ICE SILENCE AND FIERY BLOOD SPEAKING IN PARTNERSHIP RELATIONS

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

One of the laws of attachment is that any response is better than no response. From time to time, clients with different life stories, plans for the future, men and women say: "I need at least some kind of reaction!" Icy silence is an extreme form of distancing and unresponsiveness. People use silence as a manipulation, knowing that another will come, beg not to be silent and forget about all their claims. But the icy silence is not always the savage version of the manipulator. People use silence to cut off feelings, numb and freeze.

People distance themselves and become silent when they are hurt, hurt, when they feel insecure, and also for fear of saying "something is wrong." Silence can be constructive when a partner takes a pause to collect his thoughts, find emotional balance, to speak again, to resume contact with a partner again. But silence becomes destructive for the relationship if it becomes a habitual pattern of withdrawal in response to claims or reproaches from a partner.

Some partners do not understand how painfully their partner reacts to silence and that all that storm of emotions, a flurry of insults that they endure in their bastion of icy silence, for the most part, is the very trigger that provokes such a violent affect, which can subsequently turn into a deep sadness.

I will give examples (all examples are published with the consent of clients).

Igor and Marianna have been married for 5 years, no children. Marianne is impulsive, with a high level of aspirations, which are combined with self-doubt and suspicion towards the boss. Marianne is often stressed at work and seeks support from her spouse Igor by talking to him about her worries. Igor, in response to the complaints of his wife, tries to dissuade her, inspire her with a sense of optimism and save her from suspicious thoughts that Marianne's boss will fire her. This has an annoying effect on Marianne, she accuses Igor of a lack of understanding and empathy. Igor, in response to the accusations, turns into a silent stone, believing that further arguments will only infuriate Marianne even more. Marianna demands to continue the conversation, after which Igor always goes into the bedroom and goes to bed. Marianna falls into hysterics, demands to say at least something, Igor continues to lie like a stone, keeping an icy silence. Marianne's screams continue for about an hour, after which she leaves, and she begins to be overcome with doubts about her adequacy in relation to the work situation, as well as she is ashamed of her screams and insults. This continues from the moment of the joint life of Marianne and Igor. Igor's silence, which lasted for two weeks, became the “last straw” that served as a pretext for seeking psychological help. Marianna had a fight with her mother, which she told Igor about. Expectations that the spouse would devote some time to the incident did not come true. Igor was silent, when Marianna asked if he wanted to say something, the husband replied that he did not want to interfere in the relationship between Marianne and her mother. Marianna considered that her husband considered her to be guilty of the conflict with her mother and tried to find out, to which Igor was silent. Then the usual model played out - Igor retired to the bedroom and went to bed, this time Marianne's affect did not subside until the morning, the usual reconciliation did not happen in the morning, the days passed, and Igor remained silent. In despair, Marianna decided to come home in the evening in a state of deep alcoholic intoxication in the hope that this would bring Igor out of the state of icy silence, but nothing of the kind happened. This was followed by days of quiet silence on both sides. Until the rage again took possession of Marianne, and she pounced on Igor with her fists, but this did not bring Igor out of the state of silence. Igor came out of a state of silence only when Marianna said that, perhaps, they should separate, and she wants to move to her parents. To her surprise, Marianna heard in response from Igor a request that she calm down, that he did not understand her decision to divorce and that he was asking her to save the marriage. Much to his surprise, during psychological consultations, Igor came to understand that his silence did not extinguish Marianna's emotional flame, but rather kindled him, that very simple words would be a cooling cocktail for Marianna, which, unfortunately, were not available to Igor. Realizing the destructive power of silence was the first step towards creating a new choreography for their dance partner.

In another case, Ivan reached a frenzy when his girlfriend, whom he loved very much and with whom he was going to start a family, suddenly suddenly became "difficult", and then fell silent and, just like Igor, physically distanced herself to another room. Loving Ivan felt it, like a break, his imagination drew to him that the girl no longer loved him. After that Ivan could no longer control himself, he "ran" after the distancing girl, tried to establish contact with her, continued to ask questions, which only strengthened the silent defense. During the consultations, Ivan and his girlfriend learned a lot about their usual ways of reacting, as well as about the unfolding cycle of their relationship each time. After identifying his own triggers and learning about the mechanisms that trigger silence and response emotional attacks (Ivan's emotional attacks were not expressed in affective outbursts, he just continued to "bang" with questions). At the beginning of our work, Ivan's girlfriend said: “He is not patient and is waiting for an answer. But I don't have the courage to tell him the truth. For example, that I don't want to meet with his friends tomorrow, and he talks and talks, asks and asks, he doesn't just give me time or make a decision that meeting his friends is not such a bad idea and agree, or have the courage to say, that I would rather be at home tomorrow."

There are a lot of such examples, some people really find it difficult to understand that silence is deadly for a relationship and causes emotional pain to a partner. But the one who is silent also suffers, becoming silent he freezes in the hope that a strong wind blows, if he lies a dead stone without dropping a word, but it happens exactly the opposite, a strong wind turns into a deadly hurricane.

E. Tronic demonstrated the effect of stone silence in experiments with mothers and babies. The mother looks at the child, plays and talks to him. Then, at the signal of the experimenter, the mother becomes silent, freezes, her face becomes motionless and empty. The baby immediately notes this change and seeks to stir up the mother, if the mother continued to remain silent, the child became very agitated, demanding attention, when this does not happen, the child turns away from her, and then begins to cry desperately, his despair becomes too intense. The experiment ends. The mother smiles and calms the child, after which he recovers very quickly and smiles again.

The same dynamics can be observed in couples who come for a consultation. At some point, the partner becomes silent, like the infant from the Tronic experiment, the second partner seeks to stir up the silent partner, if he does not react, aggression, an attempt to turn away and despair arise.

Cold silence is most often chosen by men, due to the fact that men are less able to cope with strong emotions and are slower to recover from stress. However, my practice shows that if cold silence is characteristic of a woman in a couple, then the connection between partners is more difficult, longer and requires individual therapeutic support.

It may seem that the author has appointed guilty only those partners who resort to the "practice of silence", this is not at all the case. In this publication, indeed, the emphasis is shifted towards distancing partners and their contributions to disruption of communication. However, the responsibility of the "fiery eloquent" is no less, and sometimes even more, in breaking the emotional connection. I will write about this in the next publication.