April 20, 2025 • 45 mins
The silent treatment might seem like a quiet moment to cool off—but we’ve seen how it can loudly erode trust, create emotional distance, and chip away at connection over time.
In this episode of Honey, We Need to Chat, we’re diving into the real cost of the silent treatment in relationships. We talk about why people withdraw, what’s actually happening in your brain during emotional shutdown, and how silence can unintentionally become a power play. With personal stories, wild Reddit relationship drama, and tools we love (shoutout to the Gottman Four Horsemen), we’re unpacking how silence can become damaging—and what healthier communication really looks like.
Whether you’re the one who shuts down, or the one left feeling confused and alone, this conversation brings empathy, perspective, and simple, realistic ways to reconnect. And make sure you stick around for the Reality Check Corner, where we share a practical challenge and a powerful visualisation to help you show up in your relationship the way you actually want to.
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silent treatment, emotional shutdown, Gottman Four Horsemen, communication in relationships, relationship advice, emotional regulation, marriage help, conflict resolution, disconnection, healthy boundaries, dating dynamics, couples coaching, relationship podcast, mental health, relationship repair, nervous system.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Honey, we need to chat. Hey guys, welcome back to
another episode of Honey. We Need to chat.
Where's my? Pants.
Lego. OK.
I'll go earlier. As you were starting, I was
like, what was I going to say? I.
(00:26):
Was yeah. Where is my pants?
Where's my? Pen OK it.
The Lego. Movie.
It's The Lego Movie. Amy's doing The Lego Movie,
everyone. Obviously.
But this is the Honeymoon Chat podcast.
We are all about communication in a relationship.
We believe that when communication dies in a
relationship, that's when bad things happen.
(00:46):
So our goal, our aim, our job here is to bring in topics and
circumstances and tools for you guys to help you to navigate
through the different struggles that you might be having and
communicate through it. Yeah, we we also have a real
heart to not just be another voice, another piece of content
out there in the in the universefloating around for people to
(01:06):
consume. We really want to be practical
and apply practical things or provide practical things that
you can apply to your life todaywhenever it pops into your head,
whenever you're reminded of these episodes.
So stick around because we've got the reality check corner at
the end as well. And that's just full of little
practical, very low maintenance things that you can apply to
(01:27):
yourself and to your relationship today, if you like,
so that this can kind of breakthrough and not just be
something you've heard, but alsocan be something that's
impacting where you are AT and where you're at with your
partner. And we're often joined by our
golden retriever, Bonnie, who sometimes pulls out cords and
cables and things like that. And she's currently rolling over
and pulling down the curtains soespecially.
Breaking. The curtains.
(01:48):
Well, anyway, she's here with us.
So today we are talking about. So actually going back, I want
to go back Episode 4. You did a really good episode, a
topic on the four the Gottman Institute, 4 Horsemen.
And then on episode 15 again, wewent back to that and we
reviewed Stonewalling, which is one of those 4 horsemen.
(02:08):
So if you haven't checked out either of those episodes, I
recommend going straight to episode 4.
It was such a solid episode. We got a lot of writings on
that, actually on how many people related to those
different horsemen, you know, put it all personalities.
Or things that kill relationships for things that
kill relationships, yeah. So today, what we're going to
do, we're going to go dig deeperinto those again and we're going
(02:30):
to go into more the silence treatment side of things, of
stonewalling. And again, a big thing there
we've definitely struggled with in the past to some extent.
Just knowing well, how do I communicate through that?
Or even for myself, I know I've been in situations where it's
like, well, I don't know how to communicate this well, so I
won't communicate and I kind of shut down matter of protection
of not going into an argument. But anyway, we're going to go
(02:53):
into some more of those topics, real life topics, real life
stories on navigating through through the silent treatment.
Yeah, so we've got a couple of Reddit stories to dive into and
kind of apply some of these these philtres through these
lenses through and then some practical things to do to try
and navigate through them as well.
So stick around. We're going to dive into the
(03:13):
silent treatment. All of us know what that is.
Everyone knows what it is. It's very self explanatory, but
I'm going to just explain it anyway.
Basically the silent treatment is when one partner
intentionally withdraws from communication.
And there's a number of reasons why people do that, which you've
just alluded to. There could be, you know, not
(03:34):
wanting to escalate things, yourprior, your prior experience,
how you grew up or your prior experience within this
relationship before having seen what happened when things
escalated. Could be a control thing that
people have, manipulative thing.There's so many reasons that go
into the silent treatment, but self explanatory in terms of
what it is and how you might seeit play out.
(03:55):
Sounds very loud. Yeah, it's a silent treatment
that's extremely loud. Yeah, I.
Was making a joke but you just turned it around.
That's really it really is. It speaks very, very loudly.
Yeah, you. Actually said something a few
episodes. A long.
Time ago. A long time ago.
What can you say that again? I think it was not saying
anything says something. It's basically like, yeah, you,
you might think you're not saying something by being quiet,
(04:15):
but you're actually saying something.
Yeah, in the quietness. And that's exactly this.
You are communicating extremely loudly.
And unfortunately, as we will dive into, you don't always what
you're communicating is not always what you're meaning to or
what the other person's picking up is not always where it's the
silent treatments coming from. So it's, it's a way of
communication through silence that is very ineffective.
(04:37):
So it is dangerous. It is dangerous for a number of
reasons. One is it mimics rejection and
that actually puts our nervous system into fight, flight or
freeze, which I've been learningall about with my coaching.
So it's something I've just thisweek been thinking a lot about
and that really impacts how we function.
That puts your body into survival mode and it actually
turns off your prefrontal cortex, which is your logic
(04:59):
centre where you make logical, sound, healthy, big picture,
creative decisions processing. So when that's shut down, you're
in survival mode, just like you would be in a survival
situation. Your brain doesn't really know
any different just because someone's being silent and
you've you are experiencing whatyou think is rejection.
(05:20):
Whether it is or not, your braintricks you into thinking that
you're in survival mode and you're going to react out of
that. So it's not healthy, to say the
least. You can feel unsafe, anxious,
emotionally abandoned, a number of other things.
It also blocks repair. So conflict isn't the problem.
And we've said that on here before as well.
I think you mentioned that one time.
The argument isn't the problem. The argument isn't.
(05:43):
Sometimes you need to have the argument in order to get to
it's. In fact, I'm not even going to
say sometimes. I think a lot of the time you
need to have the discussion, whether that's in an argument
form or not. And we so often are avoiding
those tense moments, thinking that avoiding it is going to fix
it or make it OK. And that's just almost never the
(06:03):
case. And This is why silent treatment
blocks repair, because it actually just avoids the
conflict. The conflict isn't the problem.
The disconnection is. And without the conversation,
there's no way for you to rebuild trust and move through
it. It shifts power.
And this is really important regardless of why you might be
doing. And I think a lot of people
would be like, well, you know, I'm doing it because I've seen
(06:24):
how things play out when people get really stuck in
conversations and it escalates. And when I saw it from my
parents or whatever is going on for them, regardless of why
you're doing it, it's actually apower play.
And it is, it can be really manipulative and quite a yucky
shift of power in your relationship.
It doesn't keep things equal andloving and kind.
It actually takes that power. And especially when it's a
(06:46):
repeated behaviour, it takes that power from your partner and
it becomes a way that you can control the emotional dynamic.
One person can control that. They decide when and if the
relationship comes back online. And that's not, again, it's not
healthy. And the other thing which we've
already said is it's often misunderstood.
The, IT could be a trauma response, the reasoning that
(07:07):
you're doing it, the thing you're trying to communicate
through it or trying to avoid communicating through it.
The response from you that you're observing from your
partner to your silent treatment, like there's just a
whole mix of misunderstanding that goes into it because it is
literally silence. So there's no clarity.
It's just a very loud confusion.So it's a, it's a big space for
(07:28):
misunderstanding and without change, it breaks connection
over time. Yeah, absolutely.
So in summary, silent treatment is not healthy.
It's not a helpful way to go through disagreements.
It plays out for a lot of reasons, and we're going to dive
into two examples of this. But it's definitely something,
which is why Gottman has mentioned it in his Four
Horsemen, that can really erode relationships.
(07:50):
Yeah, and I, I hear a lot as well from from partners about
their husbands or boyfriends or whatever, about how they will
try and bring something up and they just shut down, you know,
and I think for, and then I'll have the conversations with the
guys a lot. And it's out of those two
things. It's out of like, I don't know,
like I, I don't know what I think about this situation and I
don't know how to respond because I'm still trying to work
(08:12):
out what this is. Or if I do respond, it will be
in a really explosive way. And I don't want to do that.
So it's out of this like it's kind of like a, a few thing
maybe, maybe that's too strong of a word of fear, but it's a
caution. It's a, it's a protection of
like, well, if I just be silent,I can't screw this up.
Yeah. In a way to summarise kind of
(08:32):
all of the above is that the silent treatment isn't just
silence, like we've said, it's actually very loud.
It's the absence of emotional presence in a moment when a
relationship really needs it themost.
And over time, that can do more damage than raise voices or
messy arguments, disagreements and escalations.
Because it tells the other person that you don't matter
right now. Yeah, whether like.
(08:53):
Whether you mean to or not. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly. So we're going to dive into the
first reader story and just explore how this might play out.
Hey guys, it's a really quick break here.
We just want to encourage you, if you want to support us in
this podcast, please do. All the things you always hear
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(09:13):
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(09:34):
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So that is why people, whenever you're following creators and
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(09:58):
that this is a value and the other people might enjoy it too.
So if you're enjoying it, it only takes a second.
We really appreciate those engagements because that's
what's getting us in front of other people as well.
Thanks guys. So this is titled advice for
dealing with the silent treatment question mark.
My girlfriend is upset with me and has been ignoring me for
going on three days. By ignoring I mean will not
(10:20):
talk, respond or even look at me.
We live together. She knows this is very upsetting
for me. I've said it multiple times
which she has ignored. She's upset with me because I
forgot something she said and therefore I wasn't listening to
her. She said I had to apologise or
she would stop talking to me. I apologised, although I wish I
hadn't. She still decided to ignore me
(10:40):
anyway. I feel like this is a punishment
for something so small, even if I was in the wrong and it's
going on for days. Today was my first day doing a
new position at my work and it was very stressful.
Plus I had to deal with being upset that my girlfriend is
ignoring me. I would usually be able to talk
to her about this kind of thing but I can't.
I'm so upset by this. I feel so anxious, like I'm
(11:01):
going to throw up all the time. It feels so childish and rude to
ignore me in this way. What should I do?
She won't talk to me, I don't even know what how to go about
this. She ignores everything I say,
even when I say I want to apologise for whatever she's
upset about. So three days silence, not even
eye contact. That's that's a long time.
(11:22):
I don't think it's OK. Like, I, I understand there's
and might be something, you know, she's upset about or heard
about, but three days, I just don't think that's.
Yeah, this is what I don't like about this is it's all right.
She's she's upset, but there is a punishment here.
You know, it's not a actual. All right, let's work through
this or whatever else. It's not even, it doesn't even
(11:42):
seem like she's trying. She's trying to work through it
herself. It feels like she's just trying
to punish. And I don't think that's ever
OK. You know, if you're wanting a
healthy relationship, you don't punish.
You grow together, right. And so I think it's the first
first rate flag in this. It's is, yeah, just completely
shut down. Super intense.
Definitely living like you're being punished for three days as
(12:05):
an adult from your partner. I get this though, because I
remember sometimes that you've brought something up with me.
You've mentioned a couple of times and it's frustrating that
I haven't, you know, you feel like you I haven't listened or
something and vice versa. I'm sure there's been times
where I've shared with you aboutstuff.
Like not leaving things on your side.
Exactly. Don't leave stuff on my side of
the bathroom. But we've never been like, OK,
(12:28):
I'm going to punish you now overthis.
No, so normally we just discuss Reddit stories and when we kind
of talk about it and and workshop at how we would
workshop it this time around, because it's we really have a
heart to not just look at it. We don't want to just look at
something and make a blanket statement on face value and
(12:48):
assume that we have all the information because we really,
these are tiny little stories into people's lives.
So this time I've actually broken in this story down a
little bit because I wanted to make sure that we have a well
rounded picture of what could begoing on.
And I think this is a helpful tool for the person navigating
it to do as well. So we've never done the silent
(13:10):
treatment in a way like this to punish each other.
This is really intense. This would be extremely
infuriating to live with. Very distracting.
I can understand what he's saying about, you know, he's
just started this role and then he's got this in the back of his
head. He's like my girlfriends not
even looking at me, not just notresponding or not, not just
responding with blunt little words.
She's not talking to me, not looking at me.
(13:31):
That was that's super distressing and definitely a
really intense stance to make. But I will say, I think people
punish other people whether they're aware of it or not in
you want to make them see how much this effects you.
While we've never done silent treatment, there definitely have
been reactions and that kind of thing that we have chosen.
I'm sure I know I can speak for myself.
(13:52):
I've chosen reactions because I want to make it clear you've
done this thing again or whatever, and I want to, I want
to make it make you feel that discomfort.
I would never have gone to this extreme and I will never go to
this extreme. But that's I think something to
just be aware of as we're listening to this story is
punishment sounds really intense, seeing it play out like
(14:13):
this, really intense. It's a, it's an opportunity to
reflect on how potentially we dohold these things over our
partners as well. Another damaging part about this
reaction is like, I can put myself in his perspective of,
you know, it's not, I can't put ourselves in this perspective
'cause we're married and we've been married for over 10 years
now. But if I look at this, they're
dating. And if you gave me a three day
(14:35):
silent treatment, I would be like, are you leaving?
Like are you, are you over with this relationship?
Now are we going together? Are we even together?
Like what's what's the go here? But I think that would be in my
mind ongoing. I don't think it would be like,
oh, now you're talking to me again.
We're sweet. I think that's going to build up
in my mind of like, was she about to leave at that point?
(14:55):
You know, is this going to be? So I'll grow this insecurity in
our relationship from then as well.
And that's where I feel like punishments again, like I feel
like punishments are not a fruitful response.
I feel like they're going to bring those insecurities in or
that mistrusting or yeah, you'renot safe now.
Like I don't, I don't know. I don't have that surety in this
(15:17):
relationship. It takes away your safety in
your relationship, which is is gonna erode over time.
Like you pointed out, they're dating.
So this is a time where you're you haven't committed your life
to somebody for the rest of yourlife.
You are you are committed in a different type of way, but
you're still like you're still entering into that.
And so it is the time when you're looking at patterns and
(15:37):
you're looking at reactions and you're thinking about what's
healthy and what is something that's going to, you know, work
towards the culture of marriage or relationship in the long term
that I would really like for my relationship in the long term.
And this probably is not going to be something that's like,
yeah, yeah, that sounds good. So it is something to think
about. It's something really important
to address. And doesn't mean this is like a
(16:00):
done. It's just like the Gottman
Institute has flagged these things are signposts for
patterns that are not going thatwill erode relationship over
time. So it would be really hard.
And and the anxiety, like you said, would it would start
insecurities, it would start anxieties.
You would just be like, I don't,I don't know what's going on.
I don't know what she's thinking.
I don't know what she's going todo.
(16:21):
Is it going to end? When's it going to end?
He would feel very powerless because you can't make someone
talk to you and you don't want to like you don't want to get to
that intensity of trying to likemake them talk to you because
that's not relationship. So the, the breakdown that I've
added is it's easy for us to look at this and be like, that's
really intense. If somebody has a background
where they have seen toxic behaviour play out or they've
(16:45):
experienced it with themselves, like in relationships previously
or in their family, or they have, you know, deep anxieties
and insecurities that feed into their reactions.
I can understand how someone might get to the point where
they're like, I don't know what else to do other than to show
him how deeply frustrating this is or how hurtful this was.
And he said, you know, I've forgotten something that she
(17:07):
said. We don't know what that was.
What was that thing that he forgot?
It wasn't really important. And is it something she's
repeated over and over to him? Yeah.
And. And this is like, are you
kidding me? You've forgotten that again.
Yeah. And she's kind of at the point
where she's like, I don't know what else to try.
I've seen this pattern before. So I'm just going to revert
right back to that pattern that I've experienced and taken on,
(17:28):
which is to just. If you get results that way like
I mean that. Could be that.
Could be such that, you know, again, like you said, I've I've
tried everything else. Like we don't have that history
given to us in this conversationin this writing.
But like, yeah, if if she's got getting results in that way, is
this going to feed that? You know, so he's going to take
that responsibility at the same time.
(17:49):
Yeah, but they're going to be that have that responsibility
for each other of like, cool. Well this is not healthy either
way. Like.
From I know, yeah, exactly. The other thing is he said he
apologised, so she said I won't talk to you again until you
apologise. And then he apologised and then
he said he wished he hadn't apologised.
Yeah. So the question that came to
mind for me was like, what was that apology?
(18:10):
Exactly because it does the samewith me, too.
Because she then continued to give him solid treatment.
I'm like, all right, right. My head goes, Joey for friends.
I'm sorry. That's 10 times worse.
Yeah, Yeah. That's worse.
Yeah. And just to be clear, none of
this exploring the other side isto excuse it, because there's
nothing in my mind that excuses this behaviour because it's just
(18:30):
not helpful, even if it was a really serious thing.
He's is not helpful, but it is. I think it's a really important
exercise to stretch our brains into thinking about these things
because people tend not to just wake up and decide they're going
to do this. And it seems to me from the
story that this is abnormal, like he hasn't experienced this
from her before. So it doesn't seem to be a
(18:50):
pattern at this stage. So to me that just screams think
about what's going on. Like try and unpack a little bit
of maybe what's sitting behind her reaction.
Not that that's to his own, but it will help him in terms of
navigating that. So she may not have felt like
that apology was real. She might have been, it may have
been worse. It could have, who knows what it
(19:11):
was about or what it inflamed for her, But the apology element
was fascinating to me when I sawthat there.
And then the the really important thing which we talk
about all the time is the curiosity, being curious about
what sits behind this. For somebody, this would be
deeply, deeply hurting and most people's reaction would to be be
(19:32):
to be very offended, very frustrated, very like, like, no,
I'm not just going to quickly forgive the fact that you
stopped speaking to me for threedays.
And I understand that. But a really, really healthy,
grounded, well rounded response would be to address it with
curiosity and be like, why does she react this way?
And what might have been in her past that may inform these
(19:55):
reactions. Yeah, explore that.
Which would be easier if she wastalking to you?
And again, I I could see that we've spoken as we had this
before. Is we kind of act out of what
we've seen? Yeah, as well.
So I wonder if she's seen this response and her parents and so
forth too. I'm like, well, that gets
results there. So I'm gonna try it here.
And so instead of it being something that, I mean, yes,
it's just between you because she's put it there.
(20:18):
But I, I love the idea, especially if it's, you know,
the first time they've navigatedthis, of being able to be like,
I'm really, I really want to know why you feel like this is
something you needed to do or what?
Like has, what was your family like?
Like, did your family communicate about these things
and using it as an opportunity to explore her past and just
(20:38):
gently, curiously let her open up about why those patterns
might be something that she navigates?
Yeah. So no, it's not OK.
No, I would not be OK if you were doing that.
I'd probably be very frustrated.And it would take a lot to get
my brain into the space where I could even consider being gently
curious about your background. Let's test it.
But the reality is, we say this as well depend.
(21:00):
What do you want out of relationship?
You should want success for yourrelationship.
And that sometimes means even inthe face of your partner doing
something hurtful, you taking a breath and removing yourself
from that as much as possible. Not not denying that it hurt and
not not addressing it, but just removing your offence to that as
much as possible so you can explore together.
(21:22):
And relationships are hard, yes,you know, it's.
So hard. Layered and we won't encourage
you. Don't survive your relationship,
grow in your relationship. You know there's so much joy,
excitement, happiness, adventurethat you guys can have together.
So don't just survive, but grow.So his thing was advice for
dealing with silent treatment. And then in his story, he's, you
(21:43):
know, asking lots of questions. What should I do?
What should I do, that kind of thing.
So practical tips on how he could navigate this is
acknowledging the silence gently.
Like not not going to be like why are you being so quiet even
though that's everything and youprobably be.
And I wonder if it's like you, you do this out of the quiet
time like not during, because ifshe's not talking to you already
(22:04):
like that, you're not going to get much ground like moment.
But again, we're looking for that long term growth, not the
immediate change. And this is 1 pattern of
communication. Everyone has patterns of
communications, weaknesses of communication.
So you might not navigate silenttreatment, but you're never
going to be navigating someone with perfect communication.
Like we all need to exercise these skills in terms of
(22:27):
strengthening how we show up as a partner in order to have a
successful relationship. The other thing is avoid chasing
and escalating and trying to force it to happen because
you're not responsible for it. And two, it just escalates.
It just makes it harder for it to break or it will break in a
way that's really, really non constructive.
And then asking himself what kind of relationship he wants to
(22:50):
build, What kind of relationshipculture do you want to have?
And what is the 5% that you can take ownership of there?
Like 5% you can earn in this moment of how the relationship's
been going and how we can move towards that culture that you
want. Just so that he doesn't feel
powerless in it. He's still in charge of deciding
what is OK for him to experiencethis.
(23:11):
And he doesn't have to just be like, oh, well, I'm going to
just deal with this always. Like he still gets to say, no,
that's not with me. But you need to take time to
reflect on what kind of relationship you want.
And then you also need to recognise your what you can do,
what the power you have in that moment and what you can do in
that moment to work towards thatculture in your relationship.
Cool. That's story one.
(23:31):
Story one. Yeah.
Hey, guys, we're just going to take a little break right now.
We if you've been listening intothese episodes and you're like,
man, Amy is a so full of wisdom,so full of wisdom.
I want to say there's a reason why Amy does most of the leading
in these conversations because she's a lot more full of wisdom
than I am. See you are you do well.
(23:52):
You do really well. Thanks.
But you should know that Amy actually does this for a living.
Amy, tell us what's going on. I do indeed.
Yes, I am a coach. You are a qualified coach and
this is something that that I'm very passionate about.
I love helping people work through these things.
You've heard it in our episodes.This is how we navigate our
relationship and our family. Having curiosity and exploring
(24:15):
these things and figuring out what sits behind them.
And so this is the sort of stuffthat I get to do with my clients
and the women that I'm working with, which is really exciting.
So if there is anything that you're feeling a little bit like
you just need a bit more clarityin.
If you're feeling stretched thinor things are just not feeling
like they're clicking right for you, like you're holding a lot
of stuff together outside, but inside something's just not
(24:38):
functioning. That is something that I would
love to explore with you and work through with you in terms
of trying to find just a little bit more clarity about what's
going on. The tools that I've learned in
coaching have been wild and super helpful for us, super
helpful for me. Even as I'm helping other women.
I am like sitting there in the sessions that I'm saying out of
my mouth and I'm remembering a tool that I'm like, Oh my gosh,
(25:01):
yes. And I love.
That I love watching you in thisspace as well because after
every one of her sessions with their clients, it's not like
I've got through that. It's always like, man, I love
this. So this is something that you
are actually passionate about you, you love this stuff.
You love journey and walking with women through these
different areas. If you are interested, reach
(25:22):
out, go to Honey We need to chat.com and get in touch.
Yeah, we can do a free 30 minuteclarity call as well.
That's always on the table. Not a hard like sell or any kind
of difficult manipulative thing.It's just a chat for 30 minutes
going through some stuff to. See if this will.
Fit for you, See if it works foryou, figuring out where you're
at in life and just having a conversation back and forth.
So hop onto the website. Check it out.
(25:45):
Let's have a chat. Let's do it.
Let's get back to the episode. Cool, all right story #2 what's
the difference between the silent treatment, avoiding
discussion, and simply needing space?
Male 35 and female 30. Five, I'm going to read along
with you on this. I try and keep like eye
contacting you or the screen. There's no need.
I can't do it because I zone outevery time.
(26:07):
So reading's going to help me. And Blair likes when he's
reading something, he goes. I won't do that.
I'll move my I'll move my mic away.
You're actually going to do it, aren't you?
Yeah. OK.
All right. So what's the difference between
the silent treatment, avoiding discussion and simply needing
space? Blair's making all the noise.
I'm struggling to navigate how to build some agreement on rules
(26:29):
for when we talk about things orwhen one of us refuses to talk.
I've heard the silent treatment is abusive, but it seems extreme
to label someone as an abuser for that.
How much talking do we owe our partner?
My typical approach to conflict is to talk it out, but sometimes
I feel so frustrated and unheardthat I don't want to talk at
all. Then I end up feeling like I'm
being manipulative or sulking. One side of me says you don't
(26:52):
have to talk if you don't want to, and the other side says
you're only doing this to get your way.
My wife has more of an avoidant approach to conflict, so she'll
always go quiet. So I'm left feeling annoyed at
her for not staying to hear me out and at my own double
standard for allowing myself no talking time but not wanting her
to do it. But I do feel her reasons are
selfish, while mine are our lastresort after a constructive
(27:15):
approach has failed. She's very happy to deploy Leave
me alone. I'm not talking about this and
issues never get resolved. Complicating all of this is that
we have a young daughter, so some communication is necessary
and I don't want her to be negatively affected by our
squabbles. So this is a question about
patterns. How to figure out patterns and
where is the line between what is the silent treatment, just
(27:38):
avoiding discussion or simply just needing some space to
communicate before you communicate about it?
And this is the, we've definitely gone through this.
It's actually fascinating reading this, 'cause I'm like,
we've had these exact conversations.
We've spoken in this in, in thispodcast before about one rainy
night. And I remember this.
And I wish you. Remember, you still don't
remember. I remember it was one rainy
(27:59):
night and we were having an argument.
Or in Melbourne before we were married.
So we're dating or engaged and we pulled over to the side of
the road because we went for a drive and we said we got into an
argument and I didn't wanna juststop.
We, we had to hash it out 'causeit's quite a heated, one of our
more heated conversations. And it was really around this,
(28:20):
it was around how, you know, youreceive information, how I
receive information. But then how do we go and
navigate through that argument? I'm a lot more of a verbal
processor. You're a lot more of an internal
processor until we're stressed, stressed.
And then we flip. Yeah, I'm internal, you're
external. And it would just drive us
insane. But at the same time, I'll be
(28:41):
internal then external like so Iwould still want to get to the
issue. I'd still want to wrestle with
it. So we in our marriage course
that we did before we're pre marriage course, we learned
about the need like some tools essentially.
So for you, you needed a line orand I needed to understand what
you needed, which was we're going to talk about this, but I
(29:04):
need time to process it. That helps you give yourself
time to process. It helps me to know we're not
going to just drop this. Yeah, that was a really, really
important part of our growing together.
Was it? All right, cool.
We are going to address, addressit.
I don't need to stress that. We're going to brush you some of
the rug and it's going to grow and grow and grow and fester.
And then that's been such, that's actually gone into our
(29:26):
relationship ever since of OK, Ineed to know that we can still
address it. And you need to know that you
can have that space if you need it.
Basically any, anyone can ask for space and we've done this
multiple times in conversations because you don't always make
the best decisions when you're stressed and you're just trying
to talk because you need to talkit out.
(29:47):
Like you just don't like people don't not just you.
All of us don't like we, we can find ourselves saying things we
don't mean, getting escalated about things we don't mean.
And sometimes that's important to just push through in that
conversation. And sometimes you do need that
break. But I think it's interesting
because we've talked about how it feels to receive silent
treatment, like actual intentional, really long term
silent treatments. So the three days and from the
(30:08):
other story, it's interesting tothink about if you've
experienced that growing up or in another relationship, how
triggered you might be by someone needing space.
And so it is a really important have a conversation to have and
to navigate the rules and the boundaries of lines or whatever
you want to call it. Because not only can someone
revert to the silent treatment because I've seen it or they've
(30:31):
experienced, you know, whatever growing up that's then triggered
this in them, they can also revert to overbearing or over
like getting overly anxious whensomeone needs space before they
can talk because they've experienced that before.
So I don't know what his experience was when he was
growing up, but obviously for him, it's really important to
get to the bottom of it. And for her, it does sound like
(30:51):
she's a little bit more avoidant.
And so it's great. I think it's really good that
he's being reflective and he's trying to figure out where those
lines sit and he wants to also, he's recognised and he's put in
the story his own mixed approaches and motivations to
his approaches and the double standards that you might be
feeling. I think that's all really good.
It's also a really common thing to feel like, am I, am I being
(31:13):
manipulative or do I just need time?
Yeah. And I don't know, that's an
interesting question, but I don't think time is bad.
No, I don't think it's bad either.
Again, we've needed time, you know, just hit to process then
come back. You know, we we do talk about
that a bit, but one thing here that I challenge myself on, he
says at the end here. But I feel her reasons are
(31:34):
selfish, while mine are as a last resort after a constructive
approach has failed. Now he's now assuming that is
selfish and there's no, there's no exploration here, which is
what I, I guess he's kind of doing by putting a Reddit out
there. He is exploring this, but he's
jumped to the conclusion that she's now being selfish.
But there's so many unknowns to her response.
And I think if we jump to a conclusion like that, it's going
(31:56):
to fuel our view of her or of the other person and the
situation rather than be constructive.
So rather than saying, I'm not sure if this is a selfish
approach from her or wonder whatelse could be fueling that for
her. What else could be triggering
that for her? Is it out of fear?
Is it out of insecurity? Is it out of past trauma?
(32:17):
Whatever else, it's just gone down to no, she's been selfish.
I feel she's being selfish. Yeah, I've got that noted down.
So it's I'm glad you noticed that as well, because yeah,
assumptions, they're not helpful.
There's things for this old likeeveryone knows it.
They're not helpful and they're not they're not constructive.
They make a bottom out of you and make a.
Bottom out of you and me and it's interesting to me he's been
(32:37):
really self reflective or just reflective of their dynamics and
stuff, which is awesome. But that statement is I feel
she's being selfish and I'm not even sure that he's recognised
when he wrote that out how assumptive.
That's not a word, but how much of an assumption assuming yeah,
that's that's the word that is like what that is indicating
about where his his attitude towards her is AT and what he
(33:00):
could be overlooking. And you're so right.
We have no idea why she reacts that way and until he he's
assuming that she's being selfish.
So he hasn't explore, it sounds to me at least like he hasn't
explored why she does that. He's, he's saying mine are
because I'm at the end of my tether and I've tried the
constructive things. And so he's explored why he gets
(33:23):
to that. And so one really important
first step, I think, would be having that conversation with
her about where that comes from for her and what she's
experienced, why she reacts thatway.
Then you can. That's something you can guys
can do together. You know what I mean?
Like you don't have to be like trying like now dig through
that. Like why is she doing this?
Why is she doing that? It's like actually when this is
settled down, when you guys are taking that intentional time
(33:45):
that we keep talking about, thatintentional date night at home,
you know, the pretty Cafe on YouTube in the background on the
TV. When you're doing that, you go
through these things. It's like, I want to understand
you more. Like this situation that we had,
we're now past that. We're in a clearer mind.
I want to understand this more from my perspective.
It seems selfish, but I don't want to just to that conclusion.
(34:07):
I want to know what is going on for you so I can grow more.
If we have the attitude of you're more aware of your own
reactions or actions you're going to trigger again, it's
just you're just going to go around in circles.
But if you can come from from the perspective of I want to
actually do better, I want to communicate with you better.
I want to understand you better.The focus is back on you.
(34:28):
You know what I mean? And, and I really believe that's
a good approach rather than the accusational side of thing,
because, you know, I can't fix you, Amy.
I can't change you. And not that you need a lot of.
Fixing any fixing anyway. You're pretty much perfect, but
I can't do that. The way the times that I've seen
you grow the most is through your own self reflection and
your own growth, but that a lot of that happens together as
(34:51):
we're doing that together. It hasn't been this solo thing
that you're doing. It's been like, I'll bring stuff
up, but we talk about it. But that now needs that now
needs to be done together. It's not a I've told you about
this, Amy. Now to fix yourself, you know,
get yourself under control, whatever else it is, it's we do
that together and we commit together on that growth.
(35:11):
And it does get frustrating. We'd still get frustrated over
over certain stuff. We might have brought it up and
it triggers us again and we're going to have that conversation
again. Like, all right, cool.
I am trying. I am being aware of this.
I know I want to do better, but you can't talk to me like that
because it just puts me back. It's all part of the
conversation. It's all conversation and it's
it's another one of those assumptions when even going
(35:34):
about it with the attitude of soyou can reflect more on yourself
is blinding yourself to your ownership in the relationship.
And that's exactly it. You cannot control your partner.
And the unfortunate sad behind the scenes of this topic is that
some people do use this to be very manipulative for very
(35:54):
controlling and probably borderline, if not blatantly
abusive reasons. Sometimes you've got a
relationship where you can come to the table and address these
things and you can see you can have that conversation, you can
explore and be curious together and see that movement.
But they're really at the core of it is you're responsible for
yourself. And you're regardless of what
(36:15):
your partner decides to bring tothe table in your relationship
or decides to agree to or be open to, you still need to be
able to work on yourself becauseit's not just about how you're
treating them. I think some people are like,
well, why would I work on myselfif they're not working on them
their self? It's your how you turn up in
(36:35):
life is going to affect everything around you.
It's not just affecting your partner, it's going to affect
your future. It's going to affect your work.
It's going to affect yourself esteem, it's going to affect
your bitterness. It affects your brain like we
talked about earlier. So it's so important to explore
the part that you earn in this, regardless of your of your
partner's role. And the moment that we start to
(36:58):
be trying to trying to address something in a way that teaches
them is kind of the moment that we start to lose sight of what
we can be learning through it. So yes, it's extremely, it's
extremely tough. I think as I mentioned as well,
there's, there's stuff that we think he's, he potentially could
be missing. He's making an assumption about
why she's doing things. Like I said, he seems very
(37:18):
intense. Intent, I should say.
I'm not not not leaving things, not leaving them unspoken.
Potentially his approach to thatis quite over.
Yeah, quite intense. I struggle with the exact same
thing. Like again, this is where I was
coming to with that story before.
I was quite intense of like, I can't let this go.
You know, we we need to deal with this and it was not
(37:39):
helpful. And some people receiving that
could be extremely triggered depending on how they've
experienced life. And and so there's a lot of
stuff to explore here. There's dynamics at play and
it's a great conversation. For one thing, it's actually a
really beautiful thing that he'sput it up and I hope that this
has informed some of their stuff.
But just to be doing it gently and curiously is really
(38:01):
important. To clarify a little bit, he does
say what is the difference between silent treatment and
just needing space? And so there's a few things that
I thought would be good to highlight that maybe this can
help you weed through what's just needing space and what's
the silent treatment one is taking space is a stated clear
thing. Like I'm clearly taking, I need
space. And that's what we've found is
really helpful is having having something that's like, OK,
(38:24):
they've said their thing. I get what this is like, Oh,
that's that. This is the space that they
sometimes need. So making it clear I need space.
A silent treatment is an unspoken, vague, punishing type
vibe where it's not something you ever address, it's not
something that you come back to,it's not something you can
communicate through. It's an unspoken, weird, vague
thing. Taking space has a return point.
(38:45):
It needs to have a return point.That's something you need to
factor into your relationship to.
If this is something you're, you're using that like breather
before you come back to conversations, you need to come
back to the conversation becausetaking space and not coming back
to the conversation is just avoiding or silent treatment,
whereas the silent treatment withholds the control or
(39:06):
escapes. So there's a, there's a control
element that it doesn't come back.
It's like actually taken from the situation and taking space
also prioritises emotional regulation for the benefit of
the relationship. It's so you guys can regulate,
calm down, come back to it. And we spoke about this a lot in
the Gottman Institute episode about how they did studies on
(39:27):
relationships that had a 15 minute break.
And it's really interesting to see how much a regulated system
changes how you navigate a conversation.
So it's actually very important if you're feeling like you can't
regulate in that moment, whereasa silent treatment is avoiding
discomfort and it's forcing a power shift.
It's not I need to regulate. It's like, oh, this is
uncomfortable. So I'm just actually not not
(39:47):
even going to do it. And I'm going to take that power
from the situation. So those are some things to help
you think through. Is it silent treatment?
Is it just needing some space? If you're, if you're listening
to this and you haven't had thisconversation in your
relationship, it's a good prompting to have that
conversation. It's even even better if you're
not in the middle of it and you're, you've got like a time
where you're not actually in a tense situation.
(40:08):
Having that conversation is really good because then you've
got groundwork to then. Fall back on if it does come up
so just taking a little moment to kind of talk about what if
you need some space this is whatwe can look for this is what we
can say this is what it could look like and this is the rules
around it so that we both feel safe and heard cool I.
Like this. I like this topic because we've
(40:28):
navigated through it. It is one that we can relate to
quite a bit from the different ways that we would process.
So yeah, it's it's very important to have these
conversations. It's very important to identify
the needs in each relationship and in each situation.
What's each person needing in this time?
Yeah, I think that's another good question to ask.
We're in a heated conversation or a silent treatment
(40:50):
conversation. What's needed in this time?
Ask yourself about that the other person, what's needed in
this time. And have them in mind, How can I
help them best navigate this as well as myself navigate this?
Not for you to carry their stuff, but it's we want to
improve. We want to improve our
relationships, we want to improve ourselves.
So yeah. Great.
Exactly. Well, that is silent treatment.
(41:10):
As we said, check out episode 4 and 15 as well because they just
add to the situation. All of these frameworks are
really important to helping you communicate better because we
all have different tendencies, personalities, experiences,
triggers, trauma that all play into who we are.
We are just a result of everything that's built us.
(41:32):
And so the more you navigate these differences, the better.
And having differences is not a problem.
That is normal. And instead of being like, we
just communicate so differently or we disagree so differently,
or our conflict, you know, approach is just so different
and kind of being disheartened by that.
Use it as an opportunity to actually get stronger and grow
(41:53):
because there's so much beauty and figuring that stuff out.
So we're going to move into the reality check corner.
Then just following this. And this is where we want this
episode to become something practical that you can grab hold
of today and implement into yourrelationship today.
So I've got first a reflection question to just think about.
Think about how do I tend to respond when there's tension,
even if it's subtle? Do I move towards, pull away,
(42:16):
freeze, perform, or avoid? What might that pattern be
trying to protect? So even if you don't think the
silent treatment is something that you struggle with or that
you've navigated that much, ask this question anyway just to see
how you do respond in tension and how that might be.
There might be a pattern going on there and a reaction going on
there that you're not always conscious of.
And the next one is just a quickchallenge.
(42:37):
This is an easy challenge you can implement as it comes up.
It's not something that takes a lot of work.
So just notice this week 1 moment where there's a flicker
of disconnection or discomfort and instead of reacting or
overanalyzing, pause and ask yourself, what would a grounded,
healthy connection look like right now in this moment?
So this isn't about fixing, guessing or assuming what's
(43:01):
wrong for the other person. And this is something I when I
was writing this, I was like, I need to do this.
It's about gently staying present even when things feel
uncomfortable. We very often like to run away
from discomfort and or fix it. So maybe that might look for you
like not asking a question. So for Amy, maybe that means
when. Blair sighs.
(43:22):
Don't be like, are you OK? You OK six times, are you OK?
You good? You signed half an hour ago.
Are you sure you saw OK? Maybe it's not asking that
question, maybe it means giving a reassuring touch or softening
your tone. And maybe it's less about
overthinking what the other person is feeling and more about
choosing how you want to show upin that discomfort.
(43:43):
So through the week, take a moment when you notice there's a
disconnection or a discomfort inyour relationship.
Just take a moment to kind of assess and think about how you
want to, you want to show up in those moments in a healthy way.
And now for the future, Pace, which is a visualisation tool
that helps us to borrow feelings, thoughts, clarity from
(44:03):
the future. We'd like to go towards the
goals that we've got and use them now to help motivate us
towards those things. So if you want to, you can just
close your eyes while I read this out and try and get really
clear on this picture that I'm going to describe for you.
So take a moment to close your eyes.
Picture a version of yourself inyour relationship.
Calm, steady and clear. You're able to stay present even
(44:24):
when things feel tense or uncertain.
You're not rushing to fix it or disappear to avoid.
You're grounded in how you want to show up.
Now I want you to ask yourself, what is one small habit that I
could start now that helps me become this version of me?
Maybe it's checking in without over explaining.
Maybe it's giving space without shutting down and simply staying
(44:45):
when you usually withdraw. All right, guys.
Cool, that's a good one. The silent treatment.
Love that if this resonated withyou, we want to hear from you,
yes, but also if you would like to support us in this podcast,
please do all the things you always hear about, like share,
subscribe. It actually goes a very, very
long way in supporting us. All right.
(45:07):
Thanks so much, guys. Good chat.
See ya. Thanks guys.
Honey, we need to chat. Hey guys, welcome back to
another episode of Honey. We Need to chat.
Where's my? Pants.
Lego. OK.
I'll go earlier. As you were starting, I was
like, what was I going to say? I.
(00:26):
Was yeah. Where is my pants?
Where's my? Pen OK it.
The Lego. Movie.
It's The Lego Movie. Amy's doing The Lego Movie,
everyone. Obviously.
But this is the Honeymoon Chat podcast.
We are all about communication in a relationship.
We believe that when communication dies in a
relationship, that's when bad things happen.
(00:46):
So our goal, our aim, our job here is to bring in topics and
circumstances and tools for you guys to help you to navigate
through the different struggles that you might be having and
communicate through it. Yeah, we we also have a real
heart to not just be another voice, another piece of content
out there in the in the universefloating around for people to
(01:06):
consume. We really want to be practical
and apply practical things or provide practical things that
you can apply to your life todaywhenever it pops into your head,
whenever you're reminded of these episodes.
So stick around because we've got the reality check corner at
the end as well. And that's just full of little
practical, very low maintenance things that you can apply to
(01:27):
yourself and to your relationship today, if you like,
so that this can kind of breakthrough and not just be
something you've heard, but alsocan be something that's
impacting where you are AT and where you're at with your
partner. And we're often joined by our
golden retriever, Bonnie, who sometimes pulls out cords and
cables and things like that. And she's currently rolling over
and pulling down the curtains soespecially.
Breaking. The curtains.
(01:48):
Well, anyway, she's here with us.
So today we are talking about. So actually going back, I want
to go back Episode 4. You did a really good episode, a
topic on the four the Gottman Institute, 4 Horsemen.
And then on episode 15 again, wewent back to that and we
reviewed Stonewalling, which is one of those 4 horsemen.
(02:08):
So if you haven't checked out either of those episodes, I
recommend going straight to episode 4.
It was such a solid episode. We got a lot of writings on
that, actually on how many people related to those
different horsemen, you know, put it all personalities.
Or things that kill relationships for things that
kill relationships, yeah. So today, what we're going to
do, we're going to go dig deeperinto those again and we're going
(02:30):
to go into more the silence treatment side of things, of
stonewalling. And again, a big thing there
we've definitely struggled with in the past to some extent.
Just knowing well, how do I communicate through that?
Or even for myself, I know I've been in situations where it's
like, well, I don't know how to communicate this well, so I
won't communicate and I kind of shut down matter of protection
of not going into an argument. But anyway, we're going to go
(02:53):
into some more of those topics, real life topics, real life
stories on navigating through through the silent treatment.
Yeah, so we've got a couple of Reddit stories to dive into and
kind of apply some of these these philtres through these
lenses through and then some practical things to do to try
and navigate through them as well.
So stick around. We're going to dive into the
(03:13):
silent treatment. All of us know what that is.
Everyone knows what it is. It's very self explanatory, but
I'm going to just explain it anyway.
Basically the silent treatment is when one partner
intentionally withdraws from communication.
And there's a number of reasons why people do that, which you've
just alluded to. There could be, you know, not
(03:34):
wanting to escalate things, yourprior, your prior experience,
how you grew up or your prior experience within this
relationship before having seen what happened when things
escalated. Could be a control thing that
people have, manipulative thing.There's so many reasons that go
into the silent treatment, but self explanatory in terms of
what it is and how you might seeit play out.
(03:55):
Sounds very loud. Yeah, it's a silent treatment
that's extremely loud. Yeah, I.
Was making a joke but you just turned it around.
That's really it really is. It speaks very, very loudly.
Yeah, you. Actually said something a few
episodes. A long.
Time ago. A long time ago.
What can you say that again? I think it was not saying
anything says something. It's basically like, yeah, you,
you might think you're not saying something by being quiet,
(04:15):
but you're actually saying something.
Yeah, in the quietness. And that's exactly this.
You are communicating extremely loudly.
And unfortunately, as we will dive into, you don't always what
you're communicating is not always what you're meaning to or
what the other person's picking up is not always where it's the
silent treatments coming from. So it's, it's a way of
communication through silence that is very ineffective.
(04:37):
So it is dangerous. It is dangerous for a number of
reasons. One is it mimics rejection and
that actually puts our nervous system into fight, flight or
freeze, which I've been learningall about with my coaching.
So it's something I've just thisweek been thinking a lot about
and that really impacts how we function.
That puts your body into survival mode and it actually
turns off your prefrontal cortex, which is your logic
(04:59):
centre where you make logical, sound, healthy, big picture,
creative decisions processing. So when that's shut down, you're
in survival mode, just like you would be in a survival
situation. Your brain doesn't really know
any different just because someone's being silent and
you've you are experiencing whatyou think is rejection.
(05:20):
Whether it is or not, your braintricks you into thinking that
you're in survival mode and you're going to react out of
that. So it's not healthy, to say the
least. You can feel unsafe, anxious,
emotionally abandoned, a number of other things.
It also blocks repair. So conflict isn't the problem.
And we've said that on here before as well.
I think you mentioned that one time.
The argument isn't the problem. The argument isn't.
(05:43):
Sometimes you need to have the argument in order to get to
it's. In fact, I'm not even going to
say sometimes. I think a lot of the time you
need to have the discussion, whether that's in an argument
form or not. And we so often are avoiding
those tense moments, thinking that avoiding it is going to fix
it or make it OK. And that's just almost never the
(06:03):
case. And This is why silent treatment
blocks repair, because it actually just avoids the
conflict. The conflict isn't the problem.
The disconnection is. And without the conversation,
there's no way for you to rebuild trust and move through
it. It shifts power.
And this is really important regardless of why you might be
doing. And I think a lot of people
would be like, well, you know, I'm doing it because I've seen
(06:24):
how things play out when people get really stuck in
conversations and it escalates. And when I saw it from my
parents or whatever is going on for them, regardless of why
you're doing it, it's actually apower play.
And it is, it can be really manipulative and quite a yucky
shift of power in your relationship.
It doesn't keep things equal andloving and kind.
It actually takes that power. And especially when it's a
(06:46):
repeated behaviour, it takes that power from your partner and
it becomes a way that you can control the emotional dynamic.
One person can control that. They decide when and if the
relationship comes back online. And that's not, again, it's not
healthy. And the other thing which we've
already said is it's often misunderstood.
The, IT could be a trauma response, the reasoning that
(07:07):
you're doing it, the thing you're trying to communicate
through it or trying to avoid communicating through it.
The response from you that you're observing from your
partner to your silent treatment, like there's just a
whole mix of misunderstanding that goes into it because it is
literally silence. So there's no clarity.
It's just a very loud confusion.So it's a, it's a big space for
(07:28):
misunderstanding and without change, it breaks connection
over time. Yeah, absolutely.
So in summary, silent treatment is not healthy.
It's not a helpful way to go through disagreements.
It plays out for a lot of reasons, and we're going to dive
into two examples of this. But it's definitely something,
which is why Gottman has mentioned it in his Four
Horsemen, that can really erode relationships.
(07:50):
Yeah, and I, I hear a lot as well from from partners about
their husbands or boyfriends or whatever, about how they will
try and bring something up and they just shut down, you know,
and I think for, and then I'll have the conversations with the
guys a lot. And it's out of those two
things. It's out of like, I don't know,
like I, I don't know what I think about this situation and I
don't know how to respond because I'm still trying to work
(08:12):
out what this is. Or if I do respond, it will be
in a really explosive way. And I don't want to do that.
So it's out of this like it's kind of like a, a few thing
maybe, maybe that's too strong of a word of fear, but it's a
caution. It's a, it's a protection of
like, well, if I just be silent,I can't screw this up.
Yeah. In a way to summarise kind of
(08:32):
all of the above is that the silent treatment isn't just
silence, like we've said, it's actually very loud.
It's the absence of emotional presence in a moment when a
relationship really needs it themost.
And over time, that can do more damage than raise voices or
messy arguments, disagreements and escalations.
Because it tells the other person that you don't matter
right now. Yeah, whether like.
(08:53):
Whether you mean to or not. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly. So we're going to dive into the
first reader story and just explore how this might play out.
Hey guys, it's a really quick break here.
We just want to encourage you, if you want to support us in
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(09:13):
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(09:34):
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(09:58):
that this is a value and the other people might enjoy it too.
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We really appreciate those engagements because that's
what's getting us in front of other people as well.
Thanks guys. So this is titled advice for
dealing with the silent treatment question mark.
My girlfriend is upset with me and has been ignoring me for
going on three days. By ignoring I mean will not
(10:20):
talk, respond or even look at me.
We live together. She knows this is very upsetting
for me. I've said it multiple times
which she has ignored. She's upset with me because I
forgot something she said and therefore I wasn't listening to
her. She said I had to apologise or
she would stop talking to me. I apologised, although I wish I
hadn't. She still decided to ignore me
(10:40):
anyway. I feel like this is a punishment
for something so small, even if I was in the wrong and it's
going on for days. Today was my first day doing a
new position at my work and it was very stressful.
Plus I had to deal with being upset that my girlfriend is
ignoring me. I would usually be able to talk
to her about this kind of thing but I can't.
I'm so upset by this. I feel so anxious, like I'm
(11:01):
going to throw up all the time. It feels so childish and rude to
ignore me in this way. What should I do?
She won't talk to me, I don't even know what how to go about
this. She ignores everything I say,
even when I say I want to apologise for whatever she's
upset about. So three days silence, not even
eye contact. That's that's a long time.
(11:22):
I don't think it's OK. Like, I, I understand there's
and might be something, you know, she's upset about or heard
about, but three days, I just don't think that's.
Yeah, this is what I don't like about this is it's all right.
She's she's upset, but there is a punishment here.
You know, it's not a actual. All right, let's work through
this or whatever else. It's not even, it doesn't even
(11:42):
seem like she's trying. She's trying to work through it
herself. It feels like she's just trying
to punish. And I don't think that's ever
OK. You know, if you're wanting a
healthy relationship, you don't punish.
You grow together, right. And so I think it's the first
first rate flag in this. It's is, yeah, just completely
shut down. Super intense.
Definitely living like you're being punished for three days as
(12:05):
an adult from your partner. I get this though, because I
remember sometimes that you've brought something up with me.
You've mentioned a couple of times and it's frustrating that
I haven't, you know, you feel like you I haven't listened or
something and vice versa. I'm sure there's been times
where I've shared with you aboutstuff.
Like not leaving things on your side.
Exactly. Don't leave stuff on my side of
the bathroom. But we've never been like, OK,
(12:28):
I'm going to punish you now overthis.
No, so normally we just discuss Reddit stories and when we kind
of talk about it and and workshop at how we would
workshop it this time around, because it's we really have a
heart to not just look at it. We don't want to just look at
something and make a blanket statement on face value and
(12:48):
assume that we have all the information because we really,
these are tiny little stories into people's lives.
So this time I've actually broken in this story down a
little bit because I wanted to make sure that we have a well
rounded picture of what could begoing on.
And I think this is a helpful tool for the person navigating
it to do as well. So we've never done the silent
(13:10):
treatment in a way like this to punish each other.
This is really intense. This would be extremely
infuriating to live with. Very distracting.
I can understand what he's saying about, you know, he's
just started this role and then he's got this in the back of his
head. He's like my girlfriends not
even looking at me, not just notresponding or not, not just
responding with blunt little words.
She's not talking to me, not looking at me.
(13:31):
That was that's super distressing and definitely a
really intense stance to make. But I will say, I think people
punish other people whether they're aware of it or not in
you want to make them see how much this effects you.
While we've never done silent treatment, there definitely have
been reactions and that kind of thing that we have chosen.
I'm sure I know I can speak for myself.
(13:52):
I've chosen reactions because I want to make it clear you've
done this thing again or whatever, and I want to, I want
to make it make you feel that discomfort.
I would never have gone to this extreme and I will never go to
this extreme. But that's I think something to
just be aware of as we're listening to this story is
punishment sounds really intense, seeing it play out like
(14:13):
this, really intense. It's a, it's an opportunity to
reflect on how potentially we dohold these things over our
partners as well. Another damaging part about this
reaction is like, I can put myself in his perspective of,
you know, it's not, I can't put ourselves in this perspective
'cause we're married and we've been married for over 10 years
now. But if I look at this, they're
dating. And if you gave me a three day
(14:35):
silent treatment, I would be like, are you leaving?
Like are you, are you over with this relationship?
Now are we going together? Are we even together?
Like what's what's the go here? But I think that would be in my
mind ongoing. I don't think it would be like,
oh, now you're talking to me again.
We're sweet. I think that's going to build up
in my mind of like, was she about to leave at that point?
(14:55):
You know, is this going to be? So I'll grow this insecurity in
our relationship from then as well.
And that's where I feel like punishments again, like I feel
like punishments are not a fruitful response.
I feel like they're going to bring those insecurities in or
that mistrusting or yeah, you'renot safe now.
Like I don't, I don't know. I don't have that surety in this
(15:17):
relationship. It takes away your safety in
your relationship, which is is gonna erode over time.
Like you pointed out, they're dating.
So this is a time where you're you haven't committed your life
to somebody for the rest of yourlife.
You are you are committed in a different type of way, but
you're still like you're still entering into that.
And so it is the time when you're looking at patterns and
(15:37):
you're looking at reactions and you're thinking about what's
healthy and what is something that's going to, you know, work
towards the culture of marriage or relationship in the long term
that I would really like for my relationship in the long term.
And this probably is not going to be something that's like,
yeah, yeah, that sounds good. So it is something to think
about. It's something really important
to address. And doesn't mean this is like a
(16:00):
done. It's just like the Gottman
Institute has flagged these things are signposts for
patterns that are not going thatwill erode relationship over
time. So it would be really hard.
And and the anxiety, like you said, would it would start
insecurities, it would start anxieties.
You would just be like, I don't,I don't know what's going on.
I don't know what she's thinking.
I don't know what she's going todo.
(16:21):
Is it going to end? When's it going to end?
He would feel very powerless because you can't make someone
talk to you and you don't want to like you don't want to get to
that intensity of trying to likemake them talk to you because
that's not relationship. So the, the breakdown that I've
added is it's easy for us to look at this and be like, that's
really intense. If somebody has a background
where they have seen toxic behaviour play out or they've
(16:45):
experienced it with themselves, like in relationships previously
or in their family, or they have, you know, deep anxieties
and insecurities that feed into their reactions.
I can understand how someone might get to the point where
they're like, I don't know what else to do other than to show
him how deeply frustrating this is or how hurtful this was.
And he said, you know, I've forgotten something that she
(17:07):
said. We don't know what that was.
What was that thing that he forgot?
It wasn't really important. And is it something she's
repeated over and over to him? Yeah.
And. And this is like, are you
kidding me? You've forgotten that again.
Yeah. And she's kind of at the point
where she's like, I don't know what else to try.
I've seen this pattern before. So I'm just going to revert
right back to that pattern that I've experienced and taken on,
(17:28):
which is to just. If you get results that way like
I mean that. Could be that.
Could be such that, you know, again, like you said, I've I've
tried everything else. Like we don't have that history
given to us in this conversationin this writing.
But like, yeah, if if she's got getting results in that way, is
this going to feed that? You know, so he's going to take
that responsibility at the same time.
(17:49):
Yeah, but they're going to be that have that responsibility
for each other of like, cool. Well this is not healthy either
way. Like.
From I know, yeah, exactly. The other thing is he said he
apologised, so she said I won't talk to you again until you
apologise. And then he apologised and then
he said he wished he hadn't apologised.
Yeah. So the question that came to
mind for me was like, what was that apology?
(18:10):
Exactly because it does the samewith me, too.
Because she then continued to give him solid treatment.
I'm like, all right, right. My head goes, Joey for friends.
I'm sorry. That's 10 times worse.
Yeah, Yeah. That's worse.
Yeah. And just to be clear, none of
this exploring the other side isto excuse it, because there's
nothing in my mind that excuses this behaviour because it's just
(18:30):
not helpful, even if it was a really serious thing.
He's is not helpful, but it is. I think it's a really important
exercise to stretch our brains into thinking about these things
because people tend not to just wake up and decide they're going
to do this. And it seems to me from the
story that this is abnormal, like he hasn't experienced this
from her before. So it doesn't seem to be a
(18:50):
pattern at this stage. So to me that just screams think
about what's going on. Like try and unpack a little bit
of maybe what's sitting behind her reaction.
Not that that's to his own, but it will help him in terms of
navigating that. So she may not have felt like
that apology was real. She might have been, it may have
been worse. It could have, who knows what it
(19:11):
was about or what it inflamed for her, But the apology element
was fascinating to me when I sawthat there.
And then the the really important thing which we talk
about all the time is the curiosity, being curious about
what sits behind this. For somebody, this would be
deeply, deeply hurting and most people's reaction would to be be
(19:32):
to be very offended, very frustrated, very like, like, no,
I'm not just going to quickly forgive the fact that you
stopped speaking to me for threedays.
And I understand that. But a really, really healthy,
grounded, well rounded response would be to address it with
curiosity and be like, why does she react this way?
And what might have been in her past that may inform these
(19:55):
reactions. Yeah, explore that.
Which would be easier if she wastalking to you?
And again, I I could see that we've spoken as we had this
before. Is we kind of act out of what
we've seen? Yeah, as well.
So I wonder if she's seen this response and her parents and so
forth too. I'm like, well, that gets
results there. So I'm gonna try it here.
And so instead of it being something that, I mean, yes,
it's just between you because she's put it there.
(20:18):
But I, I love the idea, especially if it's, you know,
the first time they've navigatedthis, of being able to be like,
I'm really, I really want to know why you feel like this is
something you needed to do or what?
Like has, what was your family like?
Like, did your family communicate about these things
and using it as an opportunity to explore her past and just
(20:38):
gently, curiously let her open up about why those patterns
might be something that she navigates?
Yeah. So no, it's not OK.
No, I would not be OK if you were doing that.
I'd probably be very frustrated.And it would take a lot to get
my brain into the space where I could even consider being gently
curious about your background. Let's test it.
But the reality is, we say this as well depend.
(21:00):
What do you want out of relationship?
You should want success for yourrelationship.
And that sometimes means even inthe face of your partner doing
something hurtful, you taking a breath and removing yourself
from that as much as possible. Not not denying that it hurt and
not not addressing it, but just removing your offence to that as
much as possible so you can explore together.
(21:22):
And relationships are hard, yes,you know, it's.
So hard. Layered and we won't encourage
you. Don't survive your relationship,
grow in your relationship. You know there's so much joy,
excitement, happiness, adventurethat you guys can have together.
So don't just survive, but grow.So his thing was advice for
dealing with silent treatment. And then in his story, he's, you
(21:43):
know, asking lots of questions. What should I do?
What should I do, that kind of thing.
So practical tips on how he could navigate this is
acknowledging the silence gently.
Like not not going to be like why are you being so quiet even
though that's everything and youprobably be.
And I wonder if it's like you, you do this out of the quiet
time like not during, because ifshe's not talking to you already
(22:04):
like that, you're not going to get much ground like moment.
But again, we're looking for that long term growth, not the
immediate change. And this is 1 pattern of
communication. Everyone has patterns of
communications, weaknesses of communication.
So you might not navigate silenttreatment, but you're never
going to be navigating someone with perfect communication.
Like we all need to exercise these skills in terms of
(22:27):
strengthening how we show up as a partner in order to have a
successful relationship. The other thing is avoid chasing
and escalating and trying to force it to happen because
you're not responsible for it. And two, it just escalates.
It just makes it harder for it to break or it will break in a
way that's really, really non constructive.
And then asking himself what kind of relationship he wants to
(22:50):
build, What kind of relationshipculture do you want to have?
And what is the 5% that you can take ownership of there?
Like 5% you can earn in this moment of how the relationship's
been going and how we can move towards that culture that you
want. Just so that he doesn't feel
powerless in it. He's still in charge of deciding
what is OK for him to experiencethis.
(23:11):
And he doesn't have to just be like, oh, well, I'm going to
just deal with this always. Like he still gets to say, no,
that's not with me. But you need to take time to
reflect on what kind of relationship you want.
And then you also need to recognise your what you can do,
what the power you have in that moment and what you can do in
that moment to work towards thatculture in your relationship.
Cool. That's story one.
(23:31):
Story one. Yeah.
Hey, guys, we're just going to take a little break right now.
We if you've been listening intothese episodes and you're like,
man, Amy is a so full of wisdom,so full of wisdom.
I want to say there's a reason why Amy does most of the leading
in these conversations because she's a lot more full of wisdom
than I am. See you are you do well.
(23:52):
You do really well. Thanks.
But you should know that Amy actually does this for a living.
Amy, tell us what's going on. I do indeed.
Yes, I am a coach. You are a qualified coach and
this is something that that I'm very passionate about.
I love helping people work through these things.
You've heard it in our episodes.This is how we navigate our
relationship and our family. Having curiosity and exploring
(24:15):
these things and figuring out what sits behind them.
And so this is the sort of stuffthat I get to do with my clients
and the women that I'm working with, which is really exciting.
So if there is anything that you're feeling a little bit like
you just need a bit more clarityin.
If you're feeling stretched thinor things are just not feeling
like they're clicking right for you, like you're holding a lot
of stuff together outside, but inside something's just not
(24:38):
functioning. That is something that I would
love to explore with you and work through with you in terms
of trying to find just a little bit more clarity about what's
going on. The tools that I've learned in
coaching have been wild and super helpful for us, super
helpful for me. Even as I'm helping other women.
I am like sitting there in the sessions that I'm saying out of
my mouth and I'm remembering a tool that I'm like, Oh my gosh,
(25:01):
yes. And I love.
That I love watching you in thisspace as well because after
every one of her sessions with their clients, it's not like
I've got through that. It's always like, man, I love
this. So this is something that you
are actually passionate about you, you love this stuff.
You love journey and walking with women through these
different areas. If you are interested, reach
(25:22):
out, go to Honey We need to chat.com and get in touch.
Yeah, we can do a free 30 minuteclarity call as well.
That's always on the table. Not a hard like sell or any kind
of difficult manipulative thing.It's just a chat for 30 minutes
going through some stuff to. See if this will.
Fit for you, See if it works foryou, figuring out where you're
at in life and just having a conversation back and forth.
So hop onto the website. Check it out.
(25:45):
Let's have a chat. Let's do it.
Let's get back to the episode. Cool, all right story #2 what's
the difference between the silent treatment, avoiding
discussion, and simply needing space?
Male 35 and female 30. Five, I'm going to read along
with you on this. I try and keep like eye
contacting you or the screen. There's no need.
I can't do it because I zone outevery time.
(26:07):
So reading's going to help me. And Blair likes when he's
reading something, he goes. I won't do that.
I'll move my I'll move my mic away.
You're actually going to do it, aren't you?
Yeah. OK.
All right. So what's the difference between
the silent treatment, avoiding discussion and simply needing
space? Blair's making all the noise.
I'm struggling to navigate how to build some agreement on rules
(26:29):
for when we talk about things orwhen one of us refuses to talk.
I've heard the silent treatment is abusive, but it seems extreme
to label someone as an abuser for that.
How much talking do we owe our partner?
My typical approach to conflict is to talk it out, but sometimes
I feel so frustrated and unheardthat I don't want to talk at
all. Then I end up feeling like I'm
being manipulative or sulking. One side of me says you don't
(26:52):
have to talk if you don't want to, and the other side says
you're only doing this to get your way.
My wife has more of an avoidant approach to conflict, so she'll
always go quiet. So I'm left feeling annoyed at
her for not staying to hear me out and at my own double
standard for allowing myself no talking time but not wanting her
to do it. But I do feel her reasons are
selfish, while mine are our lastresort after a constructive
(27:15):
approach has failed. She's very happy to deploy Leave
me alone. I'm not talking about this and
issues never get resolved. Complicating all of this is that
we have a young daughter, so some communication is necessary
and I don't want her to be negatively affected by our
squabbles. So this is a question about
patterns. How to figure out patterns and
where is the line between what is the silent treatment, just
(27:38):
avoiding discussion or simply just needing some space to
communicate before you communicate about it?
And this is the, we've definitely gone through this.
It's actually fascinating reading this, 'cause I'm like,
we've had these exact conversations.
We've spoken in this in, in thispodcast before about one rainy
night. And I remember this.
And I wish you. Remember, you still don't
remember. I remember it was one rainy
(27:59):
night and we were having an argument.
Or in Melbourne before we were married.
So we're dating or engaged and we pulled over to the side of
the road because we went for a drive and we said we got into an
argument and I didn't wanna juststop.
We, we had to hash it out 'causeit's quite a heated, one of our
more heated conversations. And it was really around this,
(28:20):
it was around how, you know, youreceive information, how I
receive information. But then how do we go and
navigate through that argument? I'm a lot more of a verbal
processor. You're a lot more of an internal
processor until we're stressed, stressed.
And then we flip. Yeah, I'm internal, you're
external. And it would just drive us
insane. But at the same time, I'll be
(28:41):
internal then external like so Iwould still want to get to the
issue. I'd still want to wrestle with
it. So we in our marriage course
that we did before we're pre marriage course, we learned
about the need like some tools essentially.
So for you, you needed a line orand I needed to understand what
you needed, which was we're going to talk about this, but I
(29:04):
need time to process it. That helps you give yourself
time to process. It helps me to know we're not
going to just drop this. Yeah, that was a really, really
important part of our growing together.
Was it? All right, cool.
We are going to address, addressit.
I don't need to stress that. We're going to brush you some of
the rug and it's going to grow and grow and grow and fester.
And then that's been such, that's actually gone into our
(29:26):
relationship ever since of OK, Ineed to know that we can still
address it. And you need to know that you
can have that space if you need it.
Basically any, anyone can ask for space and we've done this
multiple times in conversations because you don't always make
the best decisions when you're stressed and you're just trying
to talk because you need to talkit out.
(29:47):
Like you just don't like people don't not just you.
All of us don't like we, we can find ourselves saying things we
don't mean, getting escalated about things we don't mean.
And sometimes that's important to just push through in that
conversation. And sometimes you do need that
break. But I think it's interesting
because we've talked about how it feels to receive silent
treatment, like actual intentional, really long term
silent treatments. So the three days and from the
(30:08):
other story, it's interesting tothink about if you've
experienced that growing up or in another relationship, how
triggered you might be by someone needing space.
And so it is a really important have a conversation to have and
to navigate the rules and the boundaries of lines or whatever
you want to call it. Because not only can someone
revert to the silent treatment because I've seen it or they've
(30:31):
experienced, you know, whatever growing up that's then triggered
this in them, they can also revert to overbearing or over
like getting overly anxious whensomeone needs space before they
can talk because they've experienced that before.
So I don't know what his experience was when he was
growing up, but obviously for him, it's really important to
get to the bottom of it. And for her, it does sound like
(30:51):
she's a little bit more avoidant.
And so it's great. I think it's really good that
he's being reflective and he's trying to figure out where those
lines sit and he wants to also, he's recognised and he's put in
the story his own mixed approaches and motivations to
his approaches and the double standards that you might be
feeling. I think that's all really good.
It's also a really common thing to feel like, am I, am I being
(31:13):
manipulative or do I just need time?
Yeah. And I don't know, that's an
interesting question, but I don't think time is bad.
No, I don't think it's bad either.
Again, we've needed time, you know, just hit to process then
come back. You know, we we do talk about
that a bit, but one thing here that I challenge myself on, he
says at the end here. But I feel her reasons are
(31:34):
selfish, while mine are as a last resort after a constructive
approach has failed. Now he's now assuming that is
selfish and there's no, there's no exploration here, which is
what I, I guess he's kind of doing by putting a Reddit out
there. He is exploring this, but he's
jumped to the conclusion that she's now being selfish.
But there's so many unknowns to her response.
And I think if we jump to a conclusion like that, it's going
(31:56):
to fuel our view of her or of the other person and the
situation rather than be constructive.
So rather than saying, I'm not sure if this is a selfish
approach from her or wonder whatelse could be fueling that for
her. What else could be triggering
that for her? Is it out of fear?
Is it out of insecurity? Is it out of past trauma?
(32:17):
Whatever else, it's just gone down to no, she's been selfish.
I feel she's being selfish. Yeah, I've got that noted down.
So it's I'm glad you noticed that as well, because yeah,
assumptions, they're not helpful.
There's things for this old likeeveryone knows it.
They're not helpful and they're not they're not constructive.
They make a bottom out of you and make a.
Bottom out of you and me and it's interesting to me he's been
(32:37):
really self reflective or just reflective of their dynamics and
stuff, which is awesome. But that statement is I feel
she's being selfish and I'm not even sure that he's recognised
when he wrote that out how assumptive.
That's not a word, but how much of an assumption assuming yeah,
that's that's the word that is like what that is indicating
about where his his attitude towards her is AT and what he
(33:00):
could be overlooking. And you're so right.
We have no idea why she reacts that way and until he he's
assuming that she's being selfish.
So he hasn't explore, it sounds to me at least like he hasn't
explored why she does that. He's, he's saying mine are
because I'm at the end of my tether and I've tried the
constructive things. And so he's explored why he gets
(33:23):
to that. And so one really important
first step, I think, would be having that conversation with
her about where that comes from for her and what she's
experienced, why she reacts thatway.
Then you can. That's something you can guys
can do together. You know what I mean?
Like you don't have to be like trying like now dig through
that. Like why is she doing this?
Why is she doing that? It's like actually when this is
settled down, when you guys are taking that intentional time
(33:45):
that we keep talking about, thatintentional date night at home,
you know, the pretty Cafe on YouTube in the background on the
TV. When you're doing that, you go
through these things. It's like, I want to understand
you more. Like this situation that we had,
we're now past that. We're in a clearer mind.
I want to understand this more from my perspective.
It seems selfish, but I don't want to just to that conclusion.
(34:07):
I want to know what is going on for you so I can grow more.
If we have the attitude of you're more aware of your own
reactions or actions you're going to trigger again, it's
just you're just going to go around in circles.
But if you can come from from the perspective of I want to
actually do better, I want to communicate with you better.
I want to understand you better.The focus is back on you.
(34:28):
You know what I mean? And, and I really believe that's
a good approach rather than the accusational side of thing,
because, you know, I can't fix you, Amy.
I can't change you. And not that you need a lot of.
Fixing any fixing anyway. You're pretty much perfect, but
I can't do that. The way the times that I've seen
you grow the most is through your own self reflection and
your own growth, but that a lot of that happens together as
(34:51):
we're doing that together. It hasn't been this solo thing
that you're doing. It's been like, I'll bring stuff
up, but we talk about it. But that now needs that now
needs to be done together. It's not a I've told you about
this, Amy. Now to fix yourself, you know,
get yourself under control, whatever else it is, it's we do
that together and we commit together on that growth.
(35:11):
And it does get frustrating. We'd still get frustrated over
over certain stuff. We might have brought it up and
it triggers us again and we're going to have that conversation
again. Like, all right, cool.
I am trying. I am being aware of this.
I know I want to do better, but you can't talk to me like that
because it just puts me back. It's all part of the
conversation. It's all conversation and it's
it's another one of those assumptions when even going
(35:34):
about it with the attitude of soyou can reflect more on yourself
is blinding yourself to your ownership in the relationship.
And that's exactly it. You cannot control your partner.
And the unfortunate sad behind the scenes of this topic is that
some people do use this to be very manipulative for very
(35:54):
controlling and probably borderline, if not blatantly
abusive reasons. Sometimes you've got a
relationship where you can come to the table and address these
things and you can see you can have that conversation, you can
explore and be curious together and see that movement.
But they're really at the core of it is you're responsible for
yourself. And you're regardless of what
(36:15):
your partner decides to bring tothe table in your relationship
or decides to agree to or be open to, you still need to be
able to work on yourself becauseit's not just about how you're
treating them. I think some people are like,
well, why would I work on myselfif they're not working on them
their self? It's your how you turn up in
(36:35):
life is going to affect everything around you.
It's not just affecting your partner, it's going to affect
your future. It's going to affect your work.
It's going to affect yourself esteem, it's going to affect
your bitterness. It affects your brain like we
talked about earlier. So it's so important to explore
the part that you earn in this, regardless of your of your
partner's role. And the moment that we start to
(36:58):
be trying to trying to address something in a way that teaches
them is kind of the moment that we start to lose sight of what
we can be learning through it. So yes, it's extremely, it's
extremely tough. I think as I mentioned as well,
there's, there's stuff that we think he's, he potentially could
be missing. He's making an assumption about
why she's doing things. Like I said, he seems very
(37:18):
intense. Intent, I should say.
I'm not not not leaving things, not leaving them unspoken.
Potentially his approach to thatis quite over.
Yeah, quite intense. I struggle with the exact same
thing. Like again, this is where I was
coming to with that story before.
I was quite intense of like, I can't let this go.
You know, we we need to deal with this and it was not
(37:39):
helpful. And some people receiving that
could be extremely triggered depending on how they've
experienced life. And and so there's a lot of
stuff to explore here. There's dynamics at play and
it's a great conversation. For one thing, it's actually a
really beautiful thing that he'sput it up and I hope that this
has informed some of their stuff.
But just to be doing it gently and curiously is really
(38:01):
important. To clarify a little bit, he does
say what is the difference between silent treatment and
just needing space? And so there's a few things that
I thought would be good to highlight that maybe this can
help you weed through what's just needing space and what's
the silent treatment one is taking space is a stated clear
thing. Like I'm clearly taking, I need
space. And that's what we've found is
really helpful is having having something that's like, OK,
(38:24):
they've said their thing. I get what this is like, Oh,
that's that. This is the space that they
sometimes need. So making it clear I need space.
A silent treatment is an unspoken, vague, punishing type
vibe where it's not something you ever address, it's not
something that you come back to,it's not something you can
communicate through. It's an unspoken, weird, vague
thing. Taking space has a return point.
(38:45):
It needs to have a return point.That's something you need to
factor into your relationship to.
If this is something you're, you're using that like breather
before you come back to conversations, you need to come
back to the conversation becausetaking space and not coming back
to the conversation is just avoiding or silent treatment,
whereas the silent treatment withholds the control or
(39:06):
escapes. So there's a, there's a control
element that it doesn't come back.
It's like actually taken from the situation and taking space
also prioritises emotional regulation for the benefit of
the relationship. It's so you guys can regulate,
calm down, come back to it. And we spoke about this a lot in
the Gottman Institute episode about how they did studies on
(39:27):
relationships that had a 15 minute break.
And it's really interesting to see how much a regulated system
changes how you navigate a conversation.
So it's actually very important if you're feeling like you can't
regulate in that moment, whereasa silent treatment is avoiding
discomfort and it's forcing a power shift.
It's not I need to regulate. It's like, oh, this is
uncomfortable. So I'm just actually not not
(39:47):
even going to do it. And I'm going to take that power
from the situation. So those are some things to help
you think through. Is it silent treatment?
Is it just needing some space? If you're, if you're listening
to this and you haven't had thisconversation in your
relationship, it's a good prompting to have that
conversation. It's even even better if you're
not in the middle of it and you're, you've got like a time
where you're not actually in a tense situation.
(40:08):
Having that conversation is really good because then you've
got groundwork to then. Fall back on if it does come up
so just taking a little moment to kind of talk about what if
you need some space this is whatwe can look for this is what we
can say this is what it could look like and this is the rules
around it so that we both feel safe and heard cool I.
Like this. I like this topic because we've
(40:28):
navigated through it. It is one that we can relate to
quite a bit from the different ways that we would process.
So yeah, it's it's very important to have these
conversations. It's very important to identify
the needs in each relationship and in each situation.
What's each person needing in this time?
Yeah, I think that's another good question to ask.
We're in a heated conversation or a silent treatment
(40:50):
conversation. What's needed in this time?
Ask yourself about that the other person, what's needed in
this time. And have them in mind, How can I
help them best navigate this as well as myself navigate this?
Not for you to carry their stuff, but it's we want to
improve. We want to improve our
relationships, we want to improve ourselves.
So yeah. Great.
Exactly. Well, that is silent treatment.
(41:10):
As we said, check out episode 4 and 15 as well because they just
add to the situation. All of these frameworks are
really important to helping you communicate better because we
all have different tendencies, personalities, experiences,
triggers, trauma that all play into who we are.
We are just a result of everything that's built us.
(41:32):
And so the more you navigate these differences, the better.
And having differences is not a problem.
That is normal. And instead of being like, we
just communicate so differently or we disagree so differently,
or our conflict, you know, approach is just so different
and kind of being disheartened by that.
Use it as an opportunity to actually get stronger and grow
(41:53):
because there's so much beauty and figuring that stuff out.
So we're going to move into the reality check corner.
Then just following this. And this is where we want this
episode to become something practical that you can grab hold
of today and implement into yourrelationship today.
So I've got first a reflection question to just think about.
Think about how do I tend to respond when there's tension,
even if it's subtle? Do I move towards, pull away,
(42:16):
freeze, perform, or avoid? What might that pattern be
trying to protect? So even if you don't think the
silent treatment is something that you struggle with or that
you've navigated that much, ask this question anyway just to see
how you do respond in tension and how that might be.
There might be a pattern going on there and a reaction going on
there that you're not always conscious of.
And the next one is just a quickchallenge.
(42:37):
This is an easy challenge you can implement as it comes up.
It's not something that takes a lot of work.
So just notice this week 1 moment where there's a flicker
of disconnection or discomfort and instead of reacting or
overanalyzing, pause and ask yourself, what would a grounded,
healthy connection look like right now in this moment?
So this isn't about fixing, guessing or assuming what's
(43:01):
wrong for the other person. And this is something I when I
was writing this, I was like, I need to do this.
It's about gently staying present even when things feel
uncomfortable. We very often like to run away
from discomfort and or fix it. So maybe that might look for you
like not asking a question. So for Amy, maybe that means
when. Blair sighs.
(43:22):
Don't be like, are you OK? You OK six times, are you OK?
You good? You signed half an hour ago.
Are you sure you saw OK? Maybe it's not asking that
question, maybe it means giving a reassuring touch or softening
your tone. And maybe it's less about
overthinking what the other person is feeling and more about
choosing how you want to show upin that discomfort.
(43:43):
So through the week, take a moment when you notice there's a
disconnection or a discomfort inyour relationship.
Just take a moment to kind of assess and think about how you
want to, you want to show up in those moments in a healthy way.
And now for the future, Pace, which is a visualisation tool
that helps us to borrow feelings, thoughts, clarity from
(44:03):
the future. We'd like to go towards the
goals that we've got and use them now to help motivate us
towards those things. So if you want to, you can just
close your eyes while I read this out and try and get really
clear on this picture that I'm going to describe for you.
So take a moment to close your eyes.
Picture a version of yourself inyour relationship.
Calm, steady and clear. You're able to stay present even
(44:24):
when things feel tense or uncertain.
You're not rushing to fix it or disappear to avoid.
You're grounded in how you want to show up.
Now I want you to ask yourself, what is one small habit that I
could start now that helps me become this version of me?
Maybe it's checking in without over explaining.
Maybe it's giving space without shutting down and simply staying
(44:45):
when you usually withdraw. All right, guys.
Cool, that's a good one. The silent treatment.
Love that if this resonated withyou, we want to hear from you,
yes, but also if you would like to support us in this podcast,
please do all the things you always hear about, like share,
subscribe. It actually goes a very, very
long way in supporting us. All right.
(45:07):
Thanks so much, guys. Good chat.
See ya. Thanks guys.
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