The silence was never meant to be quiet. It was meant to be loud inside your head.
This is where it splits.
Some will switch back to the version of themselves you fell for. Suddenly they’re sweet. “I’ve been thinking about us.” They talk about plans for the future. The warmth you spent months starving for is handed back on a plate. This is called hoovering, and it’s designed to feel like the ending you always wanted.
Others go the opposite way. If they can’t pull you in, they’ll try to provoke you into reacting. They make accusations and tell stories to mutual friends. “You’ve changed.” “You’re so cold now.” Notice the irony: the person who went silent for eight days is now upset that you’re quiet.
Both roads lead to the same place. They want a reaction, any reaction. Love or anger doesn’t matter, as long as your emotions are still pointed at them.
4. And then something strange happens to you.
This is the part I wish someone had written for me.
Around the third or fourth week of not reacting, I noticed I’d gone a whole morning without checking my phone. Then a whole day. I made coffee and actually tasted it. I finished a book.
I realized the silent treatment had only ever worked because I’d been treating their silence as an emergency. The moment I stopped, it became what it always was: an adult choosing not to talk.
That’s it. That’s all it ever was.
Their power was never in the silence. It was in my panic about the silence.
5. Finally, they lose interest, or pretend to.
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