But there is a trend among married couples that seems to continue to permeate grown, mature adult marriage relationships, no matter what religious preference, race or nationality, or upbringing. It's the act of giving what's been coined, "The Silent Treatment," or simply put, purposefully ignoring your spouse and withholding all forms of interactivity and conversation. Yet many do not realize that they are in fact sabotaging their own relationship by this hurtful tactic and could even possibly dissolve the foundation to which the relationship was based on in the first place.
Many dub giving the "Silent Treatment" as a form of pure "abuse". Also subscribed as "the worst emotional abuse known". To that we have no reason to say disagree with that.
Giving your spouse the silent treatment is understood as a form of punishment to the other person. The clear intent is a purposeful endeavor to make the other feel unimportant, devalued, belittled and isolated to their own self without the human contact of the one giving this form of treatment. All in retribution and revenge because of one or more things that were said or done.
The immediate problem is... what if the hurt was not on purpose, but accidental?
To quote Abuse101.com,
"Silent treatment is a form of banishing someone from the abuser's existence without the benefit of closure or a good bye or a chance at reconciliation. In a word..it's meant to torture someone you profess to love."
Giving someone this "Silent Treatment" is such a negative form of abuse and retribution, that even Merriam-Webster has a real definition for this coined term.
The definition states, "An act of completely ignoring a person or thing by resort to silence especially as a means of expressing contempt or disapproval."
Wikipedia defines giving the Silent Treatment as, "Social rejection." "Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a interpersonal relationship or social relation. The topic includes both interpersonal rejection (or peer rejection) and romantic rejection. A person can be rejected on an individual basis or by an entire group of people. Furthermore, rejection can be either active, by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive, by ignoring a person, or giving the "silent treatment." The experience of being rejected is subjective for the recipient, and it can be perceived when it is not actually present."
The low-down.
Despite the fact that giving someone the "Silent Treatment" is a clear show of immaturity and spite, we would also like to bring to light a few thoughts on how this will simply affect your marriage.
Firstly, it is completely counter-productive!
The whole point in your actions when dealing with being hurt by your partner is to communicate to them how they might have hurt you so that they can realize the impact their words or actions had on you. But instead of communicating, you have destroyed that opportunity for the both of you to restore the closeness, love and overall feelings of love and friendship. Instead of making your partner feel bad and wanting to crawl to you, you have put them in a position of now having to survive devastating hurt coming from you. The Silent Treatment is in all levels counterproductive to the point that it can literally become a factor of separation or divorce and disillusionment of a marriage.
Secondly, it shows your partner that you cannot handle real, life problems.
It brings to mind the children in the playground that stick out their bottom lip, and stick their fingers in their ears while they loudly and obnoxiously sing, "la-la-la, I can't hear you!"
Truth be told, giving the Silent Treatment is not an effective way to deal with real issues. Yet there are untold adults that do just that.
There are many more effective ways to deal and communicate with your partner than to give the Silent Treatment.
Just know, that when you do this, it not only deeply wounds the one you love, but also yourself and your own marriage. It tears at the very fabric of what holds your marriage together, and gives way the opportunity for bitterness and wrath to utterly destroy your marriage.
So, when the urge comes to give the Silent Treatment, resist it. Even if you need to take a few extra breaths and re-situate yourself. Just make sure you do whatever it takes to move past this type of behavior.
When it comes to marriage, silence is certainly not golden, and communication is once again paramount.
Make it work!
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