What It Feels Like To Be Stonewalled
What you should know if you’re the one who walks away.
Are you the type who walks away during a disagreement because you don’t want it to escalate? Do you abruptly get off the phone because you’re in an argument?
More importantly…do you come back?
I don’t mean a week later. I don’t mean a day later. I mean, an hour later.
If you don’t, then you might be stonewalling. And your absence escalates the disagreement to a new level.
From Goodtherapy.com:
Stonewalling can include avoiding a discussion of one’s feelings, refusing to give nonverbal communication cues, walking out in the middle of a discussion without warning or explanation, or simply refusing to discuss the issue at hand. This tactic can be distressing when the other partner does wish to discuss an area of conflict, and the lack of communication might often cause extreme anger and frustration.
For the recipient of the stonewalling, it builds resentment and anger. How do I know this? Because it was an ongoing theme in my marriage. And since my Almost Ex-Husband has gone to sleep instead of talking about things like he said we would, I’m going on Day 4 of stonewalling.
It sucks.
To keep our kids together with both parents available and spare ourselves financially, we’re trying a Parenting Marriage. In a nutshell, it’s like being separated but living under the same roof. Parenting is a “job” and your spouse becomes your coworker, no romantic aspect. Or in my case, pretty much the same as it was before as well.
I’ll spare you the details of the disagreement leading up to the stonewalling, but it was my complaint that I couldn’t change my daughter’s bedsheets because our kids have too many toys and it’s out of control. My husband told me, “if you can’t live like this, then leave.”
This isn’t the first time he has told me to leave my house. The one I contribute to, 50/50. The one where I raise my children. To repeatedly be told that I should leave because he is (deep down) still resentful over my wanting to break up is unacceptable to me. It makes me feel unwelcome in my own home which feels…scary. Like he has control over the house and I’m the visitor who has to stay in his good graces before he kicks me out.
Later, I ask him if we can talk about the argument. He says “no” and storms out. I understand needing some cooling off time. But walking out with an unknown if anything will ever get resolved makes me feel helpless. The person stonewalling maintains complete control.
The next morning, via text, he berates me because I hired a mother’s helper for the kids’ holiday time off since we had to work and I tossed out a time that was 2 hours earlier than he would have preferred. Not a big deal, I could tell her a new time going forward. That wasn’t good enough.
I went downstairs to resolve things and again, he refused to discuss it with me after he made a few more accusations. All because I told the babysitter to come at 8 am instead of 10 am. We’re trapped inside, working, thanks to Covid. An extra 2 hours of help caused zero harm, except that my lack of communicating the hours to him was a “sign of disrespect”.
Stonewalled yet again, he stormed into his office.
When someone stonewalls, they get the last word. They take what might have been an equal playing ground and simply take the soccer balls off the field while walking away.
They are the one that is deciding when the relationship will come back into connection. That’s why it is harmful for the relationship, it’s an imbalance of power. [Source]
A short while later, I approached him when he sat on the living room couch. As in, I made sure it was in a “neutral” spot and didn’t encroach on his private work area. I said that this situation is maybe something we could document in our Parenting Marriage Agreement and asked if we could work on the contract this evening. He agreed.
Sounds like the stonewalling is over, right?
Until my husband offers to let the children watch Harry Fucking Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that evening. We both know it’s over two and a half hours. We both also know that by the time the movie ends and the kids are put to sleep, he’ll insist it’s too late to talk.
Like clockwork, I text him at 11:25 pm (yes, it’s ridiculous how much we text each other when we’re trapped at home 24/7) because he hasn’t left my son’s room from putting him to bed. “I take it we won’t be working on that parenting marriage agreement tonight”, I write. He tells me it’s too late.
Again, any attempt at conversation is silenced.
It’s Day 4 of stonewalling. I don’t think it’s a “true” stonewalling because we are talking…just not about anything I wanted to discuss for the past 4 days.
He just walked up to me and said, “I know you wanted to talk tonight, but I’m just not feeling well.”
Lather, rinse, repeat. Another night of not talking about the issues I wanted to resolve four days ago.
The irony of this is that I want to put a blurb in the Parenting Marriage Agreement that stonewalling will not be acceptable and “pauses” on fights to regain composure cannot last more than 1 hour unless both people agree that it’s too late and a compromise won’t be met that evening. It seems from Dr. Google (since I have nothing else to do in the absence of a spouse who will talk to me) that roughly 30 minutes is all that’s needed for one’s heart rate to return to normal after a fight. I’m offering double the recommended amount of “time-out time”.
While I’m at it, I’m also requesting that yelling at the other person to move out is unacceptable behavior.
He won’t like either of these requests. He’ll tell me I’m being controlling and none of this is fair to him or his feelings during an argument. I hope to stay strong and insist on those two clauses. If he refuses, then we take this separation to the next step despite that he will undoubtedly view that as me not trying hard enough to make the separation-under-one-roof work.
And so I sit, yet another night, increasing my resentment over my inability to speak combined with my fear of his rage when we do. But I won’t let that fear stop me because I’m done being manipulated into silence.
