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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

  • Bri

    October 26, 2016 at 2:43 pm Reply

    My mom is currently and has always given me the silent treatment through out my life. I never know exactly why and when confronted she is short and angry then blames it all on me. Does she realize the damage she is doing? Does she even realize she’s doing anything wrong? She had an awful childhood and grew up in children’s home and foster care. I try to not be angry with her but enough is enough. The emotional abuse is killing me.

    • Zari Ballard

      October 28, 2016 at 5:15 pm Reply

      Hi Bri,

      I am so sorry that you are going through this with your mother. While I certainly know what being given the silent treatment by a partner feels like, I imagine the same by a mom is much worse. I imagine it is very painful. This is your mother, after all, and aside from that sensitive part of it, I have always said that FEMALE narcs are the worst of the worst. It just is what it is. So, does she know the damage she is doing? Maybe. But narcissists, as a rule, DO know right from wrong, they just don’t give a shit. What are you supposed to do with that? They know enough about the world to SEE that it’s wrong but they simply can’t help themselves. The silent treatment is a control tactic and it is especially mean and cruel. With the silence, they get to express all kinds of things without saying a single thing, know what I mean? So, my theory on that is that, in some twisted way, they feel that since they technically aren’t SAYING anything, then they’re not the one truly inflicting the pain. Sure, they may be angry but they’re not yelling and screaming, right? At the same time, they also know that being silent gets the job done…lets you know that SOMETHING is wrong even if you’re not sure what it is. It creates confusion and they like that.

      You don’t say whether you live at home but I hope that you don’t. If you don’t, then you can control your interaction. Understand that your suffering changes nothing – it never did and it never will. So, that being said, when she is giving you the silence, just continue on. Don’t try to figure it out or reason with her. Be happy in your own life. You have no choice. Don’t allow it to kill you. She is always going to do it – whether you suffer or not – so you might as well NOT suffer. It’s a different way to look at it but this is what I did in my relationship. I “suffered” through years of silence and then one day I thought, “Hmmm…so, I suffer during the silence but he either always comes back or calls or whatever…I wonder what would happen if I didn’t suffer? Would the outcome be the same?” And sure enough it was. By not suffering when I was getting the silent treatment…by simply continuing on with my life…untile he came back or however it resolved, at least I didn’t waste any MORE time, know what I mean? Of course, I could have left my ex and I eventually did but you can’t “leave” your mom. You can, however, use the same way of thinking so that your life goes on unaffected by her silence. If she sees that it doesn’t affect you, chances are she won’t do it as much. Remember – it’s all about what they can get away with! I hope this helps, my sister.

      Zari xo

  • Suzanne

    October 14, 2016 at 11:42 am Reply

    My own Mother would do this to us when we were children. My youngest sister seemed to be the one most affected. I usually blew it off because I figured I was better off when she wasn’t talking to me. My first ex would try that but that did not last long. 5 years and I was done.

    • Zari Ballard

      October 16, 2016 at 7:12 pm Reply

      Hi Suzanne,

      I’m so sorry that you went through that as a child but THANK GOD you recognized it down the road. You deserve so much better than that in this life. Silence is so awful and a punishment that never ever “fits” the “crime”. I learned that first-hand myself. Be happy, my sister!

      Zari xo

  • Bhupinder

    August 27, 2016 at 10:52 pm Reply

    I was a victim of a silent treatment for 13 long years, 13 years of hell on earth! & i’m a male!!

  • jennifer

    August 10, 2016 at 3:56 pm Reply

    Hello my name is Jennifer and i read your article. I’ve read many articles on narcissists and my ex fits the description perfectly but something that i have not found yet in any article is narcissists having extreme jealous tendencies my ex and i have a daughter together when he found out i was pregnant one day he picked up and left with no goodbye no explanation no nothing 2 years later once the baby was almost one year old he came back saying he wanted to work things out and be a family. i went through hell right from the begging with his jealousy. i had to get rid of all my friends and he had to have the passwords to all my accounts and as time went by it got worse and worse he wanted to know where i was at all times he would work on and off and when he was making decent money he would spend it on me and the baby eating out or buying her shoes and helping me pay for her daycare but that would only last once or twice every blue moon he would always blow his money and expect me to help him pay for uber rides to get him to work or he would want me to pick him up at 2:00 am from work and when i would say no he would blow it more than any regular human being I’ve ever come across with before. then he slowly started doing coke and around the time i found out about the drug abuse he started sending me pornographic videos constantly accusing me of being in them with other men it would always be different videos at different places with different men and you could never see the girls face the first few videos i would try to rationalize with him, after a while i gave up i knew there was no way he would believe me, it came to the point where he would force me to watch the videos and then he would come out with all crazy kinds of stories about how he knew exactly who the guy was…. it got so much worse over time and at this point i dont know if it was the drugs or him in general because even when he stayed clean for a while he still was paranoid about everything and very controlling. To make it short he blamed me of cheating again for the last time and accused me of sending people out to kill him changed his phone number because i was “tracking” him and now im as confused as ever, hurt and ashamed i let it get this far… it’s been 3 months no contact and im scared he’ll show up out the blue…

    • Zari Ballard

      August 14, 2016 at 10:32 pm Reply

      Hi Jennifer,

      Yes, I do talk about the extreme jealousy but as a tactic only because that’s what it is. A narcissist only acts jealous to distract you from what he’s really up to. If he accuses you of cheating, that’s what he’s been doing. If he accuses you of lying, then there’s something he’s been lying about. He’s not really jealous of anything you’re doing because even a narcissist knows that we’re too busy worrying about keep him happy to be doing anything under the table and if we were cheating, we’d likely be gone for the better pasture. By the way, mine did the same thing. He would accuse me of having people follow him, of having a “boyfriend” vandalize his car, of putting a tracker on his vehicle, blah blah blah and then he’d leave me, changing his number. They are so full of shit. What happened is that he was getting pressure from his other “girlfriend” and needed to start some shit with you so that he could leave.

      I always suggest that instead of defending ourselves against the accusation, we just listen to what’s being said because they are giving themselves away. And as far as the friends and family, this is all about isolating you so that no one can advise you to leave him or offer you deserving sympathy. He may just return someday so be ready but more than likely he’s stuck somewhere and won’t show up until he is absolutely forced to. Be ready to tell him to go to hell. Do not fall for the ruse again. Let this be YOUR decision. Life is way too short to waste time with these fools….

      Zari xo

  • jennifer lopez

    August 10, 2016 at 3:53 pm Reply

    Hello my name is Jennifer and i read your article. I’ve read many articles on narcissists and my ex fits the description perfectly but something that i have not found yet in any article is narcissists having extreme jealous tendencies my ex and i have a daughter together when he found out i was pregnant one day he picked up and left with no goodbye no explanation no nothing 2 years later once the baby was almost one year old he came back saying he wanted to work things out and be a family. i went through hell right from the begging with his jealousy. i had to get rid of all my friends and he had to have the passwords to all my accounts and as time went by it got worse and worse he wanted to know where i was at all times he would work on and off and when he was making decent money he would spend it on me and the baby eating out or buying her shoes and helping me pay for her daycare but that would only last once or twice every blue moon he would always blow his money and expect me to help him pay for uber rides to get him to work or he would want me to pick him up at 2:00 am from work and when i would say no he would blow it more than any regular human being I’ve ever come across with before. then he slowly started doing coke and around the time i found out about the drug abuse he started sending me pornographic videos constantly accusing me of being in them with other men it would always be different videos at different places with different men and you could never see the girls face the first few videos i would try to rationalize with him, after a while i gave up i knew there was no way he would believe me, it came to the point where he would force me to watch the videos and then he would come out with all crazy kinds of stories about how he knew exactly who the guy was…. it got so much worse over time and at this point i dont know if it was the drugs or him in general because even when he stayed clean for a while he still was paranoid about everything and very controlling. To make it short he blamed me of cheating again for the last time and accused me of sending people out to kill him changed his phone number because i was “tracking” him and now im as confused as ever, hurt and ashamed i let it get this far… it’s been 3 months no contact and im scared he’ll show up out the blue

  • Glenn

    June 27, 2016 at 8:48 am Reply

    Thank you so much for your article. I was married for 25 years to a woman who I and my therapist believe is narcissistic. For reasons that I never understood, I received the “silent treatment” for 3 days on our honeymoon. I felt confused, hurt and lonely. On top of that I was forced to relive that particular nightmare repeatedly because she liked to tell that story to friends and relatives as if it was some kind of joke. Reading your article caused me a bit of anxiety but also left me feeling that I am not alone in suffering the effects of this manifestation of the narcissist’s personality.

  • Lisa

    May 29, 2016 at 4:54 am Reply

    Hi everyone,
    maybe someone has advise for my situation.
    I have a history of being surrounded by narcs going back to my childhood (could it be any other way)? I have been dating three men in a row who I all think qualify for NPD.

    The last guy I dated I believe was also a narc. He and I met in our social circle and we first met up just as friends, spoke on the phone and send texts for months. I knew he was attracted to me (because he told me), but kept his distance romantically. There was no love bombing. Later he told me he was not sure whether I was into him or not because we had known each other for a while as friends and I never showed any clear signs of attraction towards him.

    Anyway, finally we did kiss and ended up making out. I felt in heaven because I really really liked this guy. When he left in the morning, I thought this could be the beginning of something. But not much later he told me he was unsure if he was ready for a committed relationship yada yada, but wanted to see how things are going with us because he really liked me bla bla. I bought into his bullshit and we started seeing each other. After three weeks I did believe we were in a relationship, because to me we did all things that were part of a relationship. But I could tell he wasn’t that romantically involved so I asked him what was going on.

    He said:
    I don’t know what it is, you would be the perfect girlfriend, but I feel nothing for you. I was crazy about all my exes, couldn’t stop thinking about them, but with you there is nothing.
    I was crazy about all my exes and wanted to give them presents all the time. But with you…
    Well, to be honest, after the initial months being crazy about my exes, I lost interest in them. They were to demanding. Don’t think I ever loved any of them. Don’t think I can even feel love.
    Well let us just see how things are going, OK?

    Than he left, leaving me totally confused and sad. 30 minutes later he called because he realized he left his glasses at my apartment and wanted to pick them up. Turns out, he had breakfast by himself just around the corner. I felt even more mad at him!

    He didn’t contact me after this happened and three days later I broke it off via e-mail, telling him I lost trust in him and please not to contact me ever again. I did this as a method of self preservation, because I knew he was very proud and insecure at the same time, so he would very likely obey to my “rules”. I knew, I had to push him away “violently” to protect myself and I also couldn’t confront him personally, I did like him a lot. And of course, no reply, no defense.

    Only four weeks later, he showed up at an event he knew I was supposed to volunteer at. All of a sudden he stands in front of me at the stand I am working at and starts smalltalking like nothing has ever happened. What was even worse, he knew a girl I was friendly with too and who was there too and hours later she calls me from afar and I go to her and see him sitting next to her. He arranged to meet up with her and some other friends. But he knew, I was still there. I got so upset, walked away quickly and confused and all this really ruined the event for me.

    4 weeks later I came home from vacation and I decided to contact him again and speak to him about it all. I couldn’t understand his behavior. In this conversation he explained to me he knew from the start it wouldn’t happen between us although we were a perfect match, because he has absolutely zero feelings for me. He doesn’t even miss me, nothing. I cried through the entire conversation.

    I texted him roughly 4 weeks later to ask him if he would come to a certain event because it would be quite intimate and it would have been to much for me to see him there. He texted back “No, won’t be there, have fun :)”. After all this, he didn’t even care how I was doing! I lost it and texted him that I felt like he just used me for sex, his reply: “it’s sad you think of yourself as only good for sex”. Of course this set me off even more and I sent him a still polite but yet clarifying message what I thought about his behavior. Please note, I didn’t insult. Just told him again, I felt used.

    Anyway, after that I never heard from him again and it has been a year now. Now one could think, well, he just wants to avoid conflict and that’s it. But I think it is weird, because we do attend the same events. He also cannot go to a regular meetup anymore he used to frequent regularly and where we met, because it is run by a friend of mine and she politely asked him to stay away. I managed to avoid running into him because I stopped going to certain events too.

    But I hate this situation and I don’t know how to handle it. Now people could think it is just over but the fact he never replied to my text and also never made any attempt to straighten out things in any way, despite the social consequences that he had to face… I just feel this isn’t a normal silence. I fear he feels hostile towards me and I am scared of him.

    Please tell me what you think, if I am right and how to deal with this situation. I just have a gut feeling he is not done with me and would love to punish me for being the one who called the quits. But my friend keeps saying he’s probably just over it. I would be so relieved if that was true. Am I being paranoid?

    • Zari Ballard

      June 24, 2016 at 5:36 pm Reply

      Hi Lisa,

      I’m very sorry that it has taken me so long to respond and I hope that you haven’t tried to contact this guy. My observation is that this relationship was absolutely over the very day that he went into his insulting rant about how he has no feelings for you. It was confirmed yet again when he told you the same thing after your vacation. More confirmation again in that it has been a year since he’s even come around. Girl, this guy is not interested. He has long moved on. NOW, if he has come back or you have seen him, I would have to ask WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT considering how rude he is. There’s something very wrong with this guy – he is cold as ice. In fact, I would have to say that he’s been fairly honest about his feelings so what is there to straighten out? If he has no feelings for you, he has no feelings for you. This happens. As for being hostile, why would you think that? There’s no reason to be “scared” of him – it’s been a year! And, honestly, I don’t think you called it quits – he did. He came right out and told you he has no feelings for you. HE called it quits so, no, he’s not hostile. He’s just not interested. If he came around ever again, I would tell him just to fuck off.

      Now, I don’t know what “events” or meetups you are attending but if this is where you are meeting these men for the first time, it’s time to find another hobby. We can’t keep repeating the action that puts us in the vicinity of these unsavory characters. Your friend had the right idea about asking him not to attend the meetup. Good for her. It’s time to move along, girl. He’s not worth your thought energy ever again and he truly never was….

      Zari xo

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