Is it Just the Silent Treatment or Really Rejection? Why Stonewalling is Harmful

Kerry: [00:00:00] A common conflict avoidant technique is stonewalling and cold rages. This week, Rosanna Faye joins me to talk about why this style of communication is so devastating to victims. You know, it wasn’t until I got into that last relationship that I really understood the power and the pain of stonewalling. I’ve heard people talk about it their whole lives, and I’ve even had clients who would suddenly stand up in the middle of a session. You can kind of feel the tension building.

And they’d stand up in the middle of the session and just storm out, often never to be seen again, but usually, that was the end of the treatment relationship. It wasn’t until I got into that last relationship that stonewalling became a regular feature of the relationship. It was just a [00:01:00] habitual way in which things got dealt with. Even though I understood it psychologically—what it was about, and that it was a power play—it really cut and deeply hurt.

Ro: It’s almost like emotional torture.

Kerry: Yeah, yeah, it does feel that way. And I felt it was a deliberate effort to be hurtful. But I do know some people will say, “No, I just don’t know what else to do.” But did you have this happen? And did it feel like that to you?

Ro: It felt deliberate. It felt planned, and how I knew is—so, my ex-husband would do this all the time. But the worst was when it was, I think, three weeks—almost a month of this—and it came after a fight. It came after an argument. By the end of the argument, I said, “I want a divorce. We’re both not happy. We’re not giving each other what we want. I want a divorce.” And for the next three weeks, he drank, drank, drank, and just got stuck on his phone playing pokerstars.net. Every night I would come home and I’d be like, “What’s [00:02:00] for dinner? What do you want? What are you hungry for? Did the kids eat? Are they napping?” I would try to talk to him and have regular conversations. He’d look up at me, then look down at his phone. Look up at me, then look down at his phone. And I didn’t know what to do. By week three, I kind of got used to it. But how I knew it was deliberate was because he would have this microexpression on his face.

And it was kind of like a—

Kerry: Like lifted one corner?

Ro: One corner.

Kerry: Yeah.

Ro: And I researched this. This is a look of contempt. It was full disgust of me, even just me being in the presence of him, speaking to him, asking him what he wanted for dinner. He would look at me like I was some parasite in the room. And that’s how I knew that this wasn’t just, “I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure. We’ve just said too much.” This wasn’t that. This man hates me. And I could feel it in the silence. It was loud. His silence was loud. His [00:03:00] phone was more important than me. The drinking was more important than me. What am I even doing here? And this is my own home; I’m supposed to be comfortable here.

Kerry: I had heard of cold rages before, but I had never experienced it. The people in my life, when things got hot, it was intense. There was slamming. Usually, there was no name-calling towards people. And usually, my dad losing it. My dad would then yell at something. Maybe it was a tractor. But he’d yell at something; there’d be clanging around, sort of like stomping. That’s what it felt like. It felt like a kid having a tantrum—kind of stomping, having it through the house, letting everybody know that he’s upset. But I had never dealt with this cold, almost like a freeze-out. That’s what it felt like—a freeze-out, where they’re acting as if you don’t exist. Like you said, “parasite.” I thought that really nailed it.

It’s like you’re no more than a fly buzzing in this room, and I’m going to ignore you at all costs. Because what it does is it [00:04:00] really sends a signal of your significance to the person. I mean, even think about the hot-tempered reaction. Hot-tempered is at least, “I don’t like this. I’m in conflict with you. I disagree with you.” But it still feels like there’s an engagement with you, even though it’s not pleasant. But a cold rage, to me, is like an annihilation of a person—an annihilation of their existence in the relationship. I had a client of mine describe that when she would displease her husband—and it usually happened around packing and traveling—they’d be packing up, and he wouldn’t consider the way they packed quite correctly. Or maybe they weren’t doing it fast enough. And then he would end up in a cold rage where he would not speak to her for two weeks. They literally ruined a vacation because everybody didn’t quite perform the way this person wanted.

And I remember thinking, “I don’t know how she survived.” I can’t imagine that kind of chill out like that.

Ro: Yeah, it’s really painful. Because then what happens is, we end [00:05:00] up replaying the events leading up to this freeze-out. I’ve never actually heard that term “cold rage.” It’s a perfect term. It’s a perfect description of what is happening. I always called it the silent treatment, but it’s not a treatment at all. It’s rage, and it’s cold. It does feel like that freeze-out—like I am no longer wanted here. And it’s not only that you don’t belong here. It’s that a part of you is now slowly disappearing. I’m the person who’s in charge of the cooking and feeding the meals—that part of me is gone. I’m cleaning the house—that part of me is gone. Having a relaxing time on the couch and watching movies together—that part is gone. It’s just like, slowly, I start to disappear, and I feel invisible. And like I can walk into a room, and it’s like I don’t even exist—like I’m no longer there. Because he’s used this tactic to slowly take parts of me away.

And you start to replay the events leading up to it. When this woman was packing, it’s, “How could I have packed differently? Maybe I could have included this. Maybe I could have [00:06:00] organized this clothing and these toiletries this way.” And I did the same with this argument that I had with my ex-husband, which is, “What did I really want when I was threatening divorce, or when I was saying that I don’t feel like we need to be together?” I’m justifying it. “Maybe we could be together. Maybe I could have handled that differently. Maybe divorce isn’t the answer.” And then I start replaying what I could have done differently so that I didn’t have to be in this really awful place, which is just so painful. I can’t even describe the pain. It’s hard to describe it to someone, like, “Oh, he’s not talking to you, so he’s awful. So, you get a little vacation.”

Kerry: We say that, but it doesn’t feel like it. I don’t think the time feels like a vacation.

Ro: Yeah.

Kerry: There’s no way that this is a comfortable feeling. Yeah, because if you put yourself in the opposite position of the person doing it, literally, this is what I think some people think. I do think there are different categories of people, but I think there’s a group of people who think, “I’m furious. This person is dead to me. I don’t want them in my [00:07:00] life. I don’t like them, and I want them to know that this is how upset I am. So, I’m deliberately not going to talk to them. I’m going to on purpose ignore them.” I remember that back in the day being a kid. I mean, as the oldest of three girls, of course, we got into spats. And then, what do we do to really upset somebody? We throw our fingers in our ears, start yelling really loud with our eyes squinting shut, and we drown them out. What he essentially said is, “I don’t see you. You’re gone to me. You’re dead to me. You don’t matter to me.” And what does it feel like to the person who’s having that happen? Well, they get more upset, and they grab at your ears, try to stop you, and they beg and plead. At least, that’s what my sisters would do if I did it, or if they did it.

Because it’s basically saying, “You don’t exist. You no longer matter. I no longer see you. You’re dead to me.” That’s the intent of the message. “You’re dead to me,” and nobody wants to feel annihilated. I mean, our greatest fear is rejection and abandonment. If you’re an infant, that’s hardwired into you—that you will die if your [00:08:00] mom and dad suddenly were to walk out and leave you in the cold. You’re not going to make it. And we have this instinctual fear baked into our very being. So, when we activate this, it’s an effort to use that fear as a weapon. It’s really a weaponized experience. It’s to correct you—to say, “When you do this, you’re wrong.”

And you’re right—what happened to that woman? Because I did get to see her get ready for vacation after that. She got anxious. She was highly anxious. She would sit and think of all the details possible as she anticipated the vacation. She would try to figure out what it was that made it go wrong so that it wouldn’t happen again. And here’s the part that I knew, and I think she suspected as well—he just was in a bad space because transitions were hard for him. He didn’t want to have to leave his work for that length of time. He was stressing himself because they were going to be driving a long distance. So, he came in in an anxious space, probably triggered, and then was easily irritable by any slight thing.

Just almost like [00:09:00] looking for a fight. That’s what I imagined was actually happening. So, it wasn’t like this person did something big—it didn’t take a whole lot to trip that wire for this whole thing to go wrong. But I think what really bothered me is, to me, it’s sadistic. To use this method is a very sadistic use of conflict. It’s a form of conflict avoidance—definitely not a good style of conflict resolution. There’s no resolution, but it’s really a sadistic thing to do to a partner as a way to get your point across. I don’t see it any other way. Do you see it any other way than that?

Ro: Oh no, it is sadistic. That little microexpression I was mentioning earlier—that kind of snarl—it was so subtle, but I noticed it. And it was almost like, “Ha ha, I got you. I know you’re suffering right now, and I’m doing it.” And he would look up at me as I asked him what he wanted for dinner—anything in the world, “What do you want? I’ll cook a steak. I’ll get lobster tails, anything,” just to have him talk to me [00:10:00] again. And he would look up at me, not talking to me, and do this little—that’s sadistic. That is such a mean way to go about things. And I do agree—it’s to avoid that conversation; it’s to avoid maybe even just sharing that he’s upset with something. But I think over those three weeks, he forgot. And I didn’t forget—I knew the exact conversation that led to this, but he forgot. He was just having fun with this stonewalling, this cold rage—he was having fun with it. It’s like, “How long can I go to make Ro really suffer here?”

Kerry: If you think about it, it takes two for this to work effectively. Because there is a way for this to break up, but I’m just thinking out loud right now. The assumption is, when someone uses stonewalling, they have to know that the other person in the relationship is more invested. They’ve had to somehow suss that out and know that.

Ro: So he would know I was more invested in saving this relationship, even though the argument that led to it was, “I [00:11:00] want a divorce. I want out.”

Kerry: Yes, because it wouldn’t work if you didn’t care. Because some form of commitment, attachment—even maybe emotional fusion—I mean, I don’t know how pathological or how healthy that attachment was. I mean, there’s where we love each other. We choose each other. We have a sense of belongingness and mutuality. “I need this person. I won’t function well without them.” That’s a more pathological level of attachment. But somewhere along that continuum, all of us are attached to those who are most important to us. The person who uses stonewalling counts on that attachment. “I’m counting on the fact that this person has more skin in the game because that’s the only way this is going to hurt.” You think about what would happen if it was somebody you didn’t really know or care about—you barely knew them—and they had a cold rage or stonewalled you for some reason. Maybe you weren’t even aware of it, and they disappeared. You probably wouldn’t even notice.

Ro: No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t notice. And knowing me, you’ve known me a while now—this is something that would be [00:12:00] a “trash takes itself out” kind of situation, where I don’t need to really have to do any work to have a conversation or confrontation. We wouldn’t have to settle anything—there’s nothing to settle because I don’t care enough. But this is my marriage, so it’s different, and there’s more in it.

Kerry: Yeah. And even think about how you got to that place—the fact that you said this happened around wanting a divorce, despite that you were probably extremely ambivalent about that decision. Like, “Is this really a good decision? Do I really want this? Is it good for the kids? Yes, I’m really fed up,” but I have a feeling that you had lots of feelings about it.

Ro: Well, it’s not that it had a lot of power in the moment. In the moment, I had a lot of power. I said, “This is the time. Enough has happened, and I can’t even tell you—I don’t remember what the actual fight was about. But this was two years prior to actually getting a divorce. This was two years prior to me actually leaving. And what led up to that? I don’t know.” But the conversation—I remember feeling like I was really in power. I was standing really firm [00:13:00] and I felt really good about it. And I felt really set on it. And then the punishment was this stonewalling. That’s when the ambivalence kicked in. That’s when I didn’t know for sure. Because I’m like, “Is this worth it? We live together. We have three kids together. He’s not just going to amicably be like, ‘Okay, you’re right, Ro. Let’s have a divorce, and we’ll work through the paperwork and go through the motions.’” It was a full-stop punishment. “I’m going to stonewall her. I’m going to sit on my phone and play pokerstars.net.” This was my punishment. This was my punishment for speaking up for myself, for standing up for myself, for having power. And he really took that away with this stonewalling.

Kerry: He not only took you away—he took what your issue was away.

Ro: Yeah.

Kerry: Exactly.

Ro: We’ve got kids. When he starts talking to me again—and he did—when he starts talking to me again, that’s it. I’m not going to think about divorce. We’re not going to do this. Yeah, it really just shifted the dynamic from me being powerful and wanting to be me and free, to, “Okay, I’m stuck here now.”

Kerry: It’s interesting. It acted like what’s called a paradoxical intervention. Have you heard of that?

Ro: No.

Kerry: So, this is a technique that you use in therapy. You don’t use it a lot because it could backfire. But again, you have to really know the situation when you use it, but it’s called paradoxical intervention. So, what it is is, when you want the opposite behavior, you push for the behavior you don’t want. It’s essentially what he did to you. You said, “I want a divorce,” and so he psychologically gave you one.

Ro: Is it like reverse psychology?

Kerry: It is. Yeah, it’s like that.

Ro: Yeah, I use that with my kids a lot. But he did that in a very intense way to me.

Kerry: Yeah, and what it did is it activated your need. So that by the end of it, the three weeks, you ended up going for another two years, right?

Ro: What’s the need that it activated?

Kerry: It activated the need of, “I don’t want to be rejected.” So yeah, I’m not going to then leave the relationship because I don’t want to be rejected. You said, “I want out.” He then rejects you. It activates your need, and I don’t want to be rejected. You’re then back in again for another two years, right?

Ro: Yeah. Yeah, that’s how that happened. So, it’s a very effective method. I always thought of it as just punishment, but there was a lot more to it, it seems.

Kerry: There is a lot more to it. Well, at its simplest form, it’s a measure of control. But what is it controlling? Well, it’s controlling not only who’s most in control and in power but also the form in which we’ll stay connected. You said, “I don’t want a connection.” He says, “Well, I’ll give you a lack of connection. Try this on for size.” Then you are like, “Oh, wait, wait, wait, I don’t like that feeling.” Now you’re back into having a connection with him. He got to dictate the power of the connection. So, it was really subtle. Now, here’s how it happened in mine. And I think this is another thing that people need to be aware of—sometimes you’re in a relationship with somebody who’s devious enough that they have other agendas. And they don’t know how to then get space from you and buy time from you, so they set up a situation in which there’s an argument. Then they can say, “I’m so upset, I can’t be here,” and stonewalling is a way to get out and get away from you so they can do whatever they want to [00:16:00] do during that period of time. I think that’s what mine did. I think mine was using stonewalling for several reasons. One, I do think it was a form of punishment. It’s like, “I’m in control. I get to dictate what we talk about, how we talk about it, how long we talk about it.” But I also think it was his way of managing his free time, and it justified it because now he could say, “I was so upset, I had to leave the room,” instead of saying, “I just didn’t want to be with you tonight because I had other plans.” Really, it made it look like it was a result of us when really that was a lie. The stonewalling was a form of deception.

Ro: Yeah.

Kerry: He was creating a scenario that looked like this was justifiable—not that it is, unless stonewalling is ever justifiable—but it’s something he could at least defend and argue about why he needed to do this. But really what it is, is it was for him to go out. For him to cheat on me.

Ro: Yeah, he was basically saying, “I get a free pass. You’ve pushed me out, and now I get to do whatever I want because you pushed me out. It’s your fault. If it wasn’t for you pushing me out with bringing up whatever, however your fight [00:17:00] started, I wouldn’t be out here.” So the blame is on you.

Kerry: Exactly. I know. It is very convenient. And one of the times I got so angry that I actually looked at where his phone was located at because we had 360 turned on—the location app. I actually drove past the site where he said he was sitting. He said he was in a convenience store sitting and having a beer. That’s what he said. And I thought, “That doesn’t make sense. I don’t think 7-Elevens serve beer. No. I don’t think they have stools in them.” I actually got out and drove past it later and found out there was no place to drink. It was all just a ruse. He was just lying. So he was actually planting his phone to mislead me.

Ro: Oh.

Kerry: Yeah.

Ro: Wow, the levels they go.

Kerry: Yeah. Now, there is a group of people where they do get emotionally overwhelmed. They get flooded. So if you were to put—I’m not sure what it’s called—but one of those things that measures pulse and oxygen levels, you’d see that they’re skyrocketing and becoming extremely triggered. And, like, wanting to hyperventilate and almost having a panic attack. They want to shut down. So [00:18:00] there is that form, but I think strategically manipulative, exploitative people know about that and like to use that as, “I just can’t help myself. I was emotionally overwhelmed,” and then that’s how they’re justifying this really crappy behavior.

Ro: Yeah. So my ex would do that. He would say that. And then, when we reconciled after that three weeks of not speaking, there was a big blowout. And this is how he afforded another two years with me. But he did say that when you threatened divorce, it really hurt me, and I know you don’t want me. And then I ran up the bill on pokerstars.net, and I know now we’re never going to be together. And he was being a victim in that moment, and I wanted to save him. And that’s when I grabbed him while he was in tears and just let him cry into me. And I said, “No, we’re a family. We’re good. We’re going to have this baby. We’re going to do this.” And it’s weird how they can manipulate it—how hard the silent treatment was for them. “It’s so hard for me to stonewall you like this because I know how much you hate me and want to [00:19:00] divorce me.” I started to feel like, as hard as the three weeks were for me, how hard it must have been for him. And I started to feel bad for him that he had to go into his addictions and vices and be stuck on his phone because he wasn’t comfortable talking to me. When I saw that little microexpression and the way he took pleasure in abusing me this way, in that moment, I was conflicted. Was I hurting him, or was he hurting me, or are we both just hurt?

Kerry: Yeah, you’re really bringing up a good point, and that is the trickiness of wanting to be in a relationship and being attached to somebody, which means we have care and compassion and concern for the other individual’s well-being. That’s what I’m hearing—a lot of empathy for his plight. But it’s interesting how you also knew that there was contempt, and that discrepancy of the message that you got, even though maybe you couldn’t label it and say, “Oh, that’s disgust or contempt,” your body knew the feeling. Because if you even imitate the feeling, you feel the feeling. Mirror [00:20:00] neurons will do that—if we actually put ourselves into that position and imitate an expression, we’ll have a sensation of what that feeling is associated with that expression. So even though you had all of that information, I find it powerful how needy we end up being. And I really dislike that, but I see it all over the place. I see people who I find intimidating. The next thing I know, I’m fawning, or I’m giving in, or I’m submitting, or I’m justifying, and I’m thinking, “Why?” But that’s the powerful dynamic of relationships—it’s able to really activate these base instincts and base fears for us. And I think it really boils down to as much as—even let’s go back to you and your ex at that moment—as much as you didn’t like him, you also loved him. There was a mix of feelings because things are not just one way or the other. They’re rarely that way.

Ro: Yeah. I used to always say to him, “I love you. But I really don’t like you right now.”

Kerry: I remember that feeling too. So let me ask you a tough question real quick here while we’re wrapping it up. Are [00:21:00] you a stonewaller?

Ro: Oh, that’s a tough question. I think, if I look in hindsight, I may have used that. And so there’s that difference you said earlier, and I’d love to know what your answer is to this—how we can decipher between if we’re doing this because of our stress levels, or cortisol is heightened, and we’re too overwhelmed to deal with the situation, so stonewalling is a form of a defense or survival, or if it’s intentional. Even though I may have used it, and I think I may have, I don’t know that it was from a contemptuous place. I don’t know if it was intentional—that I wanted to hurt the other person. I think that I had no other choice but to use it because I just didn’t know how to approach the situation. So how do we know the difference between what is an intentional stonewalling used as a really awful way to punish someone, and this is just a coping mechanism?

Kerry: I think that’s a great question, and I think we should jump over to the podcast extra.

Ro: Oh yeah [00:22:00] Yeah.

Kerry: That’s amazing. But I do think they’re very different processes. Extremely different processes.

Ro: Okay.

Kerry: For me to answer the question: No, I’m not. I really dislike disconnection. I hate it. I hate it. So for me to do that, I’d have to want to be so cruel that I can’t ethically stand myself. It just violates my own integrity. Have I ghosted people? Yeah, but I think that’s something different. I don’t think ghosting is the same as stonewalling.

Ro: That makes me feel a little better. Because I think that’s maybe where I lean more into—ghosting and avoiding, and not so much putting someone in that place of cold rage.

Kerry: Ghosting, to me, is more of, “You’ve decided this relationship’s not safe. Even ending it and finding closure isn’t safe.” So you just think, “My safety is more important. I’m just not going to address this anymore. It’s reached its own natural end,” and you end it by discontinuing contact. That, to me, is very different. Yeah. There’s no intention to [00:23:00] manipulate the other person. It’s not like you’re going to get them back. You’re literally saying, “I just can’t be in this.”

Ro: Yeah, that’s important to note because there’s some clarity around that. I’m sure people need to know.

Kerry: Yeah, I’m sure there is too. We should have probably said that earlier, but I’m glad it came up. Yeah. And that’s been fun. Thank you so much for joining me today, Ro. I’ve missed you. We haven’t had you on for a while, and I really love this conversation.

Ro: Yeah. Same.

Kerry: Well, that’s a wrap for this week’s episode. Are you following me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? Find me at Kerry McAvoy, Ph.D. And whether you’re considering leaving or have left a narcissistic relationship, find community support at my Toxic-Free Relationship Club. You can learn about this resource as well as others at kerrymcavoyphd.com. And I’ll see you back here next [00:24:00] week.