Stonewalling and gaslighting are both tactics to prevent healthy conversations and can cause a lot of pain, but the intent behind them is quite different. Dannaram said. For the person being stonewalled, it can leave them feeling confused, hurt and angry.
It can wear down on their self-esteem, leading them to feel worthless or hopeless. For the person stonewalling, they also suffer as they are denying themselves emotional intimacy with their partner. For the couple, stonewalling can build a giant divide in their relationship, causing severe marital distress, conflict and disruption.
If stonewalling is occurring in your relationship, the best thing to do is to face it head-on as a couple and not bury your heads in the sand. To make your relationship work, you need to work together. This situation is one where couples counseling can help. While solitude can be healthy, prolonged stonewalling is not a good relationship strategy. Women are not exempt from stonewalling behavior due to being overwhelmed, but this behavior tends to be more common in men.
When a person defers too easily to stonewalling as a coping mechanism, it amounts to denying emotions the gentle space they deserve. They just need to be felt. Suppressed feelings tend to behave like vampires - unless one can confront the beast and drive a stake through its heart, it is likely to rise again, usually more intense than before. The link between depression, physical illness, and emotional dysregulation is a solid one.
This is the most toxic motive behind stonewalling in relationships. In its more innocent form, it is an avoidance technique implemented in order not to deal with problems or situations, but the aggressive stonewaller favors her or his preferences in the relationship and uses stonewalling behavior to have his or her way.
These traits, in themselves, are detrimental, selfish, and immature - not good for relating. This type of stonewalling is often abusive, or borders on such. If a spouse persists with stonewalling, despite all the efforts of their partner to draw him or her out, it could be that the stonewaller has something to hide. It could be as nefarious as an extra-marital affair or a crime, or it could be the loss of a job or a failure to manage an addiction to food, video games, nicotine, etc.
The withdrawal from the relationship may indicate anything from shame to wanting to end the relationship. There are many possibilities for why a partner may stonewall and what their motives are. In extreme cases, the reason behind manipulating others in this manner may be a disorder such as borderline personality disorder, narcissism, or sociopathy.
Other factors suggest manipulative stonewalling, such as when a person denies, despite evidence to the contrary, that their stonewalling is:. Relationships are a two-way street. If one person persistently withdraws from the relationship, it cannot survive.
When a person stonewalls, he or she displays the need to disengage. This psychological removal from relationships and situations can result in dire fallout. If left unaddressed, stonewalling is likely to cause severe marital distress, conflict, and disruption. Studies have convincingly linked these upheavals in marriages to depression, poor social competence, withdrawal, health problems, and poor academic performance in children.
In women, these types of upheaval are proven to cause illness, and in men, they tend to cause loneliness. The destabilizing effect of divorce, a likely outcome of severe and persistent stonewalling, needs no elaboration.
Stonewalling can have the same catastrophic effect on relationships at work, which will eventually affect work performance. Strained relationships can result in loss of personnel, with financial losses for the employer. If the stonewaller is in a managerial position, this behavior is likely to poison everyone who works under him or her. It is a truly disempowering way to conduct relationships.
First, give your partner the benefit of the doubt - you are probably not the problem. He or she may feel overwhelmed by a crisis that is difficult to discuss. Consider not trying to engage him or her, especially if this is uncharacteristic behavior. Your compassionate reassurance of availability whenever he or she feels ready to discuss what is happening may just open the door to greater communication.
It may even strengthen your relationship. If there is a problem, your partner's first step is to ask for help. You cannot force her or him to let you help them. Maybe you are part of the problem.
Check your behavior. Sometimes stonewalling can be a defense against criticism or a response to perceived aggression and hostility. Are you encouraging when your partner engages with you? Or, do you judge, condescend, and attack if your partner admits their faults? A lack of empathy and compassion from your side can encourage stonewalling. Consider your side of the situation, and it will help to clear up your role.
Maybe you have made every effort to address a problem by attempting to talk about it. Perhaps you have refrained from a negative attitude, and you have remained supporting. If your partner still stonewalls you, then stop. Things are likely to escalate, and you need to take care of yourself. You are likely to feel infuriated by your partner's behavior and consumed by difficult emotions. Stonewalling is definitely harmful, but is it abusive? Psychologists recognize abuse as behavior that belittles, demeans and disrespects.
If you want to have a healthy, happy relationship, you have all the motivation you need to stop stonewalling. You can't control the other person's behavior, of course, but there are some ways you can begin to change the way you communicate.
The following tips may help:. Assuming you are emotionally abusing someone without realizing how your behavior impacts the other person, what can you do now? How can you make changes? Here are a few tips to help you improve your communication:. In a nutshell, "stonewalling" is one partner becoming unreachable to the other. The partner who is unreachable often seems cold and impenetrable -- like a stonewall. Select personalised ads.
Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Stonewalling involves refusing to communicate with another person. Intentionally shutting down during an argument, also known as the silent treatment , can be hurtful, frustrating, and harmful to the relationship.
Stonewalling is broadly described by the following behaviors:. Stonewalling is rarely effective. And, if it becomes a habit, it can reduce a couple's ability to resolve conflicts or interact intimately. Many times, stonewalling in a relationship is obvious. However, it also can be subtle and you may not realize that you or your partner are engaging in stonewalling. Signs of stonewalling can include:.
While stonewalling can be hurtful, you shouldn't necessarily assume that it is inherently ill-intended. At its very heart, stonewalling is often a behavior born out of fear, anxiety, and frustration. Some reasons a person may resort to stonewalling include:. Stonewalling is oftentimes a tactic learned during childhood. It may have been a behavior their parents used to "keep the peace" or to gain dominance in the family hierarchy.
Even if the stonewalling appears intentional and aggressive, remember that it's often used by people who feel powerless or have low self-worth. Within this context, stonewalling may be a defensive mechanism used to compensate for these feelings.
Research suggests that men are more likely to stonewall, due in part to societal roles that place women as communicators and dictate that men are "strong and silent. There are a few different ways that stonewalling might appear in a relationship.
0コメント