The dictionary defines “stonewall” as “to refuse to comply or cooperate.” Does your marriage relationship involve stonewalling? Stonewalling is one of the big four deal breakers or marriage-enders.
Liz and Barry went on a one-week trip to Las Vegas. Their much-needed vacation had been in the works for some time. Both got caught up in the carnival atmosphere for a few days, but then Barry went quiet…
Barry’s body language and facial expression shouted unhappiness, but he would not say anything. He became emotionally distant from Liz. When Liz tried to talk with him, he withdrew even more. A couple of times when she was initiating a conversation, he just turned his back and walked out of their hotel room. Barry was stonewalling.
The only possible way of salvaging their vacation together would have been clearing the air through discussion. Liz wanted to hear what was bothering Barry, so they could continue their holiday. He refused to cooperate. Both were wishing they had never gone on vacation. Their holiday was ruined.
The fundamental problem with stonewalling is that it takes the “relate” out of “relationship.” While one party is stonewalling, there is no relationship—thus causing marriage problems.
A tendency to stonewall can arise from something as simple as parental modeling—that’s the way dad was. Sometimes it is a means of control. Sometimes people resort to stonewalling out of a fear of conflict; they must keep the peace at all costs.
Stonewalling can arise from the rather dictatorial belief that “I am right; there’s nothing to discuss.” It is a tool of the bully, the international terrorist or…the marital terrorist.
If it is the more-verbal partner who ‘knows she is right,’ her attempts at discussion are thinly veiled attempts to convince her partner of something. He withdraws emotionally and refuses to talk, because he believes she will go on and on until he concedes. In this case, both parties are stonewalling. He is stonewalling because it helps him maintain a sense of self while being bullied; she is stonewalling because she believes hers is the only right way and it is her right and duty to bring him around to the truth.
Let me be clear about something. Stonewalling through emotional withdrawal or verbal bullying is not the exclusive domain of either men or women. Both are vulnerable to slipping into the mode of refusing to relate. We have all been there at some time or other.
The important thing is to recognize stonewalling puts your marriage at risk. So break out of it as soon as you become aware of it.
For you stonewallers who withdraw, take some assertiveness training. Put the fight back into your marriage. What have you got to lose? You are killing your marriage anyway.
For you husbands and wives stuck in terminal rightness, get real. Recognize that you can never have a marriage until you deal with this. Yes, you could perhaps bully and bribe your spouse into staying for a few more years, but a master/slave relationship is not a marriage.
Finally, if you are stonewalling to make the marriage so intolerable your spouse will leave, get some backbone and be honest about what you want. Do the right thing.
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I just finished reading the article, Is Stonewalling Causing Problems in Your Marriage?… Unfortunately, this describes our marriage. I am the one who has to endure the ‘silent treatment’.
I do not know how to deal with these situations, and am looking for some advice and guidance.
I do not like these situations at all!
thanks, John
John,
Stonewalling can mean a lot of things, but one piece of it is usually a lack of respect for the other person…as a person. You could work on (re)gaining respect as a person. If you succeed, great! If not, you might begin to ask yourself if you want to be with someone who doesn’t respect you.
Save this one, read it a few times. Thought it might be of interest.
What if everytime you speak your opinion, or give ideas/options you are told you are stupid, and it is “his way or the highway”. And when you are told these things it is aggressively even if you haven’t stated your opinion aggressively. I feel like I am at the point where “he” doesn’t deserve my opinion. If I say anything in a conversation, I am put down. So when he says he wants my opinion, he just wants to put me down and dominate with his own opinion. I am not a fighter. So I just stay quiet. I would have to say I’m hesitant and sometimes paralyzed to give an opinion … too many rejections.
Helping your marriage has two parts, It is the willingness to repair damages and the thing they called IT IS OVER.Save your marriage and bring your love back.
This topic is very near and dear to me. My husband did this to me habitually, in a pattern. No matter how I would tell him how detrimental this was to our marriage and how it was affecting me adversely, he continued to do it. It could last for days or weeks on end and either w/ slight provocation or just whenever he didn’t feel like engaging me at all. It was maddening. People get tired of being ignored out of plain spite from their partner. I had the last and final conversation w/ him about how it needed to stop, that we needed counselling–he refused. The last time he did it, it lasted almost 2 words w/ barely a word spoken to me. I packed up my things and left. We divorced.
When done in a pattern, it is EMOTIONAL ABUSE. When you deny your partner the basic human decency of even speaking to them and do it “just because” you are destroying your marriage.
Yuri, well said!
And what about the husband who is normally engaging and listening, ready to be involved, who then starts drinking and then becomes highly defensive over the tinest of perceived slights? Two beers (on the way to a six pack plus) and I have a different husband every night. It’s exhausting trying to figure out who is in front of me at any moment. Stonewalling can mean survival.
Yes, MotherofOne, stonewalling can mean survival, but only as a temporary expedient while you figure out what you are going to do with your life. Don’t become the stone wall if you don’t want your child to grow up learning to do the same thing.
Hi, I am going through this phase from past 3 years. We do not fight nor we argue, but I do not live my life anymore. I have 2 kids and looking for a job. I have no problems with my husband attitude, but things are settled in my head to such an extent that nothing seems to move me now.
Sangeeta, it sounds like you are in state of emotional numbness. If that’s the case, it no place to live, and you can stay there only so long before something breaks. Get some professional help with coming to terms with what’s going on, and rejoin life.
Hey Neil,
I just got married a few months back and having a lotta problems.
My wife is undereducated compared to me. at first I thought that it is due to lesser education she behaves in this way.
On the first night of our marriage I told her i never cry and she outburtedly told me Don;t you worry I will make you cry (literrally mockingly). She has umpteen number of tantrums. She doesn;t want to do anything on her own and wants to be told to do things. I also thought that since we have just been married she doesn;t know how to behave. But she asserted the fact that she doesn;t take any orders from nobody as if I was ordering her to do things. Now we have a servant at home and since she doesn;t want to work, I mean cokking or any household thing ( lack of education unemployability)she started to create doubts in my mind that she would stare at him look for him you know trying to create jealousy kind of situation. She tells me that I do not talk to her properly and lovingly which I find completely false and unfounded. please tell what to do with this kind of situation. I actually am stonewalling limited talking not showing any love she never did. She never shown love to me. I don;t even know If she loves me.
Please HELPPPPPPPPPPP !!!!!
Immature behavior and inadequate socialization are seldom about education.
I have been in a marriage for the last 20 years. After the first 3 years, I realized there was a serious problem. There is no communication from my husband except about work, weather and traffic.
For years I told him how I wanted more of an emotional connection. With every discussion, he says not-one-word. He sits there emotionless with a blank stare. He won’t look at me, won’t talk…just nothing. Yet, after my discussion, he will talk about work or the weather and act like nothing was discussed.
And it’s not just with me…he is like this with his children and our children.
If there is a death in the family, there will be no comfort or compassion from him. There is absolutely no acknowledgment of our emotions from him.
I also have MS and when I’m in a flare, there is no concern from him, not about my physical needs such as food, or emotional, if I’m crying out in pain. I am truly alone in this marriage.
He will not do marriage counseling and heck, I’m at the point that I want out. This is not a life, nor is how marriage is suppose to be.
I just found out that all the years I’ve tried talking to him, that he thought I was just talking to talk!!! When I pressed further, and believe me, it took a lot to get him to say anything, he said he just dismissed what I said and placated me by saying he would change. Of course it never happened, at least not a lasting change. I am dumbfound!! The lack of respect he has for me is unbelievable!! I had no idea he was thinking that!!!
I’m a very gentle person, but I also have a lot of inner strength and no one deserves to be treated as such. My marriage is no marriage at all. As soon as I can support myself and figure something out, I’m out of this sham of a marriage
Hi Dr Neill,
I love your insights. I wanted to ask your opinion about a spouse who incessantly uses “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore,” when I’m trying to communicated true feelings about something. As a husband who has no trouble being transparent, it makes me want to withhold my feelings for fear of conflict causing my wife to “put the issue off until another day” (which never happens). I don’t want our new marriage to become shallow while I become passive-aggressive and moody because my wife wants to talk “about my day” as long as we don’t have a hard conversation.