What to do about a passive aggressive, silent treatment giving H?

[Anonymous]

My H goes off over the slightest comment. His ego cannot handle anything negative at all. Most of the time I try hard not to communicate to him in a negative way, but as you can imagine, that's pretty stressful and sometimes I just can't take it.

Then he sulks for hours and ignores me for days. I swear he does it just to get out of having sex with me.

How do you handle your spouse if he or she does the silent treatment routine?

[Anonymous]

Was he like this before you married him? If you don't have kids yet, get out. If you do, get counselling. Try to make it work, but people like this are toxic and will make your life miserable unless you get professional help in how to deal with this.

[Anonymous]

We didn't live together before marriage, so I honestly don't know if he was like this. He wasn't like this to me.

We do have kids, we did the counselling route 4 years ago. She basically told him he had no right to give me the silent treatment. He's regressed now. I don't want to end the marriage over this, but it sucks.

[Anonymous]

I have a grumpy husband too. The best thing I've found to do is ignore him. It is SO HARD, yes, and I do fail sometimes, but I try really hard not to let his sulky negativity ruin my usual cheerfulness. It takes A LOT of self awareness that you did the best you could, had to say what you needed to say, and to stand by your actions, but as long as you believe you did the right thing it's not your job to manage his reactions. If he wants to be sulky, let him go be sulky and silent in his own little sulky world, don't feel obligated to follow him there. You can do it. I had to learn to be a little more independent during his little snits but I try to make lemonade out of my sour little lemon of a husband . You can do it.

[Anonymous]

Try what you would do with your kids - ignore the behavior you don't like, and pay attention to and reinforce the behavior you do like. Don't let him see that his behavior has an effect on you. Be consistent about this. he may just stop the behavior since it's not giving him any gain.

[Anonymous]

"I'd like to talk to you about the fact that you're giving me the silent treatment. Every day that this silent treatment goes on, my feelings for you die a little bit. I'd like you to be a grown-up and talk about your feelings. Can we agree that we'll meet in our bedroom at 4:00 today for a long talk?"

If he doesn't respond -- "Since you're not able to be in a relationship with me right now, I am checking into a motel/visiting friends/going xxx (somewhere) for a few days Please call me when you are ready and able to talk about what's bothering you.

OP, I can't believe you put up with this crap.

[Anonymous]

You need to get into counseling again.

[Anonymous]

There are some great books out there, I think the best is "the passive agressive man" or something like that. You are not alone. Read up and decide what works for you. Remember that you cannot change his behavior, only yours, and I'm thinking he doesn't believe he has a problem. And my personal advice: you had someone in your life at a young age, probably a parent, who did the same thing to you. You married someone hoping this time this type of relationship would work out now that you're an adult. Counseling for you is for you to break your pattern in choosing this type of people in your life, not to fix the others. Been there, done that: and I now at long last have a DH who is not passive agressive, not withholding and some days, it totally freaks me out. In a good way.

[aprilmayjune]

You know what, my husband is like that whenever we have an argument, and sometimes he is quiet like that when he's grouchy and doesn't want to lash out wrongly. I ignore him right back, it sounds immature, but what I'm actually doing, is giving him the space he needs until he's ready to talk to me. It took me probably about 3.5 years of marriage to learn that that's what works for us because eventually he will reopen the lines of communication and we will talk things out and be fine, but the conversation always works better when we give eachother space to cool down and choose our words so to speak. My husband and I have an extremely happy marriage, but sometimes the "never go to bed angry" rule just doesn't apply to us.. I give him time and than we are able to have a cool calm collected conversation and everything gets talked out.


Sometimes, when it's an argument we had that's causing his behavior, and I feel the need to talk it out right away, I will write him a letter and just give it to him and tell him to read it and than we can talk about it when he's ready. That way I'm saying whatever I need to say to him, but I'm not pressuring him. Because in my case, I really believe that my husband is trying to do it for my benefit because he would rather have a calm conversation later than a shouting match now. And we have been married for five years and have never had an argument that consisted of any real yelling.

So that's what works for us. Hope this helps some.

[Anonymous]

My relationship is the opposite. I'm the wife that gives my husband the silent treatment for days! He hates it, it drives him nuts. But that's not the reason why I do it. I will usually get upset/sad about the way he makes me feel (looking at porn, masturbating, not in the mood to have sex with me) and as a result, I honestly have nothing to say to him. I'll answer any questions, say Hi or Goodnight, but there's no smalltalk or chitchat. After a couple of days, I cool off and get over it. This is something that has been ruining our marriage for years. We've talked about about so many times in the past that I no longer feel the need to repeat the same feelings/ideas/arguments when he obviously won't change for the sake of my feelings. We have kids, and its a part of him that I have to accept for now. And when it bothers me, I just shut down for time to collect myself. Maybe your husband is hurt, and doesn't know what to say to you or is tired of repeating himself with no change in your behavior...just a thought.

[Anonymous]

It didn't happen often, but DH would from time to time get very upset and do the major silent treatment. After we discussed it calmly and I expressed how hurtful and nonproductive it was, he did it again. His family didn't deal with problems, they did the head in sand thing. In my family we blew up and most of the time worked things out. Neither of us wanted to do what our families did, we wanted me meet in the middle. Easier said than done so we also got some couples counseling and this is really important. I would strongly recommend it. DH was shocked when the counselor told him that passive agressive silent treatment is as abusive as screaming at someone if not more. He explained why and DH hasn't done it since.