TIPS & TRICKS IN NAVIGATING THE DAMNING EFFECTS OF SILENT TREATMENT IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP
The silent treatment is the act of intentionally withdrawing from an interaction, refusing to further engage, shutting the other person out for an extended periods of time.
Whenever this happens, it takes a toll on the person on the receiving end with different kind of negative emotions, they feel invincible, like they don’t matter. Although there are many reasons someone might use the silent treatment, it often has negative consequences and can progressively become emotionally abusive. Research has it that these people experience a threat to their needs of belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence.
This type of behavior reinforces the feeling that someone we care about wants nothing to do with us. It can feel as though you don’t exist. On the other hand there is absolutely nothing wrong with setting healthy boundaries in relationships and disagreements or sharing the need to take time, a break, or step away to calm down and reset. This expressions demonstrates that you can recognize when your emotions are escalating and take the necessary steps to recover, which is a sign of emotional intelligence.
Reasons why your partner gives you silent treatment.
There are many reasons why a person resorts to using the silent treatment. Firstly, they often may not know how to manage their feelings, they might also have experienced trauma while younger, which can sometimes lead to mal-adaptive emotional responses. Finally, they might also use the silent treatment as an aggressively passive approach to trigger reactive abuse from their partner; this explain their need to be in control.
Below are six major reasons for silent treatment.
- You are in a trauma bond relationship.
- They have poor communication skills and don’t know how to express their needs or emotions.
- It’s their primary coping mechanism
- They struggle with control issues.
- They are not self-aware enough about their use of the silent treatment to make changes
- They modeled this type of behavior from a caretaker
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