Stonewalling

[WesternCloud]

How do I cope with being stonewalled? Its such a deliberate and cruel way of making a person feel bad.
I don’t want to respond to it but it is making me hurt so badly.

[Confused123]

Hi HUn

What do u mean by stonewalled, didnt understand , if u expand can guide u further

[WesternCloud]

google “stonewalling and emotional abuse” or “silent treatment and emotional abuse” should give you an idea what it is and maybe even remind you of similar experiences you may have had

[danicali]

“stonewall
verb [ I/T ] US ​ /ˈstoʊnˌwɔl/
​
to prevent someone from discovering information by not being helpful or by refusing to answer questions:
[ I ] If you refuse to be interviewed, or stonewall and make it difficult for us to do our job, you might face punishment later; to engage in delaying tactics”

hopefully that is a bit what you mean? and hey, out of all the terms I’ve heard since I’ve gone through this (gaslighting, headworking, etc) I have never heard “stonewall”…

if this is in fact what you mean, and sorry if it isn’t, all that comes to mind with this, for me, is that my ex would regularly refuse to reply to questions when it suited him, such as confirmation of a handover date and time, or he would purposely delay things so I could never make concrete plans, etc… and it’s all designed to keep you destabilised and “never knowing anything for certain” which causes, of course, anxiety and stress and frustrates those around you

there are probably an infinite number of ways that abusers abuse – but it’s all under one umbrella – abuse – so, how do you cope with abuse?

you refuse to accept it, you leave the person who is being abusive, you refuse to blame yourself for it, and you keep away from them as much as humanly possible so as to remove yourself from any further abuse x

[WesternCloud]

Yes, stonewalling is when an abuser gives you the “silent treatment”, deliberately ignoring and not responding to you in an attempt to destabilise you, belittle you & provoke a ‘crazy’ ‘needy’ reaction from you which they feel gives them power.
We all need time sometimes, particularly after an argument, to cool off but stomewalling tends to be prolonged and is done to throw the victim off kilter. It often provokes a sense of frustration and desperation which can lead the victim to act more desperately by sending multiple texts, making multiple calls etc etc the abuser can then use this against you by saying you’re the crazy one because you wont leave them alone.
I left some time ago now and feel I have been doing really well but from time to time if we communicate he will sometimes not reply and I feel it sets me right back in my recovery as I suddenly become anxious and worried that I have upset him. Its ridiculous really because whilst I still care about him I dont love him anymore and I know he is seeing someone else I still feel this addiction to him that I can’t seem to shake.
I need to cut him out completely really but it scares me a lot

[purplebottles]

Hi,
If you’re not with him anymore the best thing to do would be going no contact unless you have kids together so stick to minimal contact.i understand it feels like an addiction and going cold feet is the only way to effectively tackling am addiction, same thing with an abusive ex-psrtner. It’s not gonna make everything better but by being still in contact with him he still has a chance to keep abusing you and if he’s giving you the silent treatment that’s what he’s doing. Only by going no contact you can break the cycle of abuse.

[lover of no contact]

Hi westerncloud,

Yes he does it (not respond to your texts) because he knows it hurts and upsets you. If you were like me and I’m always trying to go No Contact with my ex, well he tries to do the opposite that is be on my radar and be places where he knows I’ll be, to come in my line of vision, why? because he knows it upsets me and he knows he gets back into my head. They just change tactics to whatever tactic will hurt (or anger) us the most.

Now if you gave him ‘no response’ to his ‘no response’ guess what, he’d then try to hoover you back into engaging with him. Its very hard to get rid of an abuser even if they have another woman, because they need to have someone they can upset. Her knows you will be upset by him. He needs ‘your upset/ hurt’ because only then will he feel good about himself. His life is empty without others’ hurt, upset,anger, guilt, fear etc. He feels powerful if he can affect others to give him these emotions. He couldn’t stand it if you were moving on from him and getting on with your life. He would attempt (try to engage you, make contact with you) even after many years to get a bit of ‘hurt and upset’ out of you. Not just you, but others in his life as well.

He has an addiction. An addiction to Power and Control. He likes to have control over your emotions then he feels powerful. So he will do whatever that takes. Silent treatment is a great one for him to do. Minimum energy expenditure and hurts the other person like hell and the great fun the abuser has watching the hurt on the other person’s face and their repeated attempts to make conversation, keep them happy. What a fun game for the abuser.

And even though he doesn’t see you he ‘knows’ you will be upset and this makes his day. And so easy for him, he just with-holds a response.

[WesternCloud]

He even said to me (detail removed by moderator) that if this situation was the other way around and I had met someone else he wouldnt even want to speak to me anymore. Says it all really doesnt it?

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