Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.
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Grief (flickr creative commons)
I no longer phone my daughter anymore. That's because I can imagine her sitting there watching the phone ring and seeing my number come up and ignoring it. I choose not to put myself through the hurt and anger this image conjures up. Granted, she may not be at home. However, after spending time with her, I know her routine well enough to realize that all those unanswered calls were not accidents. She often begins the day by phoning people or returning calls from the night before. Her adoptive mother and her biological father are on the "to call" list and I'm not. That's hard to accept, but that's the way it is. Whether you call this the silent treatment or stonewalling doesn't really matter. Either way the silence at her end hurts. It hurts a lot.
Why do people resort to the silent treatment?
- to control
- to ostracize
- to silence
- to gain control of their own feelings
- to shut off communication when they don't know what to say
- a lack of compassion and empathy
Blogger, Ken Savage, discusses the difference between silence and ostracism. A "cooling off period" isn't ostracism and may, in fact, be a healthy response to intense emotions and conflict. However, if the "cooling off" stretches into months or years it has almost certainly become ostracism. Ostracism is destructive and is used to punish loved ones for perceived or imagined hurts and affronts.
When there's silence at the other end of the line or in your email in-basket, it feels like you're knocking on a door that will never open. I picture my daughter sitting on the other side of the door, listening to me knock, listening and listening. I don't know if she's feeling sad, angry, guilty or something else entirely. And, worst of all, I have no idea when - or if - she will ever open the door. (photo: R. Canepa, flickr)
My ex (my daughter's father) has an even more hurtful modus operandus. On a number of occasions he's gotten angry - often soon after we had what appeared to be a pleasant time together - and lobbed an angry email grenade at me, then, announced that he was cutting off all communication. I bit my tongue the first few times he did this and eventually he got back in touch with me and our "relationship" resumed more-or-less normally. The last time he used this technique, however, I emailed him back and said, "Fine. I don't want to communicate with you either." It's been two months now and I've had no word. Here's an informative post by Betsy Sansby on why men may resort to the silent treatment.
The looming silence on the end of the line, the empty email basket, the empty mail box, results in a cascade of emotions: anger, sorrow, fear (of abandonment), hope, despair, frustration, helplessness. Riding that silence out hurts more than it seems possible. Thankfully, the pain waxes and wanes. Sometimes, my daughter's and ex's silence seems to suck all the air out of may life. Other times, it's like a car alarm going off in the distance. But, no matter what, their absence is always there - like something gnawing at my heart.
How do you deal with the silence of estranged loved ones?
Next time: How to cope with estrangement.
