that he had to “go the extra mile” to meet his partner in the middle.
“There’s this idea that you fall in love and sail into the sunset, but there are coping skills needed when you’re not on the same page,” says Barbie Adler, founder and president of Selective Search, a matchmaking company in Chicago. “(People) may not even be aware that it’s cruel and hurtful. Maybe it’s part of an operating system of how they fight, and they learned that from watching their parents.”
Among Adler’s suggestions for couples: Make a pact that when conflicts arise, they will communicate — not shut each other out. If needed, schedule a timeout to be away from each other before communicating.
Mulholland says that once she realized she was punishing herself as well as her husband, she began to create “a speaking time frame” during which they could air their grievances and then both reflect on them without arguing. With a level playing field in place, she no longer felt the need to punish him with the cold shoulder.
“It was not an easy thing to give up,” she adds. “I must admit, I have slipped up from time to time.”
Schrodt agrees that taking the silent treatment out of the picture requires self-awareness, education and hard work.
“Partners have to develop the ability to see their own conflict behaviors and patterns, and more importantly, to see how interconnected their communication patterns are with their partner’s behaviors,” he says. “Once we can ‘see’ or identify how we are individually contributing to the pattern, we then have to change the pattern by using new conflict management skills to help us express ourselves more clearly and with greater levels of respect for our partner.”
Seizing the moment
To get past the silent treatment in the moment is even more difficult — but possible, if you are open to assessing your own behavior on the spot, says Hempstead, N.Y., marriage and family therapist Teresa Grella-Hillebrand.
She suggests using self-talk to stop the slide into silence, such as telling yourself that although it feels like it will help, your rational side knows it will likely do more harm than good. Then share your dilemma with your partner by expressing that you want to respond but are overwhelmed and need some time to think it through.
“Create a timetable (a half-hour, or later that day, or the next day) that you can commit to and come back to the conversation with your partner,” Grella-Hillebrand says.
Mulholland did have that presence of mind, realized what was happening and took steps together with her husband to break the pattern and communicate in a structured, positive way.
Now she jokes that Jim might prefer the silence.
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