My boyfriend gives me the silent treatment - and I can't bear it!!!

[SecretlySad]

Whenever my boyfriend and I have a fight, he gives me the silent treatment. He goes and locks himself away in our bedroom and wants to be left alone. After his time alone, he comes out to join me and he is often STILL angry, having a filthy look on his face and just staring at the tv. I always have to be the one to say "can we talk about this?". The longest time it has lasted is 2 days. It may not seem like a long time but when you live with someone who isn't speaking to you, it's like an eternity!

I cannot stand this kind of behaviour anymore. I came across this:

Emotionally abusive relationships can be very damaging because there is no 'concrete' thing that can be seen - and so the cause often goes unnoticed. We often just have an 'uneasy' feeling until it is too late and the damage has been done. Emotionally abusive relationships may show as little as only three, but as much as all of the following questions:

1. Is your mate irritated, upset, or angry with you often, sometimes several times a week or more? Are they upset with you even though you had no intention of upsetting them? Are you often times surprised by their anger or sudden outburst? Is their anger directed at 'you' or something they say 'you' did or didn't do? Does he blame 'you' for his outrage, anger, or upset? Does he deny to you his being angry or upset? Do you find yourself questioning everything you do as you do it, lest it angers him?

2. Does he refuse to discuss any upsetting issues with you, or accuse you of trying to start an argument if you bring them up? Do you feel that the issues that arise are never resolved? Do you feel uneasy, unhappy, depressed, or edgy because of these unresolved issues?

3. Does he frequently misunderstand your intentions? Do you end up feeling perplexed and frustrated at his misconstruing your every action?

4. Do you find yourself dismissing the bigger issues of your relationship, such as children, financial investments, or retirement planning because your daily lack of communication is consuming your emotional energy. For instance, do you often worry about him misunderstanding something he thought you said, or what you thought he said? Are the simple little day-to-day issues consuming the big picture?

5. Do you sometimes feel like there is something wrong with 'you'? Do you sometimes feel bad and can't figure out why?

6. Is your mate secretive? Does he rarely, if ever, share his thoughts or plans with you, or discuss issues with you?

7. Does your mate almost always disagree with you? If you say the sky is blue do they say it is grey? If you found a movie to be good do they claim it was bad? Are you always made to feel like you are wrong and he is right?

8. Are you punished when you say "No", or are you made to feel you haven't the right to say “Stop this”? Do you feel obligated to 'give in' just to keep peace?

9. Does your mate get angry or pretend ignorance if you approach him to discuss an issue? Do you bite your tongue and hold things in?

10. Do you feel like your mate holds all the power in your relationship? Do you find yourself asking for 'permission' to do something or get something, as if you were a child? Do you often apologize for your behavior? Does your mate overpower you making you feel 'needy' and 'humble' to them?

11. Have you gradually stopped talking to or seeing your family? Have you lost contact with your friends? Does your mate criticize your friends, or belittle your family members? Does he complain when you visit them to the point where you stop just to avoid the confrontation and argument? Does your mate's behavior often embarrass you? Does your 'bowing down to him' behavior embarrass you?

12. Do you think that everything is your fault and that if you can somehow fix your flaws that everything would be okay in the relationship?

13. Do you often give in to his sexual demands to keep the peace? Do you have sex, or consent to unreasonable sexual demands, even if you don't want to?

14. Does he do drugs or drink alcohol? Does his personality change when he does these? Do you find yourself having an uneasy 'sinking feeling' when you hear or see him pop open a beer?

15. Does he make fun of you or joke around about your flaws?

16. Can he laugh at his own mistakes, or himself, or admit to his own shortcomings and weaknesses?

17. Does he quickly and easily admit when he's wrong? Can he apologize for his own behaviors? Does he make excuses for his behavior and blame it on someone or something else? Does he point the finger at you and make you feel like you are the reason for his upsets or to fault for his mistakes?

18. Does he make all the decisions in the relationship? Does he plan outings, finances, vacations, retirement, children's discipline, the car, etc?

19. Does he control, curtail, or disapprove of your spending? Has he put you on an allowance, or strict budget, yet has complete freedom to spend as he wishes? Does he keep you financially needy of him?

20. Would you feel frightened or uneasy if he caught you reading this questionnaire, or taking this test?

If you have answered yes to just three of these questions, odds are you are in an emotionally abusive relationship. You probably find yourself often depressed and wondering why. You may just feel 'unhappy' but can't put your finger on the source of your unhappiness. Or you may find yourself thinking that you are clumsy, stupid, incompetent, wrong, or no-good. These are all subtle signs of being emotionally abused.

I was quite horrified to find that I answered YES to 10 of the 20 questions on there.

I no longer accept it as just his way of dealing with things. I cannot deal with it. I would rather him scream in my face than completely shut me out. He is not going to change and I don't know what to do. I am constantly holding things in because I don't want another day of him not speaking to me.

Has anyone ever experienced this??

[MonLob]

I applied these questions to my ex: didn't count, but I think at least half of them were "yes". Strange how until those behaviors are written down so you can read them, they don't seem quite as real or prominent. I am no longer with my ex-girlfriend and am quite happy, I was distinctly relieved when it ended. I suggest you split.

[cmacattack1]

I had a girlfriend dump me because she was sick of my emotional abuse. I was never one to get angry though, I would just close up as soon as she got upset at me. She was the one that was always complaining about things I wasn't doing and she would cry to me and beg me to do stuff for her like call more, text more, send stuff in the mail (we were at a distance). Of course by then, it defeats the whole purpose of doing those things because I was just obeying what she said. Or when she would talk and try and cheer me up, I would just act sad and depressed. She always thought it was her, and I told her over and over again that it wasn't her, I had issues. She still took it as her and it really took a toll.

I would say I was guilty of: 3, 4, 6, 14, 17. Enough to have a girl that tried for months while I didn't to get sick of me and say everything I did to her was unforgiveable. And you have 10. Wow.

She was wrong and very insecure in many respects but I was obviously the one that was the problem mostly. I didn't mean to make her feel needy or anything like that, she just did. I'm guessing that he probably doesn't know what he is doing, but the longer he gets away with it, the more instinctual it becomes.

This relationship is important to you, I understand and you would fight to be happy with him and have alot invested. You have to think logically about it though, what you have done so far is not working. All this time you've been trying is building resentment the longer you don't get results until you are completely done with him and never want to see him again. As difficult as it is (or would have been since you are reaching your breaking point) you have to back away from this and give each other some space. It's hard for him to think about issues and fixing them when you are in the middle of the relationship and you are always around to remind him. I know you think that "if this really mattered he would want to fix and work on it" but the fact of the matter is that he doesn't know how much this means to him and he won't until you aren't in the picture anymore.

That's if you want this to work, if it's already too late you can just cut your losses. But if you really want this to work you have to put space between the two of you so you can really see it for what it is. I know breaks sound lame but they actually are good if properly executed. The reason why breaks are stupid is because they still talk every day and do everything normal except they don't have a title and they get back together without learning a damn thing. A real break, mind as well be called a break up, where you don't talk, are left on your own to sort things out is a real test of how much you care.

When my girlfriend dumped me, I realized how much I took for granted and how much important what we had was afterwards of course and like I mentioned she built too much anger to want to try again anytime soon. I spent countless hours talking to my friends, posting on here, learning about what I was doing and it's helped me grow and become a better person. If he wants to do that for this, then it's obvious he really cares. If he wants to write it off with anger or not learn from this, he is too shortsighted and selfish and this thing didn't really mean that much to him.

[BrandNewMe]

Awwww SS, I am so sorry to hear you are hurting....you know if you are looking on the internet and posting as you are in here THERE IS a problem.

I went through similar circumstances and began to "search"....I was shocked, I started seeing me and him in stuff like you posted....

You may come to a point to where you have to give him some ultimatums that you have to stick to....figure out what it is YOU want to change, ask him if he he will have a talk with you (I know you stated that he "hides")...so this is a "iffy" thing....writing him a note might be helpful...whatever will work.

If he is totally unwilling to talk rationally, like an adult then you should walk....