My first DH would withdraw and shut down--for days on end. Conflict avoidant, passive aggressive. I saw this early on and it should have been a signal to run.

Anonymous wrote:This isn't a thing men love to do.

It's a thing people who are emotionally stunted do because they have no other coping mechanisms.

Call it off now.

+1
Anyone who excuses the fact that they behave this way is in denial about how fucked up and unacceptable it is.

If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

My husband tends to give what I refer to as the silent treatment when he is angry. But it's not like this. He usually will say that he needs some time to stew (which is his thing...he takes a very long time to work through being upset or angry) and for the next half day or three days we don't talk much. Sometimes we sleep separately. But we eat together, we say hi and bye, we exist in the same house, we communicate throughout the day about things like our child, the bills, our schedules, and whether or not we'll be home late. We just talk time to breathe and cool down, which he needs more than I do, and that's ok because we're different. It irks me that we can't spend that time being free and easy to "get over it" and watch tv together, but that's just how I have to respect his feelings. He tries to respect mine in my weird ways too.

I consider that the silent treatment. I consider what your guy is doing to be avoiding you and being kind of an ass about it.

New flash OP....he broke up with you.

This isn't a thing men love to do.

It's a thing people who are emotionally stunted do because they have no other coping mechanisms.

Call it off now.

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the silent treatment is better if the other party has nothing better to say and doesn't want to say something he or she will regret later on. Words cannot be undone. The damage is greater than the you can imagine if someone uttered something at an inopportune moment and later wishes they hadn't.

Let him stew or whatever he needs to do to get over something, that may be his coping method.

This is the bullshit silent treatment givers tell themselves.

1) say you need to take a break and go take a walk or be alone somewhere
2) come back in a reasonable time frame - a few hours at most - and then don't say something you'll regret

If you can't manage to do this, you have serious issues. In fact, most healthy adults can have a discussion or disagreement in the moment and not say something awful they'll regret. I would argue if you need to do the above often, you have anger management issues.

Anonymous wrote:OK, better question. Why won't women please TRY the silent treatment. If you have a problem, keep quiet. Seriously. Unless (a) the house is on fire (and a bad fire, not just one room or something), (b) I just ran over your foot (and you heard something actually crack), or (c) we're out of beer, just keep it to yourself. Especially if a game is on. Many thanks!

And you are in a relationship why exactly? So your silent barefoot sex slave can bring you a nice cold one before she gives you a BJ?

Moving on to the world of adults please...

OK, better question. Why won't women please TRY the silent treatment. If you have a problem, keep quiet. Seriously. Unless (a) the house is on fire (and a bad fire, not just one room or something), (b) I just ran over your foot (and you heard something actually crack), or (c) we're out of beer, just keep it to yourself. Especially if a game is on. Many thanks!