I read with interest your piece on “the silent treatment” as a response to conflict and thought it was worth offering an alternative view that sometimes it is the only option available (The silent treatment: ‘One woman was shunned by her husband for 40 years’, 12 December). I’m not sure it’s necessarily accurate or helpful to frame all people who stop talking to blood relatives as “sulkers”.
I haven’t spoken to my biological brother in the last 15 years. The basis for this was his psychological and physical abuse that not only overshadowed my childhood, but continued into adulthood, long after he should have known better. It took years of therapy to realize that I didn’t need to include this person in my life and I made the decision to cut ties. Despite pleas from our mother for me to “reconcile”, I made it clear that reconciliation could only come after an apology and acknowledgment on his part for threats, physical assaults and making me a figurative and literal punching bag, even into our 20s. Until then, there can be no grounds for a meaningful adult relationship.
He refuses to admit what happened, as does my mother. Excuses are made, memories are twisted and questioned. When I heard my mother’s tearful “Why do you treat your brother worse than you treat a stranger on the street?” I finally worked up the courage to answer: that a stranger on the street wouldn’t hit me or call me horrible things; that if my husband had done what my brother did, she would have told me to call the police; that it is shameful for her to ask her daughter to “be tolerant” under such circumstances.
My refusal to engage is the last line of defense I have. I’m not ashamed of it.
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Over the course of my life, I was often on the receiving end of the silent treatment from my mother, who in turn taught my siblings that this was an acceptable way to handle relationships. It may be, as your article suggests, that this way of behaving is not unique to any particular personality type, but in my experience it was covert narcissism that was the driver.
Anything that is seen as drawing attention to myself and that could be a source of celebration in any functional family (showing any independence, going to college, having a successful career, getting pregnant, a role in the local community has) has been punished by protracted episodes of silent treatment. My mother has left me in public on several occasions and, contrary to your somewhat sympathetic description of this behavior as the offenders way of dealing with uncomfortable emotions, she seems to revel in the grip of incomprehensible shame and self-reproach she inflicts on me caused. to feel and through which she controlled our relationship.
A lifetime of this treatment and the very real possibility that its physical and mental effects would eventually crush me has ironically caused me to have no contact with my mother, despite the fact that we live on the same street. Unlike her, I do not rejoice in this, but she has taught me well.
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Eighteen years ago my marriage broke up. My husband and I had three children together. He wanted a shared parenting arrangement. The problem was that he didn’t want to talk to me. At all.
All communication went through lawyers and the courts, where it was pointed out that a great deal of cooperation and communication is essential to make a shared parenting arrangement work. After the divorce was finalized, all communication ceased.
The article talks about the psychological damage that can be caused by the silent treatment; however, I found that the consequences were more harmful to our children. Changes of arrangements were passed on to me by the children, or not at all, which meant that children sometimes stood outside my house when I returned from work, when my ex-husband had to be somewhere else. Sports equipment, uniform, coats were in the wrong house at the wrong time, making day to day life very, very difficult.
For the past 18 years I feel like a woman who had children on her own. My husband’s family also joined the silent treatment. It was never my intention to raise my children alone as if the father didn’t exist, but that’s what happened. I have not had a conversation with the father of my children for 18 years. No discussions about schooling, curfews, about driving lessons or allowing them to go to parties. When problems arose, I was on my own. Worse, it meant that there was no consistency for the children in matters of discipline or family rules.
I agree with the article that one reason for the silent treatment may be that it is learned behavior. My husband’s family used the silent treatment when relationship problems arose. His grandparents did not speak to each other, his sister did not speak to his mother. My children have asked about this over the years: why doesn’t Dad talk to you? Why doesn’t Auntie talk to Nana? It is very difficult to give a reason for someone else’s behavior. All I could tell them is that keeping the lines of communication open is essential for everyone. And they learned it first hand. Now in their 20s, they still talk about the problems they experienced.
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