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Narcissists & The Silent Treatment

silent-teatment-narcissistNarcissists will invoke the silent treatment for days, weeks, and longer with no explanation as a way to control and demoralize their partners. Narcissists are fond of using the Silent Treatment as a cruel (but not unusual) punishment for you doing nothing wrong at all and, from experience, I can tell you that the affect of this method of passive-aggressive control is sheer torture. The first time it happened to me, I felt as lost, sad, and helpless as the puppy in the picture. I thought my ex surely must be dead on the side of the road to not have called me for three days. Well, those three days turned into six weeks. Little did I know that that particular silent treatment was the first of literally hundreds to come. I simply couldn’t believe that anyone could do something like that on purpose to a person that they supposedly cared about.

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My ex-N of 12-years executed a narcissistic silent treatment, on an average, about every 3-6 months (and, during one stretch, even every two weeks),  depending, I assume, upon how his other sources of supply were faring. Each silent treatment would last anywhere from two to three days to six weeks to six months before he hoovered back or before my begging at his door and endless onslaught of desperation letters forced him to give in. The Silent Treatment, for my ex and for many others, is a powerful narcissistic ploy and/or tactic and it gets the point across.

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No matter how he goes about it or why it happens or when it happens, the Silent Treatment always sucks. The fact that the victim of a narcissistic partner rarely knows why they are receiving the silent treatment only compounds the mental torture. I remember reading an article where the writer described the narcissist’s silent treatment as particularly demoralizing because the N is clearly making a statement – in unspoken terms, of course – that you, the recipient, aren’t even worth acknowledging…aren’t worth a moment of his time…that, in fact, you are a worthless piece of shit on his shoe.  How true that is? We all get the point and fast!

“How long will the Silent Treatment last?” is always the big question. Will it go on for a day, a week, a month or even longer? Keeping us in the dark about when it will end (or even why it’s happening) is an intentional strategy designed to create as much anxiety as possible in the recipient. And it does. The longer it lasts, the worse the separation anxiety becomes and the more likely you are to feel depressed, jealous, confused, isolated, unworthy etc. The more desperation we feel, the harder it is to follow the no contact rule and to give up the need for closure. We become the puppet and the Narcissist, the Puppeteer.

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The silence is meant to hurt you. It is meant to teach you a lesson. And, make no mistake, the silence is always a way for the narcissist to buy himself some free time for being with someone else or for hustling up new sources of supply.

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Most victims  – myself included – will describe the days and weeks of silence as an agonizing torture that leaves us broken and desperate, willing to try anything and everything to get a response. If this means apologizing for the sole purpose of apologizing even though we know have done nothing wrong, then so be it. When you’re in the thick of it, the pain of the silence is far worse than the pain of being a doormat. Meanwhile, the narcissist goes on about his/her business until, for whatever reason, he feels his victim have been punished enough or the girl he’s seeing does something he doesn’t like. When this happens, he will usually return offering no explanation – or at least no logical explanation – and he will expect to pick up right where he left off and as if he’d never been gone.  So dismantled and dejected, the victim often demands no answers anyway, keeping her mouths shut and choosing, instead, to revel in the fact that her anxiety has passed. This particular response, by the way, is an intended result of the silent treatment so that the N gets away with the entire debacle. This is just another narcissistic strategy for managing down our expectations so that we expect less and less and he gets away with more and more.

Understand that a partner using the Silent Treatment for any type of punishment – let alone one for a crime not committed – is not normal under any circumstances. When a narcissist uses the silent treatment, it is just one more requirement he has filled in the overall pathological relationship agenda. No one ever deserves to feel unworthy of attention or undeserving of love and loyalty. No one …not even one time.

In my book, Stop Spinning, Start Breathing, I devote an entire chapter to a step towards recovery that I call Silence Appreciation. By learning to actually appreciate the silence given and by using the time wisely as yet another step towards mentally freeing oneself from the narcissist, you’re life will begin to make miraculous changes. It did for me and I know it can for you as well….

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150 Comments

  • Briana

    May 7, 2019 at 12:26 pm Reply

    I don’t even know where to begin. With all the comments I’ve read I say to myself “they must know my husband” I met him & I fell in love with who I thought I knew. We had been through so much together but I was always the only one picking up the pieces, trying to make it better. With all the lies I still stayed. About a month ago though I found out that he never left the dating site we met on & he was actually telling another woman the same things he had told me. I confronted him & he would still lie about it. What I don’t get is if you want that life with someone else then why not go for it? Why hold on to me? Why give me the silent treatment then after a few days or so send texts saying “I love you”, “I miss you” “we will fix this”? He even sends songs & says I wanna see you. We make plans to see each other & he disappears. He even called me to ask to see me at 9 at night & he stood me up without a word! After 2 days he sends a text saying “good morning beautiful” like nothing happened. Every promise is a broken one. When I get fed up he disappears. I ask for a divorce & he disappears! He continues to lead me on & doesn’t seem to care for my feelings at all!! Why do I love someone who continues to do so much? Even now if he were to contact me I’d go right back. I just want it to end. I want answers I know I’ll never get. I will never understand why people do what they do knowing that they hurt others. He really has me feeling like I wasn’t enough. That hurts so much because he was enough for me. Why can’t I walk away? Why am I still hoping for him to come home & stay? I don’t even get why when I left twice before he begged me to come home. We could have divorced then. You could have been free to do whatever then, sleep around & do whatever then. I just don’t understand anything he does. I’m still wondering in the back of my mind if he’s really done with me? I give him his space, I don’t text him first or call at all. I just don’t get it. I valued our marriage & was willing to make it work. I know I was at fault too but did I really push too hard? Did I really love too hard?? This is all too much!!

  • Kristen

    December 26, 2018 at 10:31 am Reply

    I’ve been the mistress to a narcissist for 3 years, we have a 2 year old daughter, for whom he provides absolutely nothing, not even a Christmas gift or an offer of even $10 as I struggle to afford her daycare. She has a brother who is 3 months older than her for whom he does everything for. He can treat us how he wants since no one but us know about it. Anyways, I’ve been slowly detaching myself, not letting him trigger me or reacting strongly to his silent treatment. I’m trying to walk away, but I find myself trying to think of ways to make him explode, make him act crazy, let him know he will never truly destroy me, no matter how close he comes. I have the power to destroy him actually. If his family, his gf, etc knew about the existence of his daughter and our3 year affair, the gig would be up.. he wouldn’t be able to play the victim. I know it’s dangerous to try and trigger him, to try and leave on top, but I can’t help thinking about how I am going to accomplish this. Get the last laugh. He won’t be able to just walk away while I have the power to destroy his false image, he will have to try and love bomb me, get me back under his spell, etc. so he can neutralize me. I just want to hurt him somehow, and I want him to know that I know everything and do not love anything about him any more.

  • angiep

    June 7, 2017 at 12:29 pm Reply

    Thank you for your great articles! They ve been so helpful.
    My story..I had an affair for a few months.He is 55 and a famous journalist.I’m 39. It was all great until 2 months ago when I visited his city for the weekend.After that he disappeared for a few days when he reappeared he said he had been thinking about his family and kids and if he is ready to leave home and he isnt but he continued talking acknowledging the difficulties of the situation. After Easter I asked him where we stand he felt pressure he told me things are difficult but he hasn’t made any decision and we re just talking and he has no idea when we can next see each other since we live in different cities.And that was it.He disappeared for 2 weeks.He then appeared with a happy month text which I didn’t reply to and 2 weeks later he texted again have a nice week. So I replied that these casual texts are meaningless and if he wants to see how I’m and explain what happened all this time he had disappeared he could just call me.He replied that he texted because he cared and he doesn’t understand which of his texts I find meaningless and there are obviously boundaries I can’t cross. So I just called him to clarify things but he never picked up.That was 3 weeks ago. Silence since then. I don’t understand what has happened nor what he wants.What is all this?

    • Zari Ballard

      June 12, 2017 at 12:00 pm Reply

      Hey girl….just responded to your second post!

  • Li

    May 26, 2017 at 8:48 pm Reply

    I was with the same narc on two occassions. First time lasted 2 years of on and off, finally ended with him disappearing. I was miserable but got over it in about 6 months or so. I moved, met someone else and had a baby. Fast forward 8 years and I am single again and meet him by chance. We were together about a year and a half and got married. I dont think there was ever a honeymoon period. He was a big sullen lying baby from the beginning but he swore he loved me and I wanted to believe it. After 2 and a half years of drunken, lying narc bullcrap, I started to figure I had to leave. It took around 4 years to get on my feet but I left. I used to ignore his silent treatments, when he called me names I called names right back. When he threatened divorce I said go ahead and left first. I dont care what his barfly family or friends think about me. He called recently after 5 months of separation to say he loved me and never cheated and I told him I believed he cheated, he is a drunk, a mommas boy, his mother is a troll…I didnt hold back. When he threatened to hang up I did first. I sent a few choice text messages to finish my thoughts and then left it alone. The only prob I have with the silent treatment is that I can’t continue to tell him what an a-hole he is. And I’m not going to bother calling back to do that. I figure in good time he’ll call again and at that time I can continue my thought process. I am comforted knowing that he’s still an alcoholic, he still drunk dials, he still says the same garbage, and I know whoever he might have been with or is with now is going through the same garbage I did. He’ll never change and that gives me alot of comfort since I can and will defend myself and change for the better.

  • Flippy

    May 1, 2017 at 6:42 am Reply

    OK, so I have been with my suspected Narcissist girlfriend for a year and a half and the breakups, the beatings and the fits of rage keep on coming. We have been in a breakup/reconcile cycle for its entirety. Normally, the cycle goes that she hits me over the smallest arguments (which she causes) and I end up throwing her out. Things will then go dark for a few weeks/a month and then all is back on.

    The most frustrating thing about this is that I keep on falling for her and letting her back in to just beat me once again. This is a great article that sums up why I should not go back to this but regardless of how much I read, I am obsessed with her.
    I am now in a breakup phase after I allowed her to move in to my flat where in 3 days I was hit again. As I ejected her I told her that she has to go and get some serious help to control her anger/violence (will this ever happen?), until I can consider us. It was a risk as I never wanted to lose her but the aggression must be addressed.

    After the most recent episode she pleaded to be back and for me to not let go and that she would change. So powerless that she even offered an ultimatum of ‘if you don’t take me back right now then I won’t come back’, to which I said no.
    I am now completely blocked from contacting her after she found somewhere else to live and I am in a position where I cannot stop thinking about her. I love her (or what I think is love) from the bottom of my heart and will do anything to get her back. I even emailed her yesterday to say I’m moving on but, I am not even there in my own head.

    She has a very mixed background and mentality where her father used to hit her and she believes it was because he cared.
    Has anyone been in similar and thoughts on reconciling, or at least trying? I keep using her background to justify her behaviour…

    I do have a specific question – by contacting, am I feeding the N nature and allowing her to still feel power and even though I want her back (and I do) will she ever address the problem, as in will love conquer all?

    • Zari Ballard

      May 8, 2017 at 5:38 pm Reply

      Hi Flippy,

      Look, NOBODY deserves to be beaten – not man nor woman – and that alone creates the most dangerous part of the situation. If you keep allowing her back, one day YOU are going to find yourself in jail for being wrongly accused of hitting HER simply because it is standard to assume the guy is beating the girl. She could even say that you did it after you put your arms out to fend her off, pushing her by mistake. Anything could happen. And, honestly, I’m not buying the fact that she views her father’s physical abuse as a term of endearment. I actually believe she’s making that up as a way to justify to YOU and to herself her hitting YOU. I know she has other narcissistic issues (the silent treatments, rages, etc.) that concern you but right now all I care about is that “beating” problem and, to me, that ALONE is so unforgivable enough that you never have to speak to her again. I may be wrong but I sense that you both are pretty young (20’s?) so there is plenty of life ahead for you. I personally don’t feel it’s your responsibility to “fix” her or to even take her back on the promise that she would get help because then you’d have to hold her to it. Certainly counseling of the most stringent kind would do her good and hopefully she will take it. I can’t say for sure if she’s a full-on narc (I’d have to know more) but she definitely has dangerous issues that even surpass the typical narcissistic kind. I know you love her, brother, but it is just not meant to be.

      Block her and do not email. It will only string you both along and this relationship, for both of you, must come to an end. You sound like a very kind compassionate guy and you deserve more in this short life.

      Zari xo

  • Danielle

    April 6, 2017 at 9:00 am Reply

    I was just discarded by my N. I was living with him. Started dating in Dec. 2016, by the end of Feb., he was talking/texting he’s ex who lives out of state. No explanation, no closure. Just started ignoring me. He is also a functioning alcoholic. I’m 45. He’s 37. Very good-looking. I went to finish getting my things last wknd and he had his ex basically moving in and painting the living room (the project we were talking about doing together). I was shocked and horrified. (She’s in her early 20’s so an easy target/victim). What makes this worse is that he and I were hit by a car back in December. That is when he fell in love with me as he thought he was going to lose me. He’s ok. It took me 4 months to heal the trauma to my legs. A few weeks ago he said he needed to get away for a wknd and I supported his getaway and then found out he went to see the ex. Luckily I own my own house so I was able to move back. In the midst of moving out of his house, he has asked me twice to be friends and sleep with him. I said no. That’s when he turned the blame on me and said I was “catering” to the male roommate who also lives with him the whole time!!! I had gotten him a job just so he could pay my boyfriend rent!!! It’s just all so heart breaking and hurtful. The ex he’s back with even had the nerve to tell me as I was moving my things out that he told her that he never loved me. Haha, she’ll find out how great he is!! Good luck to anyone experiencing this. No contact is the only way.

    • Zari Ballard

      April 9, 2017 at 6:29 pm Reply

      My goodness..what a terrible situation – but you will survive it. Since it’s only April, I can’t tell if you mean that you met just four months ago, got in the accident, and then moved in with him and his roommate? If that’s the case, brush it off and forget you ever met him. Seriously, erase it from your memory and cut off all communication now and for in the future. Block him everywhere. He is obviously not anyone you need in your life as a boyfriend, friend, or anything else. And it sounds like he found a girl that he absolutely deserves. The only thing that I regret for you is that you didn’t punch her in the face OR dunk her head in the bucket of paint on the way out. That’s okay, because if she’s with him, her punishment for being such a mean bitch IS COMING!

      Stay strong and be happy your free!

      Zari xo

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