Silent Oh Silent
The use of and imposition of silence are two of the most powerful weapons in our abusive arsenal. Silence is easy to deploy and horrendously effective in securing our aims of compliance, control and fuel.
1. My silence is always meaningful
You may sit quietly because you have no need to say anything. You may remain silent because you are listening to somebody else or just enjoying the silence. We do not allow silence to be used in such a passive and redundant fashion. Our silence is used to convey contempt. It is used to draw concern and cause anguish in you. When we fall silent that pregnant pause is an indicator of the fury which will be unleashed against you. The longer silence is the imposition of our cold fury as you are banished to a sustained silent treatment. When we sit in silence we are not savouring the lack of noise, we are thinking, planning and plotting, calculating our next step. Our silences are weapons, they are our operations headquarters, our defence against your critical wounding of us. We use silence to hurt you, warn you, scold you and indicate you have overstepped the mark. Every silence has a meaning, it would be remiss of us to use it any other way.
2. Absence makes the silence longer
The deployment of an absent silent treatment where we remove ourselves from you, invariably with no warning or indication is a confirmation to you that this silent treatment will not be short-lived. The need to absent ourselves sends you a clear signal that we will be gone for some time. It is designed to have you come after us, try to contact us and beg and plead so that you fuel us. When we impose a period of absence by vanishing we are reinforcing how easily we are able to consider you gone from our lives. You may not even be able to contact us but we gather fuel from our knowledge that this sudden disappearance will cause you considerable consternation and worry. The absent silent treatment is also a key indicator that we are engaged in the seduction of a new prospect and providing this person with our false love and attention, which we have removed from you.
3. The silent gesture
Our silences are not just occasioned by us not talking to you or absenting ourselves for a period of time. We deploy silence through gestures. We may not turn up when we have agreed to a date with you, in order to reinforce how your mean so little to us and that we have any number of more pressing engagements to attend to than dine with you in a restaurant. Leaving you alone in bed, our side of the bed now empty and cold is also a hammer blow to your confidence and self esteem as we choose the spare room, the sofa or the bed of another in preference to being with you during the night. The silent telephone call from a withheld number, used when we are hoovering you, is designed to put you on edge. Is it us calling you this late? It must be mustn’t it, but you cannot be sure? The failure to buy you a gift on your birthday, creating a gap which ought to have been filled stands out considerably and allows us to apply maximum hurt through such a silent gesture.
4. The silent presence
By giving you the cold shoulder when everyone else is met warmly and enthusiastically, we cause you to feel completely alone even when you are surrounded by others. You try to carry on as if nothing has happened but you know that people will be wondering why we are not speaking to you. You feel the flush of embarrassment as once again you try to speak to us and you receive only a glare and then we sweep away. You want to challenge us but as ever it is you that will be criticised for creating a scene. You want to upbraid us for our childish sulking but you have learned that the consequences of doing so are not worth suffering. We of course know all this and we know how powerful our freezing you out in the company of others really is.
5. Suffer in silence
You are never to speak of what goes on between you and I to anyone else. Should you ever do so you are committing an act of heinous betrayal and your punishment for such a transgression will be malicious and fierce. You are not to betray me and speak of what you are subjected to. You are to endure it so that you become a better person, one who is compliant and obedient. Do you understand? I also know that you fear the repercussions of speaking out and this enforces my curfew. I also know that you feel compelled to remain loyal because of the golden period and how you feel duty bound to remain and try to resolve matters, work this difficult period through and fix what has become somehow broken. Your indefatigable spirit teeters on the brink of misplaced pride at not telling tales and instead knuckling down, irrespective of what is thrown at you, in order to bring about a resolution to our problems. You cannot succeed but you do not know that yet. For now you must suffer in silence.
6. I speak, you stay silent
Never interrupt me, never talk over me, never steal my thunder. When I speak everybody listens because what I have to say is brilliant, great and of tremendous import. You would do well to listen to improve yourself, please me and avoid angering me. You are my sounding board, Horatio to my Hamlet, a listener and in my presence you only speak when it is required to honour my achievements and laud my greatness. You are to be seen but only heard when I deem it necessary. Who wants to listen to what you have to say anyway? You only get invited to events because of me. They are only friends with you because they are friends of mine. Nobody is interested in you. Nobody. So stay quiet and listen.
28 thoughts on “Silent Oh Silent”
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HG,
You missed something in your sentence when you stated “We must remain silent.” More so.. Every time I speak it’s “Shut the f*** up and do as your told/ eat your food/ you know where the door is/ you’re stupid.
But I’m the crazy one he says. My response? “You drove me there.” His response “short trip.”
I’m learning slowly but I am learning and when I bite back, it will be for good and hard. Nobody owns me. I’m not an appliance or a dog.
He can have his silent treatment. He can take it and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. 😊 New supplies typically hurt in romantic relationships where you want what you once had. I want nothing from that alcoholic child abuser. 👌
My Narcs silent treatment is his go to abuse. However I did not reply to his goodbye email as he expected from almost 2 weeks ago….if I had responded he would have activated his beloved silent treatment, so I took that thrill away from him. What I do want to know is…tomorrow is his birthday, and I know he is expecting I will contact him.
What can I do to make sure I burst his bubble? He never remembers mine let alone send me a card or gift ever.
I want to make sure I ruin his BD tomorrow. Do I do that by not acknowledging him or it?
Yes ignore both.
What happens if you give the narcissist the silent treatment? How does it make them feel?
Infuriated.
Are you sure? I have not responded to mine for two weeks and its not bothering him one bit. I think my Narc loves the power and control so much, he won’t give in to it.
It was his birthday yesterday and I ignored it…I know he was expecting that would be the day I would contact him.
I use the silent time to take care of me. My strategy seems to be confusing him.
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
His silent treatment is not working as well as it did in the past. I use that time to take care of myself. I think this is confusing him.
Maybe you should. In better moments the furious indignation displayed by the exposed narc is actually quite funny. It has taken me two years to work that out.
How funny is it? hehe hmmm interesting..
Well, if I do it I will be exposing myself too, I don’t want it. I have a reputation too.
Well, as I said he was my teacher. We did not have an affair..It was more like, he would put his hands in the wrong place or flirt with me.
I would feel very embarrassed to say it someone.
also, most of the times I wanted it..
But now, I don’t want it.
5 .
I never said anything or did anything that could destroy his reputation .
Dear G, but I’m sure he accused you of doing those very things. Repeatedly.
He cannot, because he was my teacher… :/
This only is effective with the unaware. None of this would work with an empath who knows what you are. You would be met with patience if she had a good day, and with ridicule if she had a bad one. And if you did not alter your behaviour, you would be deserted. The more of us get educated on this subject -ironically also with your help- the harder it will be for you to get away with this BS!
You are in a constant state of war, *when there really is not need to be*! Do you not sometimes watch others interact, and see how genuinely happy they are with each other, and wish you could be a little bit more like them, HG?!
No I do not Matilda.
Hmmm… very sad, indeed, as you are missing out, HG. But then again, how would you know if you have never felt it…
He put me through one that lasted 6 months. Only a sad event triggered me to reach out. I did and he responded within about 3 minutes. Why go through such a lengthly silent treatment only to be so quick to reply? I asked to talk to him and he said yes, in an text App where he had me blocked. He could have just talked to me on the FB IM we were on. I always wondered if that was a way for him to unblock me and save face at the same time?
Why such a long ST and he just jumped immediately to break it when I reached out, and he didn’t even wait for a bit to reply to keep me hanging?
Do your own silent treatments trap you? I asked that before, but do you have no pride for breaking your own ST to hoover? I mean if a victim stayed away for 6 months, and you wanted to reconcect (6th sphere) would you do so anyway, without needing an excuse or a disguise for doing so?
So sad. I am back in another ST/Absense/we are done for good. God, it is such a waste of life to have gotten sucked into this game.
We do as we please in order to achieve what needs to be achieved, we are expedient in all that we do.
What a sad hopeless state of affairs. I never thought that he would be a narc, yes, vain and proud and easy prone to rage, but never a narc like this.
Oh the narc does do this… I took care of his mother, who had a stroke and relied on me for everything. She died 5yrs later and that’s when he went back to his emotional games of keeping me spinning like a top. He acts all religious, but narc can’t really be religious can they HG? I think he just act the part to be seen by the community.
I am 100% positive he stays married to me because of the superiority it gives him in conversations with his audience. I’m a foreigner, so he can either play the long suffering husband or the blessed husband…
It will be an act as part of ongoing manipulation.
I can feel you Sarabella..
He didn’t create all my feelings from mirroring or his charm or fantastic sex or anything. I actually really cared for him. And how sad that all he cared about was this. I wish I could just feel finally sad about it all once and for all and be done with it. It looks like I am truly back again to counting the days into weeks into months and when I really get to that 3 months mark, never, ever look back, no matter whatever triggers me. Its alot of grief when you just want to put someone’s head in order because not only have they caused so much pain for you, you see what they do to others and their own life. And there is nothing you can do. And it reminds me of something HG said in some post somewhere, about the selfishness of the empath at some point. I guess it is selfish of me to have wanted this to be any different.
Hi Sarabella. I just found this site and I agree with you…what a wasted life I have lived trying to make this marriage of 25 yrs work. I’m so tired. The worst part is I have no way out. I’m 51 yrs old, no marketable skills and in a foreign country. I’ve known since the beginning of the year I will never have the marriage I wanted, but knowing & trying to wrap my mind around it are two different things. His whole family are narc or psycopaths, but again I didn’t know until it was too late.
Get away from him and stay away. Run far away and don’t waste your life like I did. Don’t “wake up” one day and see the vampire has destroyed you.
Hi Pain_alwayemotionlpain,
My mother is 52 years old and she decided to study again and she is doing so many nice things. You can be very happy. I am sure you are a beautiful woman.
Aka “sending you to Coventry”
When applied correctly it’s giving the other person time to reassess what just took place.