The Silent Treatment: The Coward’s Way Out
Dear Belladonna Rogers,
I have a question whose answer I probably should have learned years ago, but didn’t. What’s the best, or least worst, way to break off a romantic liaison that’s lasted on and off for decades? I’m 72 and my lady friend is 66. I’ve been giving her the silent treatment for the past three months and she’s responded by not contacting me all summer.
I’m an Elder of my church and I know what I’m doing to her is wrong. I don’t want to hurt her. Her feelings for me are probably deeper and more loving than mine are for her, which are more sexual than emotional. Hers are both. I’m not sure I want to deal with the emotions she feels (when we were last together, she wept, which was a turn-off for me). If she didn’t love me, I’d want to continue a sexual relationship with her. Or should I be more understanding of her feelings and not end it at all? I’m in turmoil over this.
The last time I didn’t know what to do about her, when I was much younger, I asked my mother. I’ve been reading your advice column all summer. Now I’m asking you.
I find it very hard to be a good person.
Penitent in Pittsburgh
Dear Penitent,
I’m glad you’re ready to seek alternatives to the silent treatment. Most people who resort to it genuinely don’t know what to say, often because they don’t know what they want to do — and saying nothing seems like the path of least resistance. The advantage, they think, is that at least they won’t say anything they’ll regret.
What they may not understand is that even though it appears passive and therefore neutral, it actively inflicts excruciating pain every single day. Speaking directly to your lady friend may seem difficult after three months of silence, but it’s the only decent thing to do. It shows her the respect and empathy she deserves, and that you’d want from anyone in a serious relationship with you. Perhaps you’ve been incommunicado because you’re uncertain whether you do want to break it off with her. But the silent treatment is no substitute for communication. It’s cruel and unusual punishment
It is, I regret to tell you, for cowards who don’t have the guts, the decency, or the empathy to use one of the unique gifts of humanity: the power of speech.
IT’S NOT CALLED “BREAKING” UP FOR NOTHING
As the great Neil Sedaka put it, for the first time in 1962, breaking up is hard to do. There’s a reason that a “break-up” includes the word “break”: it’s a fracture, a rupture, a shattering. Not only is it difficult to accomplish, but it’s even more excruciating to be the target. Many people never recover from a heartlessly-administered split.
Breaking up in an empathetic way is one of the most difficult responsibilities we face in life. Why? Because breaking up is an act of rejection and abandonment. At its essence, it expresses the death of hope, the slough of despond. The musical chords have changed from major to minor:
Breaking off a relationship is analogous to a death. You’ll be telling her the relationship has died. You will have died in her life. You may not want to die in her life, and you may not want her to die in your life, either. That may be one reason you’re in turmoil.
Breaking up is also akin to firing someone. A pink slip, be it physical or metaphorical, is no way to end it. The movie Up in the Air showed the despair and rage that come with being fired, especially by a hired gun to whom your boss has outsourced the task. This scene was deleted from the final version because of the spontaneous, strongly-worded responses of two of the fired employees. It vividly portrays real employees’ reactions to being fired. Being the casualty of a bad romantic break-up feels just as painful:
THE SILENT TREATMENT
For those who can’t outsource firing or breaking up, there’s always the cruel course that Penitent in Pittsburgh has taken for the past three months. The silent treatment is surely the easiest way out for the emotionally lazy, the busy, and the careless — careless in The Great Gatsby sense of the word. Along with Chinese water torture, the silent treatment is the ideal way to inflict the maximum degree of anguish while exerting the least amount of effort.
You do nothing. No calls, no emails, no texts, no letters, no explanations, no sense of responsibility. Just a long, soul-crushing silence. Too self-absorbed, too distracted, far too important to bother to be a decent human being. You figure she’ll get the message sooner or later. Why trouble yourself with the effort it takes to speak from the heart, face to face, when silence is so effective? Cruel, but effective. Unconscionable, but effective. Despicable, but effective.
As Leonard Cohen wrote, “Hey, that ain’t no way to say goodbye.”
What, then, is the way to say good bye?
BE AS KIND AS POSSIBLE: YOU’RE PRACTICING SURGERY WITHOUT ANESTHESIA
The answer to that question is a corollary of the general rule of life: always be kind. Even when you break up with someone — especially when you break up with someone — you have a duty as a decent human being to do it with as much kindness as possible.
Since you’re lopping off an entire person from your lady friend’s life — to wit, you — try to be more of a surgeon than a butcher. Understand that, like a surgeon, you’ll need a careful plan because you’re dealing with quivering human flesh and a beating heart — not a slaughtered carcass on your well-worn chopping board.
It never fails to astonish me how people who attend weekly worship services live their lives on the days that are not the Sabbath in ways contrary to every tenet of Judeo-Christian ethical conduct. It’s as if they believe that by showing up at a religious service once a week they’ve earned a free pass to be as heartless as they like the other six days. What’s the point of weekly worship in public if not to be reminded every seven days of our absolute duty of kindness to our fellow human beings?
From your question, it sounds as if your lady friend has done you no wrong, nor been either cruel or unfair to you. She wept, but that hardly seems a fireable offense. It sounds as if your reason for wanting to break it off is your increasing discomfort with her desire to be in an emotional love affair when your desire is for a dreamily-exciting, sentiment-free zone of sexual satisfaction. You sound remarkably like an older version of the kind of man George Gilder described in his classic book on unattached men, Naked Nomads.
HOW ORGASM AFFECTS WOMEN’S BRAINS DIFFERENTLY THAN MEN’S
Your attitude toward her love for you may be related to a newly-discovered biological fact that’s the subject of a stunning, recent scientific discovery concerning the difference between men’s and women’s brains during orgasm. Your situation sounds like a living, heavily-breathing illustration of these new findings. A study by Rutgers University psychology professor Barry R. Komisaruk compared brain activity in women and men during orgasm. His research revealed that while making love, and at climax, women’s brains are bathed in a pain-killing, defenses-lowering hormone that leads them (us) to fall in love with the person with whom we experience orgasm:
A key hormone released during sex is oxytocin, also known as the “cuddle hormone.” This lowers our defenses and makes us trust people more, says Dr Arun Ghosh, a GP specialising in sexual health at the Spire Liverpool Hospital.
It’s also the key to bonding, as it increases levels of empathy. Women produce more of this hormone [than do men], although it’s not clear why, and this means they are more likely to let their guard down and fall in love with a man after sex.
However, the problem is that the body can’t distinguish whether the person we’re with is a casual fling or marriage material — oxytocin is released either way. So while it might help you bond with the love of your life, it’s also the reason you may feel so miserable when a short-term relationship ends.
Men, on the other hand, instead of getting a surge of bonding hormone receive a surge of … pleasure.
‘The problem is that when a man has an orgasm, the main hormone released is dopamine — the pleasure hormone. And this surge can be addictive,’ says Dr Ghosh.
That’s why so many more men tend to suffer from sex addiction.
A lack of a signal from a man that the woman is accepted and loved can often lead a healthily orgasmic woman to be unable to achieve climax with a man who doesn’t communicate enough acceptance and affection to allow her to lower her defenses sufficiently to relax.
I’ve thought about the following question: ignoring my own needs (except my need to end the relationship), which is kinder, which is better for her
1. Leave her thinking, “Oh wow, what a great guy he was, I wish it could have worked out”; or
2. Leave her thinking, “Wow, I really dodged a bullet there. I should have my head examined for never before noticing what a jerk he is? Whew, glad that’s over.”
I cannot help suspecting that maybe (not certainly, but maybe) the second option is better for her, that she regrets a few days misspent in the past than mourn a lifetime of glorious love-filled days in the future with you that she’ll never experience.
If you think this is the case — or if you think you’re in that possibly-rare situation where this is the case — you really only have one ethical option: sleep with her best friend and/or her brother and let her catch you.
It’s the right thing to do.
I wonder what advice the other elders at his church gave him?
The key is acting like a MAN. Put on the big boy pants and face the unpleasantness as quickly and painlessly as possible – or settle yourself down to a relationship where you’re getting what you want and she’s getting what she wants.
Also, there is a reason this lady stuck around so long, whether this “man” is acting like an ass or not. Wonder if he ever asked? Or if he ever LISTENED?
A long, long time ago—within perhaps, days of their first meeting, her nature and compatibility with his began to manifest. He’s relied on her for this length of time, in my opinion, for such an easily discernible circumstance, any man who finds it difficult to be a good person, never presented an actual decent personality in the first instance; he’s beneath dignity—in quality of character, not at all unlike the trash which the wind blows to the side of the freeway.
Thanks for the exciting story about geriatric dating.
Will they get back together and go nuts until one of them breaks a hip? Maybe she’ll leave him for a younger man – still in his 60′s. Maybe he will meet the love of his life and they ride off into the sunset on their rascals.
Belladonna, thank you, this was very useful advice for me right now, even though I’m a man on the other side of this equation.
I’ve been dating a woman for several months (we’re both in our thirties, not teenagers) only to suddenly find myself getting the “silent treatment” for the last 3 weeks with her not answering my calls or returning my messages… (just like the Beatles song, “No Reply”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILdBDOPoEDQ ).
I tried to figure out what I said or did to offend or anger her, and I don’t have a clue. I’ve written a few drafts of a letter apologizing to her for whatever I did to unintentionally hurt her feelings and asking her for a chance to make amends, but haven’t sent it because it seems too pathetic to ask for her forgiveness, especially when she abandoned our relationship for no clear reason, as though I had no more value to her than garbage.
Reading your advice, now I think the most likely explanation (giving her morality a large benefit of the doubt) is that she probably wasn’t as into the relationship as I obviously was and didn’t want to lead me on, but she didn’t have enough character to let me know directly.
What I’m wrestling with now is whether I should write her a final letter wishing her well (of course, sanitized to remove any implication of blame for either of us), which I think is the most courteous way to give this situation closure, or just move on with my life without any further communication.
It would be much easier to be a gentleman if she were a lady, but on the other hand if she were a lady I would have regretted this outcome much more.
Joe,
Don’t apologize when you’ve done nothing wrong unless it is in everyone’s best interests. Here, it’s not in your best interest to issue an apology based on her strange behavior. We have no idea why she disappeared on you. In these cases it’s best to write the person off as a nut or immature, and therefore unworthy of further consideration. Best of luck, you sound like a good guy.
Joe, P.S. Don’t write a final letter. Just move on.
Joe, thank you for your kind words about the column, and I’m glad that you found it useful. As for your own situation, I advise you to have nothing more to do with this woman, and try to put this experience behind you with no further communication, in any form, from you to her. That’s the short answer. My reasoning is below, if you want to know why I give you that advice.
In your comment, you wrote that, “I tried to figure out what I said or did to offend or anger her, and I don’t have a clue. I’ve written a few drafts of a letter apologizing to her for whatever I did to unintentionally hurt her feelings and asking her for a chance to make amends, but haven’t sent it because it seems too pathetic to ask for her forgiveness, especially when she abandoned our relationship for no clear reason, as though I had no more value to her than garbage.”
I agree with microscosme that it’s unwise to write a letter of apology when you don’t know what, precisely, you’re apologizing for. If you want to know what has happened at her end, you’re unlikely to get any response at all. You may not only get http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILdBDOPoEDQ but also its predecessor, http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=elvis+return+to+sender&aq=0&oq=elvis+%22r. If you did write, “Dear X, We’ve been out of touch for the past three weeks. You didn’t respond to my last email. Please tell me why. Joe.” My estimate of the likelihood she’d reply is less than 2%. I would not send it for that reason (2% maximum chance of success) plus another reason:
You also wrote, “she didn’t have enough character to let me know directly.” As I said in the column, a lot of people resort to silence because they’re either undecided about what they want, or, if they know they want to break it off, they don’t know what to say. Out of fear of saying the wrong thing, they think silence is best. So in addition to a lack of character, silence can also involve ignorance, fear, confusion, lack of empathy, cruelty and laziness.
You then wrote, “What I’m wrestling with now is whether I should write her a final letter wishing her well (of course, sanitized to remove any implication of blame for either of us), which I think is the most courteous way to give this situation closure, or just move on with my life without any further communication.”
I agree with you that such a final letter would be courteous. But the most striking word in your sentence is “closure.” I think that’s what you want more than anything. If you wrote such a letter, its main purpose for you would be to enable you put a clear-cut end to what is now a painful, amorphous, wordless blob in your inner life.
My concern with your sending her such a letter is that two of your other statements question this woman’s integrity and say that she isn’t “a lady.” This suggests you don’t trust her.
In light of that, I’d advise against putting anything else in writing to her, or leaving a voicemail, or sending a text or an email to her. There’s only a 2% chance she’ll answer your question “Why?” And what would she do with your closure letter? Post it on her Facebook wall? If you don’t trust her, and I don’t think you do, why give her yet another piece of yourself to do with as she chooses? I wouldn’t. At worst, she could view your continued efforts to contact her as harassment, regardless of your actual motive.
Even without a communication from you to her, you can unilaterally declare closure and live your life as if you had sent that letter.
And always feel free to write to me at advice@pajamasmedia.com
I wish you all the best, Joe.
Yeah, wondering what you did and apologizing for “whatever it is you did” isn’t the answer.
The answer is that she is gutless. She has ended it and does have the decency to (1) bother to tell you and/or (2) explain why. So she gutlessly ignores you.
What to do? (1) Get rightly ticked off about it. She’s the jerk, she’s the one that did wrong, not you. (2) After being angry or even hating her for a while, forgive her. Forgive her. (3) Send her a polite e-mail telling her that, because she has decided to blow you off and never again respond to you, that you must presume that she has decided to end it. OK, that’s her prerogative, but you also tell her that you would have appreciated the common courtesy and decency of her letting you know that. Be a gentleman. (4) Move on. And be a man, not a worm. Even if she ripped your heart to shreds and you feel you can never go on and you’re terrified of the prospect that no one will ever love you ever again. Look deep down inside you, man up, and don’t give her the satisfaction of crying about it. Besides, that would only make you look weak and would justify in her eyes that she was right.
In addition Joe — in that e-mail do NOT ask her to explain or to respond or to talk about it. The reasons why really don’t matter in the end. Just short and sweet — you understand it is over, you would have preferred and appreciated her being polite and telling you that, have a nice life, Goodbye. The end. Walk away. Let it go. No obsessing.
Thanks! I appreciate the thoughtful advice from microcosme, Belladonna, and Bender.
I decided to follow Bender’s suggestion, and basically copied and pasted his suggestion into a three-sentence email (“Hi X, I hope you’re okay since I haven’t heard back from you for 3 weeks. I have to presume you decided to end our relationship. I’d have appreciated the decency of being notified, however I wish you the best. Take care, Joe”.)
I can’t give a good reason for not walking away without looking back like microcosme and Belladonna advised. I agree she didn’t deserve anything more. I think as a musician I’m conditioned to wait for a resolution back to the tonic key. Otherwise, thinking about it will annoy me forever. That’s my own personality quirk – I wish I could just walk away without closing the affair.
Joe: I’m glad that you found a solution that is congenial to your personality and your needs. That’s the most important thing of all. I hope you’ll keep us posted as readers of the comment section, or at least let me know at advice@pajamasmedia.com so that we can know how it worked out. Wishing you all the best.
Hi Joe, Sometime you will decide this individual no longer gets access to your thoughts. You may still want her to know your thoughts, but she has lost that privilege. Good luck, you will find some better.
What the? What are these church going people doing having sex outside of marriage? At that age do you not have any better sense of responsibility towards other human beings? People are not things to be “tried out” to see if they are a fit and then tossed, or toyed with until something you like better comes along. Where was there no mention of love and commitment and how important they are to satisfying relationships (including sex) and marriage in a supposedly conservative column? I am shocked and saddened.
Not every article will be of equal interest to all readers. If this column is of no interest to you, pass over it
As for those who regard the romantic doings of sixty and seventy year olds as disgusting (because of age) or immoral, I must disagree. You’re never too old for love, and a surprising number of oldsters find sexual romance rewarding. It seems to me a great deal of the religious strictures against non marital sex are designed to preclude the possibility of fatherless children, something not a problem at this age.Few people in the biblical era ever lived so long.
In any event, the advice given by Belladonna is sound for breaking off both romance and friendships that are no longer rewarding. It’s hard to man up (or woman up) but it is the best thing to do though perhaps a public park or other wide open venue where both parties can fully express themselves without constraint might beat a restaurant.
No, it’s not designed only to keep people from having children outside of marriage, it’s too keep people Holy unto God! At any age this is important. Well it should be to a Christian I don’t know what faith you are. I believe most all religions have that as a tenant. I have nothing against older people falling in love and having sex once married, I am beyond child bearing years myself but I won’t throw myself away and you won’t catch me crying over some man who used me and is now through with me. Intimacy with another human being is sacred at any age.
To each his own , elizabeth. I doubt people writing for advice on how to break off an unpromising affair want a religiously tempered screed on why they were naughty to have engaged in it in the first place.
(BTW, it is very common in retirement communities for unmarried couples to cohabit . They simply cannot afford to marry and lose one social security or alimony or other pension benefit. Others desire to protect their estate for their descendants.) “The U.S. Census Bureau has reported that from 1990 to 1999, the percentage of unmarried senior couples 65 and older rose significantly. Forbes reports “In 2006, 1.8 million Americans aged 50 and above lived in heterosexual “unmarried-partner households,” a 50% increase from 2000, figures Bowling Green State University demographer Susan Brown.” http://marriage.about.com/cs/cohabitation/a/cohabseniors.htm
He is an elder of his church? I’d suggest resigning, because his life puts lie to his faith, such as it is.
It is sad when someone so filled with rage attempts to respond to a column so filled with wisdom. If you’d been reading Belladonna Rogers all summer, it would be obvious that she is no liberal:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-unbearable-smugness-of-liberals-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/,
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/help-im-surrounded-by-intolerant-liberals-at-work-a-guide-for-the-perplexed-and-the-outnumbered/
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/coping-with-obama-induced-irritation-syndrome-oiis-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/
Apparently, if you disagree with a blogger, your first line of attack is to call the blogger a liberal.
A calm reader of your comment can only wonder how many points Belladonna made that hit home with you.
Don’t kill the messenger just because you can’t take the message.
Well, I may regret this, but you guys can’t find me so I’ll just get on with my life as well as I can.
Look at your last line. Maybe it applies to you just as well as it applies to Penitent.
harumph’s perspective is fully as legitimate as Belladonna’s.
Wallabee, don’t read it if you don’t want the perspective of half the conservative people in this country. Belladonna is doing her part to help a culture of decency along.
I would have loved to see a few paragraphs on a break up initiated by a woman though. Her points are universal, but some of the strategies would have to be somewhat different, I am guessing.
Yes. And, whether “the silent treatment” or any other seemingly different appearance of the manipulative technique—and, as in his discussion concerning “artifice”, the great English philologist George M. Crabb pointed out, “An unprincipled woman will practice artifice on her husband.”, in the nature of things, this more often being brought up for treatment, at the suggestion of “the weaker vessel”, but ultimately, of course, to her own much greater loss, for, the blood-rusted implements of malevolence are bound to return in a worse destruction upon their source. But, as marriage is often a proving ground for skills which are requisite to success and safety in the larger world, the larger point then is, never be drawn to react on the lower level; and with this, upon the fact that, the mind of man in every individual of wholeness is so made as to always prefer the stronger position, then, to have shown yourself able to compete on some lover level which in someone else’s resort to the other stratagem had been offered you, or rather, to overcome evil with good, and gain your lover—which would be more becoming of strength?
Belladonna writes a column here of excellent advice. The guy who asked the trigger question is first of all a jerk. He’s been giving a lady friend the silent treatment for three months and he wonders why this woman has not contacted him all summer? He should ask the other elders for their advice. He’s already asked his mom–I wonder what she said? Then why bother with Belladonna? This guy is not a man; he’s to be found under a rock. Maybe he just keeps asking advice until he hears what he wants to hear.
If the angry (I mean hate-filled, perhaps angst-filled) readers would stick to the question, they would not get involved in so many offshoot issues. If Hurumph weren’t so serious, he’d be funny. As in his comment about speaking ancient Egyptian–well put, sir.
But getting back to the original guy: do you know people who leave a pet dog (or cat) out many miles from home, and just leave him there? These are the same people who resort to the silent treatment. The opposite number is now an inconvenience. Drop him or her.
And where does Wallabee come in with his fangs dripping? If you can’t take good advice–and there is no way this stuff from Belladonna can be considered “liberal”–then go back to your Monday Night Football or whatever it is that floats your dopamine.
Our trigger guy wants no strings attached sex. I find nothing wrong with that. The lady friend wanted more. I find nothing wrong with that either. They should break up, but nicely. Human beings have feelings too! Our Elder should go out and develop a relationship with a prostitute. No strings attached–guaranteed. And probably cheaper in the long run. Or maybe resort to the ultimate safe sex–with his right hand. (Perfect for elders of all churches.)
All you other angry guys, get lost. Belladonna doesn’t deserve your crappy responses.
Belladonna … what a fine column again this week!
About six or seven years ago I ended a long-term relationship with a kind and fine woman. It was a painful experience … I dreaded doing it … hated how I felt afterwards. When faced with a lifetime of “almost the right one,” I had to say ‘No, I’m sorry, but there’s no ‘us’ here.” I think I handled the break-up as well as I could. I certainly appreciated your line about “surgery without benefit of anesthesia.” For both of us.
There is something especially important in truth-telling. To be honest, I only got a “C+” in that department. I told her that there were parts of our personalities that just didn’t match … but I held back in one area. I probably shouldn’t have. She’ll probably bump into this issue again and again, until someone with enough courage and compassion tells her.
Telling the truth, patiently, thoroughly gives the other person (and yes you TOO can be the other person) a chance to learn. That’s the value of truth. I know it’s easier to flinch when it comes to saying “what’s so,” or doling out the “silent treatment,” but I really think we owe it to the significant others in our lives to tell the truth.
It’s a difficult thing to do. It takes courage and gentle persistence. The world isn’t about us … it’s about the other person too. When you connect with someone, it’s the least you owe them
Boys, boys, boys, please. If you don’t want to read an advice column, especially those so thoughtful and erudite as Ms. Rogers’ are, don’t read them. After all, it’s still a free country.
On the other hand your angry comments to Ms. Rogers’ work lead me to conclude you really must be old men writing on your computers in your pajamas. Otherwise, there might be a fine woman in your life encouraging you to get out and make something of yourself and the day.
I have been grateful to have found PJM. The insight and information PJM brings to my life is truly inspiring; it gives me hope all is not yet lost, except for David Solway’s article posted today, of course.
We can and must thank Ms. Rogers for bringing us the intelligent comment we have come to expect from PJM.
Keep up the good work, Ms. Rogers. Keep on writing to us.
Thanks,
Fred – I certainly agree. Belladonna always manages to shed light, remind, or teach me a thing or two. Be a great loss if I weren’t reading her each week.
A loosely connected thought to add to the conversation: A relationship implies or requires attention to your motives, a challenge to your partner when needed, and attention to the relationship itself. I’m thinking more of the challenge and less of psychology these days. I mean to say that when I was younger I dabbled in all manner of psychologized approaches to my relationships. I can’t say they were much help. Some … but not a lot. As I get older, I find the value in simple directness … in challenging what does not work or make sense for me in my relating to my wife. I’m 60 … the years are counting down. How much time do I want to waste in pretending that I agree or in minimizing the potential for certain kinds conflict.
Ms Rogers challenges her correspondent to the truth. What’s so terrible about that, really? It actually doesn’t matter what the woman does or does not do. What counts in this context is the level of the man’s truthfulness with her. There’s the challenge: The truth shall set you free. The Christian tradition talks a great deal about “Judgment,” and most of us learned to be terrified of judgment when we were younger. But experience reminds me – pretty consistently – that real truth is reliable, substantial, and sound.
Loved your comment, Fred.