00:00 

Hey, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale, and this is episode number 51, "The Silent Treatment." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Here we go today. Good day to you. I hope you're having a wonderful one. I hope that life is treating you well, and that you are treating life well, that you are thinking and engaging on purpose in the way that you want to and learning to become the kind of person that you have dreams about becoming. I know I have this idea in my head of who I am and how I react and respond and think about things and it's a process to get there. I am NOT there yet, and I doubt I probably ever will be. But I get closer all the time, especially as I look at my life and as I analyze and try and figure things out. And see what I do and why I do it and how I do it makes a huge difference. One thing that I've been really fascinated with lately and that I've started reading a lot of articles on is emotional abuse and I think because I've started to realize that it's a behavior that is actually quite common in most relationships. It is so destructive to our relationships, and I think more and more most of us engage in it at some level. However, I don't believe we engage in it intentionally. We're just kind of doing things that we've seen modeled over the years or things that we've done so frequently ourselves that the behaviors are on autopilot, and we do them without really thinking about them. But then there are so many behaviors that we don't associate with emotional abuse just because we don't know, but they really are emotionally abusive behaviors. 

01:56 

So in the process of reading and thinking and chatting about emotional abuse the last few weeks, I've decided the first part of this I want to tackle is the silent treatment. The silent treatment is something that doesn't happen just between spouses. I've spoken with people this last week who have dealt with it with colleagues, with their children, with their parents, with friends, with siblings. You name a relationship and somewhere somewhere has inflicted the silent treatment. So first off I want to clarify that every time we go quiet or need time to process by ourselves that does not qualify as giving someone the silent treatment. Sometimes we just need to be introspective about things. Sometimes we need time to allow our emotions to settle down, to tune in with our thoughts so that we can better control our emotions and have a better conversation. 

02:45 

The silent treatment, which is often also known as withholding, is generally employed at as a power move, as something to punish or control another person. It's also said to be the most common pattern of conflict in marriage, and it is known to do tremendous damage. So this is one of the reasons why I wanted to tackle the silent treatment, because it is one of the most common things that happens. So some of the biggest indicators that not speaking to someone is the silent treatment and just not taking some time to cool off is the motivation behind the silence. So again, if the motivation is just to allow emotions to settle down and then come back at an issue from another angle, that's not the silent treatment. And this might be prefaced by a statement such as, "okay, listen, I'm having a tough time seeing this clearly because I'm so worked up about it. Can we take a break and visit it again tonight after dinner or maybe tomorrow morning," right? So it's not saying "I'm never talking to you about this." I'm not trying to control what's happening here. I just know that I need some space. 

03:54 

So this backing off might also be a fleeting reaction when one person feels angry or frustrated or maybe too overwhelmed to deal with a problem. But once the heat of the situation is over, so is the silence. The motivation here is still to resolve the concern but to do so in a healthier manner with a greater chance of resolve, letting those heated emotions settle down. So someone might also stop talking because they're afraid of what might happen if they engage in the conversation. They might not feel as though they have all the tools to have a healthy conversation. They may be concerned that they may not be able to resolve the concern and then what happens to the relationship. Or what if their partner doesn't seem to care when they bear their soul about what's bothering them? So these types of fears can play a big role in why someone will choose to remain silent. 

04:45 

But let's look at the silent treatment when it does fall in the category of emotional abuse. The motivation behind the silent treatment is to manipulate the other person in some way, to take control and force the other person into submission at some level. A person who uses silence in this way is seeking to put the other person in their place. They may give you the cold shoulder for days or even weeks and try to force you in to give in to their demands. So part of this manipulation can also be with the intent to make the other person feel rejected or excluded and to create an emotional distance. They may be trying to send the message that you don't matter to me, you're not worth my time or my attention. It is intentionally ignoring someone who is trying to communicate with you. And the persistence in their hurtful behaviors over time can be a huge indicator as to whether the silence qualifies as emotional abuse or not. 

05:47 

So again, the motivation behind the silence is really the key to understanding whether it is emotional abusive or not, but it takes a pretty big person to take an honest, objective look at what their motivations are behind the silence that they are putting out there. Even if we're unaware that we're engaging in the silent treatment, identifying our motivations behind the behavior will let us know whether we're being emotionally abusive or not. So, or if we are having the silent treatment toward us, is emotionally abusive or not. 

06:24 

So, some indicators you can look for as to whether the silent treatment crosses into the line of emotional abuse are, is it happening frequently and lasting for longer and longer periods of time, every time it happens? Is it coming from a place of punishment, not a need to cool down and to rethink? Another one, it only ends when you are the one who gives in, apologizes or pleads for forgiveness. And last, you notice that you're changing your behavior in order to avoid getting the silent treatment. Sometimes we talk about that as walking on eggshells, right? So, what might the silent treatment look like? So, pretty much anything that the person is going to do to avoid interaction, it could be things such as maybe avoiding being where the other person is, changing the route to work so that they don't have to run into them, locking yourself in the bedroom or the bathroom, staying at work until late when you know the other person might be asleep, getting overly involved in activities that will keep you from engaging. 

07:30 

So, the silent treatment can be damaging for many reasons, the most obvious being that it is a complete breakdown in communication, and communication is the key to any healthy relationship. Nothing can be discussed and resolved in silence. The silent treatment can be damaging for many reasons. and create a relationship of parallel lives, right? You are keeping the peace, but there's no connection. There is zero interdependence, and so you begin to drift apart. So the silent treatment also decreases relational satisfaction and decreases feelings of intimacy, both of which are necessary in any healthy relationship. So the silent treatment causes a breakdown in relationships, and if this becomes a pattern of behavior, and not just an occasional hiccup in our communication, it can cause lasting damage resulting in apathy on one or both people in the relationship. And once apathy sets in, it can be extremely difficult to reverse and move back into a healthy place. Not impossible, mind you, but most relationships don't last through many years of apathy. There is such a disconnect as soon as we decide, "I just don't care anymore. It's just not even worth my effort," because nothing gets fixed, right? 

08:52 

So another reason the silent treatment can be so damaging is neurological. So Kipling Williams, a professor of psychology at Purdue University, has studied ostracism for over 20 years, and he explains, "Excluding and ignoring people, such as giving them the cold shoulder or silent treatment, are used to punish or manipulate and may not realize the emotional or physical harm that is being done." So this is the deal. Our brains are hard-wired to pick up on being ignored, excluded, or ostracized. Back in the caveman days, being ostracized meant certain death because we had to be in groups, and our primitive brains are still very sensitive to being pushed out of the group, and it even registers as physical pain. The silent treatment activates the part of the brain that detects physical pain. So this being ostracized actually comes across as real pain, not just imagined pain. So although many people may see the silent treatment as taking the higher road, because it doesn't involve yelling or fighting, and it seems to be more dignified and require more self-control, it is actually seductively deceitful because it can cause more harm than the yelling or fighting. 

10:21 

One of the best predictors of divorce is not whether a couple fights, because it's inevitable that disagreements will occur, but rather how a couple fights. A huge indicator of being closer in the good times lies in how the couple treats each other in the  bad times. Are their disagreements happening in respectful ways that allow for listening and compromise in kindness? So that's huge in long -term relationships, how we treat each other, how a couple fights, makes a big difference. And I believe that the silent treatment is often used just because the person doesn't have the awareness or the skills to do anything different. But that is the purpose of this podcast today, right? If we're not aware that what we're doing is harmful, we can't change it. 

11:10 

So today is about awareness of what's going on here with the silent treatment. I don't think any of us set out to destroy our relationships. It's just that we're often not aware of what is really happening, and then we don't have the skills to change the behavior if we do become aware. I know that as I look back on my married years, I engaged in so many behaviors that now as I'm studying emotional abuse, I'm identifying as being emotionally abusive, the silent treatment being one of them. Was I intentionally trying to hurt my spouse? Absolutely not. Mostly I was trying to be heard and let him know that I was hurting and the words never seemed to get my point across. So I would find myself resorting to silent treatment as well as other things, hoping that he would notice that something was up. And shocker, it never seemed to work, right? 

12:06 

And so I would just find myself engaging in these emotionally abusive behaviors. Would I have ever thought that they were emotionally abusive? No. No, not in a million years would I have ever thought that I was being emotionally abusive. But in hindsight and with the knowledge that I've been gaining about what emotional abuse is, I see those behaviors as emotionally abusive. And I think that that's where most of us fit. We are just engaging in such unhealthy behaviors. But now that I've had some training and I've self-educated myself on so much of this type of information, I cringe when I think about the types of behaviors I engaged in. But I was, number one, not aware that I was actually engaging in emotionally abusive behaviors. And two, I didn't have the tools to know how to fix it and behave better. Because when we know better, we do better, right? And that's why we're learning all of this stuff together here on this podcast. Because we can only do better when we are more aware and know what to do. 

13:12 

Okay, so let's look at this from two perspectives. If you're the one inflicting the silent treatment on someone else or if you're the one having the silent treatment used on them, okay? So first of all, if you're the perpetrator here, you're the one giving the cold shoulder to someone, the first step here is to become aware and to be brutally honest with yourself about what you're doing and what your motivation is. So look at your behaviors and look at your motivation behind the behaviors. This may be super painful. You may need to work with a coach or a counselor to help you with the honesty needed to become this self-aware, but it's the first step to overcoming this pattern of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse that is destroying our relationships from the inside out. You may find that your motivations are not at all evil and narcissistic. You may be doing it as a form of self-protection. Maybe you're afraid of what will happen when you speak up, or maybe you feel your only options are to scream or to be silent, one end of the spectrum or the other, right? And you don't want to scream. Maybe you're doing it as a way not to have to acknowledge your own overwhelming feelings and the silent treatment gives you a sense of control and power over yourself. Maybe you're questioning the validity of your feelings or you're afraid of the other person's response. Being clear here about your motivations will be very enlightening for you and it will set you up to work through these motivations so that you can get yourself to a healthier place. 

14:40 

Okay, and then after we have become aware of what's going on, and started to learn some skills, we really need to offer a heartfelt apology that acknowledges your silent treatment behaviors and your desire to learn better skills. A sincere apology will change the world. But remember, an apology without change is just manipulation. And that is another form of emotional abuse, a form of trying to control the other person. So spend the time necessary to see what you need to see in yourself, acknowledge your hurtful behaviors, and then move into the apology mode, okay? And then we need to start bringing it to the forefront of what's going on and start acknowledging it and start dealing with it. 

15:32 

So here's some icebreakers to begin a conversation when you have been such a little ornery cuss giving the silent treatment. So here's some things you can say. This is just gonna give you some ideas of how you can start a conversation. "I miss you, we don't really talk anymore, and I'm not sure why I've been so silent about things. I haven't asked because I'm afraid you'll say it's my fault and I miss how we used to be." Or "I realize that I've been giving you the silent treatment and this really isn't the person I want to be nor the person you deserve. Can we sit down and talk?" How about "I love you and I realize that I've been very hurtful to you in shutting down like I have." Or "I want our relationship to be better and I realize that my giving you the silent treatment is only hurting us. Can we sit down tonight and talk it out?" Here's another one: "I know I've gone radio silent this last week and I've been difficult to be with. I've been scared to talk with you about it but really I want us to be better." And how about something just quick and easy? "I know I've been quiet lately. Do you have some time we can talk about it?" 

16:41 

And then once we bring it out into the open, we start talking, then it's time to engage in some really amazing listening skills and resolving conflict skills. So, there are podcasts on those topics. Topics resolving concerns is podcast number three. Listening skills is podcast number five. Check them out if you need some skills to learn how to have those difficult conversations. Are they easy? Absolutely not. Possible? Yes. Does it require a lot of vulnerability and humility? Of course. But isn't that what relationships are about? It's not an easy process. It takes setting aside your pride in order to really get to a place where you can resolve concerns. But if you want to protect your relationship and if you want to find joy in your relationship, this really is your only option. Okay? Because difficult conversations are where healthy relationships and connections are forged. 

17:41 

Okay, so now let's talk about if you are the recipient of the silent treatment. If somebody else in your life is giving you the silent treatment, this can be really tough because it's impossible for us to know the other person's true motivation for them doing what they're doing. But you do have control over your own thoughts and feelings and behaviors here. So please don't forget that. So one of the first things you have got to do is get your own thoughts under control. If you are approaching this person with anger and frustration, or even resentment, in your heart, you're setting yourself up to fail here. We have got to get to a place of love and compassion first. Most of the people we're going to be dealing with are not going to be hurting us intentionally. Some are. They're the outliers, right? And they're the ones that have to be dealt with in a different way. 

18:33 

But if we can move to a place in our thoughts where we see this person giving us the silent treatment as someone doing the best they can with the tools they have, or someone maybe who is scared of failure, then the feelings we create in ourselves will be those feelings of love and compassion. And we'll approach the other person with a totally different attitude and tone of voice. So doing our own work first to get to a place of love will be really important. 

19:04 

Okay, then once your thoughts and feelings are in a good place, once you've gotten to that place of love, we have to acknowledge what's going on with the other person. Okay, we have to bring it out into the forefront, which means we have to start the conversation. So Heather Gray in her article, How to Break the Silence in Your Marriage, gave some really great questions to start off the conversation. She says, "I know I'm not the best communicator, but silence can't be good. I'm nervous that we're going to end up in a fighting match. I really don't want to fight with you. I want us to work this out together." 

19:35 

Here's another one, "I know we keep trying. I know we keep failing, but silence is giving up, and I don't want to do that." Here's another idea, "I know that we haven't been talking the truth is I'm scared because I'm desperate for us to connect. I feel like we are on opposite sides and I want to feel like we're a team again. I want us to figure out some way to work this out even though neither of us really knows how to start." Alright, two more. Here we go, "Hey, I don't want you to feel under attack here. I know I'm to blame too but this conversation has to start somewhere. Our relationship is too important to me not to try." And the last one that Heather gives is "I caught myself the other day telling a friend about how great you were with (fill in the blank.) I realized I never told you that I thought you did that well. In fact I can't remember the last time we had a conversation that went beyond our to-do list. Can we figure out a time to just check in please?" 

20:31 

Aren't those some great questions? I think I love that she put those in there. It's a great way to start the conversation that is not attacking and questions that are coming from a place of love. So sometimes it might even be as simple as "noticed you haven't been responding to me. Can we talk about it?" 

20:49 

Okay, if you're in a healthy relationship, meaning two emotionally healthy people who are doing their best, this is the gateway to establishing healthier communication because then the skills of listening and resolving concerns can be  employed and you can start making some headway in your communication. Okay, this is a time to really acknowledge the other person's feelings and also to share your own feelings. This will also be a time when you can begin to see the motivations behind the treatment you're receiving. 

21:17 

Okay, and this is the time you may need to start setting some clear boundaries regarding the silent treatment in order to protect yourself. This is where you're going to start seeing what are the motivations behind the silent treatment. Are they scared? Are they just not knowing how to handle it? Are they just needing some space? Or are they trying to control? Are they trying to manipulate? Are they trying to make me feel inadequate or insecure? And when we start having these conversations, we can really start paying closer attention to that. 

21:53 

So Anne Petrangello gives us some things not to do if you realize the silent treatment is coming from a place of manipulation. So here's what she says. She says, "don't respond in anger, which can just escalate things." That goes back to our coming from a place of love, right? She also says, "don't beg or plead, which only encourages the behavior. Don't apologize just to put an end to it even though you did nothing wrong. Don't continue to try reasoning with the other person after you've already given it a shot. Don't take it personally as you're not to blame for how others choose to treat you. Don't threaten to end the relationship unless you're prepared to do so." 

22:35 

Okay, it's really important that we start realizing if you are enduring the silent treatment because the other person doesn't know what to do. That's where education and discussing, and those types of things, can come in. If you are consistently receiving the silent treatment, and you start to realize from some of these things we've talked about today is coming from a place of emotional abuse, or if you are doing it from a place of emotional abuse, then this is where we need to start figuring out a lot of these things. 

23:09 

So Anne continues by saying, and the rest of this is going to be a quote, she says, "the silent treatment doesn't always relate to emotional abuse. Some people lack effective communication skills or need to retreat into themselves to work things out. To emotional abusers though, the silent treatment is a weapon of control. At first it might be difficult to know for certain if you're dealing with a bigger problem." So here are some other warning signs of mental abuse. This is the quote continuing on. She says, "frequent yelling, insults, and name calling, bouts of anger, fist-pounding and throwing things, attempts to humiliate or embarrass you particularly in front of others, jealousy and accusations, making decisions for you without your permission, spying on you, attempting to isolate you from family and friends, exerting financial control, blaming you for all that goes wrong and never apologizing, threatening self-harm if you don't do what they want, making threats against you, people you care about, pets, or possessions." 

24:14 

So if you are in an emotionally abusive relationship, the person may be engaging in that intentionally or they may be engaging in it unintentionally. I know that I was engaging in those behaviors for a lot of years completely unintentionally and I think most of us are in those unintentional situations. We just don't recognize it as emotional abuse and then we don't know what to do with it. We don't know how else to resolve those issues. So that's where we want to start the conversation here is, first of all, recognizing the signs of emotional abuse, silent treatment being one of the biggest and one of the most frequently used. 

24:58 

So understanding, in review, the motivation behind the silent treatment can let us know whether it is intentionally emotionally abusive or is it a one-time thing. Does it happen really infrequently, is the person just backing off in order to catch their breath in order to see things more clearly, that's not necessarily the silent treatment. Silent treatment is going to have the element of emotional abuse mixed in with it and that emotional abuse can be intentional or not intentional. But I think the more aware we become of our behaviors and are they crossing that line into trying to be controlling, trying to be manipulative. I think this is where we really need to start having some serious conversations in order to heal relationships of all kinds. 

25:52 

Okay, alright my friends, I hope this has been helpful. Researching this this last week has been really enlightening for me to  see situations that I've engaged in my whole life with all sorts of relationships. I've done some great things and I've also done some not-so-great things, but my awareness about them is the first and biggest step toward becoming an emotional adult. So thank you for joining me on this path and I hope that you're learning some great things that are helping your life to be better. Okay, isn't growing up awesome? I love learning the things that I'm learning and the pieces that I'm putting together. It's just pretty amazing. 

26:29 

Okay, you can contact me at tanyahale.com if you would like to book a free 20 minute coaching session. I only have three of those available a week so If you want one, get on and book them. Now it's a great place to to see if coaching works for you and to get some free coaching too. I would love to help you work through some issues if you've got something you want to talk about. 

26:53 

Okay, and also if you haven't subscribed yet, please do so and leave me a review if you are enjoying this. Share this with friends and neighbors who you feel would benefit as well. I think there's some great stuff here. I'm not perfect and I'm sure over time a lot of my ideas will change as I learn more and experience more, but here's where we are right now and I think we're going in a good direction with learning some good things. So thanks for joining me. Hope you have a terrific day and I will talk to you next time. 

27:25 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!