BPD BEHAVIORS: Silent treatment

[BPDFamily.com]

What you have done is therapeutic, not manipulation, retaliation, glowering or angry stomping of feet.  Although unhealthy passive aggressive may appear similar on the surface, your reasons for pulling back are entirely different and healthy.

Oh, and this is probably also distorted/biased perceptions and Blaming or Blame Shifting.

[ForeverDad]

What you have done is therapeutic, not manipulation, retaliation, glowering or angry stomping of feet.  Although unhealthy passive aggressive may appear similar on the surface, your reasons for pulling back are entirely different and healthy.

Oh, and this is probably also distorted/biased perceptions and Blaming or Blame Shifting.

[rendezvous04]

     I so agree that the silent treatment hurts more then the abusive rages I have experienced. I know that he is acting out because of past failed relationships. We talked at length about his last ex and now he has said I've taken her place and am so much worse. Not at all true. It definitely is a coping mechanism. It has been 2 weeks since he texted me and still holds resentment toward me for being a cheater.( All in his mind) I know things will get better. Just need to tell myself it's OK to feel down once in awhile. The anger is a different thing! The saying " What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" applies here.

[daisydragonfly]

Ok.  What do you do about a BPD hubby who habitually employs the silent treatment defence?  I want to keep my marriage intact, we have children.  I want my husband to know this is unacceptable (I have told him numerous times and tried to speak about it's effect on me and ask him his reasons for doing it) and I want to model a different way for my children to communicate.  Anyone know how to do this without throwing an ultimatum at him? 

[Naughty Nibbler]

daisydragonfly:

Did you go through all 13 pages?  Just mentioning it, because I've missed the extra pages on an article before.  There is some more info. at the link below:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=70004.0

Growing up, my Dad used to practice the "silent treatment".  One problem is that children can think that this is normal behavior and later subject their SO to it.

I don't think there is a standard approach to get your husband to stop.  I read recently where someone just went on talking to their spouse, went about their business, asked the spouse to join them in going somewhere, etc.  They went on with business as usual until the SO/spouse stopped the behavior.

[daisydragonfly]

Thank you Naughty Nibbler, No I didn't read the rest of the post till just now.  Still new...  Lots of helpful things  - some I've tried with various degrees of success.  It's hard to ignore something that hurts so much.  I find myself the last couple of weeks just giving him the silent treatment.  Not because I'm necessarily angry about anything - just because I have no energy left to try and tiptoe around to figure out what kind of day it's going to be.  There are more silent days than not so I'm just defaulting to that.  Sad.