{"id":25316,"date":"2025-04-04T09:03:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T09:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25316"},"modified":"2025-04-04T09:40:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T09:40:42","slug":"the-silent-treatment-is-quietly-ruining-your-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25316","title":{"rendered":"The Silent Treatment Is Quietly Ruining Your Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Many of us have done it, but that doesn\u2019t make it right, experts say.<\/p>\n

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One night last week, my husband, Tom, and I got into an argument. The next morning, I was still fuming. So I gave him the silent treatment.<\/p>\n

For the uninitiated, the silent treatment is when a person intentionally refuses to communicate with you \u2014 or in some cases, even acknowledge you. It\u2019s a common maneuver that\u2019s used in all sorts of relationships, said Kipling Williams, emeritus professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University who has studied the effects of the silent treatment for over 30 years.<\/p>\n

The tactic I was using on Tom is one that researchers from the University of Sydney call \u201cnoisy silence<\/a>.\u201d That is when a person tries, in an obvious way, to show the target that he or she is being ignored \u2014 such as theatrically leaving the room when the other person enters.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m ashamed to say that this was me. When I wordlessly left for work, I glared at Tom and then dramatically slammed the door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Using the silent treatment is tempting because it can feel good, temporarily, to make the other person squirm, said Erin Engle, a psychologist with NewYork-Presbyterian\/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. But, she added, it can have long-term consequences in your relationship.<\/p>\n

I asked experts what to do it if you\u2019re getting the silent treatment \u2014 or if you\u2019re feeling the urge to give it to someone else.<\/p>\n

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Many of us have done it, but that doesn\u2019t make it right, experts say.One night last week, my husband, Tom, and I got into an argument. The next morning, I was still fuming. So I gave him the silent treatment.For the uninitiated, the silent treatment is when a person intentionally refuses to communicate with you \u2014 or in some cases, even acknowledge you. It\u2019s a common maneuver that\u2019s used in all sorts of relationships, said Kipling Williams, emeritus professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University who has studied the effects of the silent treatment for over 30 years.The tactic I was using on Tom is one that researchers from the University of Sydney call \u201cnoisy silence.\u201d That is when a person tries, in an obvious way, to show the target that he or she is being ignored \u2014 such as theatrically leaving the room when the other person enters.I\u2019m ashamed to say that this was me. When I wordlessly left for work, I glared at Tom and then dramatically slammed the door.Using the silent treatment is tempting because it can feel good, temporarily, to make the other person squirm, said Erin Engle, a psychologist with NewYork-Presbyterian\/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. But, she added, it can have long-term consequences in your relationship.I asked experts what to do it if you\u2019re getting the silent treatment \u2014 or if you\u2019re feeling the urge to give it to someone else.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25318,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25319,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25316\/revisions\/25319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}