When is Silence Stonewalling?
I wasn’t always like this.
I used to be able to throw down with the best of them. My family didn’t argue a lot, but when we did, there were some raised voices. My early relationships also didn’t have a ton of fighting, but when they did they featured passionate verbal throw-downs, hysterical tears, dramatic storming-outs (with the expectation, of course, that I or they would be followed). It went on this way through most of my twenties.
Two things happened that fundamentally changed the way I fight. One good, one bad, but with similar behavioral mechanisms.
- I became extremely interested in stoic philosophy (obviously, see pen name).
2. I was in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship.
Stoicism helped me realize that the only things I can expect to control at any given time are my own actions and my own thoughts (the former comes easier than the latter, which is why stoicism is a constant practice). From this, I learned to take a breath before responding in anger. I learned to take pride in my comportment and value my own judgment over others’. So what if a partner behaved poorly?! That was their problem to worry about. My concern was making sure that, as much as possible, I would be pleased with my behavior at all times.
A few years ago I was in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship. The kind where you constantly have to walk on eggshells because you have no idea what a trigger might be. He’d rage and rant and demand space, and then accuse me of ignoring him when I went to write in the spare bedroom, for all intents and purposes hiding from his temper. So the safest recourse I had was . . . silence.
Silence meant I couldn’t say the wrong thing and trigger his anger. Silence kept me safe.
Silence also meant that I could take what I thought was the moral high ground. He couldn’t accuse me of saying anything mean or cruel or unhelpful, because I wasn’t saying anything.
But this particular article isn’t an exploration of that relationship. This is about how I figured out a balance between healthy and unhealthy silence.
My fiancé is without a doubt the best person with whom I’ve ever been. I mean, duh, I’m marrying him. And I’m proud of what we’ve built. We don’t hate each other after months of quarantine, for one thing, which I think is the new relationship litmus test.
But our relationship has taken plenty of hard work. Possibly the biggest issue has been our wildly different styles of argument.
Fiancé, you see, is a bit of a drama queen. I recently got to see his mother in action when we suggested we might move, and let me tell you — I now understand where he learned this behavior. And he told me that was a pretty chill version of what might have happened in his youth.
About six months into our relationship we had our first real fight. We’d had, I think, one before that, about religion. But this fight felt truly epic, and also was the one that made me realize that the problem wasn’t the silly thing we were fighting about — the problem was how we were fighting. And I could look back and apply that problem to that first argument, as well.
In true stoic style, I realized that any fundamental mismatches in belief would probably remain so: people rarely change core beliefs. And if that was the case for us, we would be doomed no matter what. But if we were going to go down, either way, I was determined that we would do so in an as thoughtful and mutually respectful manner as possible. Which for me, includes not saying anything in anger or personally offensive.
It is important to note because of this determination, I didn’t see a problem with my behavior at all. Fiancé would start to get heated and emotional, and I would remain perfectly still. He would say something hurtful, and I would absorb it like a sad sponge rotting away on the corner of the bed. Finally, when emotions were at their highest (mine locked away in a deep vault, his spewed all over the room), we’d find a way to resolve the problem, hug, and make up. Afterwards, I could go on my merry way with a few boxes happily ticked — did I lose my cool? Nope! Did I say anything hurtful or cruel that I might regret later? Nope! Does he have any reason to be angry with me moving forward? Nope! I did it: I was irreproachable!
And on top of that, I would graciously forgive Fiancé anything he’d said in the heat of the moment. How kind of me.
The issue here is that I was playing a game with myself, a game in which the only thing that mattered was my own behavior and being beyond reproach on a personal level. What I completely failed to see was that this was not in service of our relationship. AT ALL. In fact, my behavior was making it impossible for us to actually have a relationship.
Relationships are messy. Vulnerability is the most volatile substance in the universe — you never know how someone will react to it.
After months of hard work on this issue, I came to understand what was actually happening when we fought. Fiancé would start to get heated and emotional, and I would shut down. He would see my walls go up, and desperately try to get through them. As in a medieval siege, if you can’t just scale the castle walls, it’s usually time to bring out the battering ram. Because the most important thing is to break down the walls. Not so good if you’re a castle. But super important if you are trying to have an honest, deep, and vulnerable relationship with another person. His methods weren’t the right ones for this particular castle, but the core intention was intimacy.
My problem was that I was being silent because of Experience 2, the abusive relationship. But because the outcomes were similar, I deluded myself into thinking I was being silent because of Experience 1, a practitioner of stoic principles. And if the goal was winning the argument, great. But I didn’t want to win the argument. I wanted a robust, healthy relationship with this incredibly handsome and kind man. And it’s not that he didn’t have to work on his dramatic tendencies. He did, and he does, but that is his experience to share if and when he feels comfortable doing so.
Silence becomes stonewalling when your intention is anything but reconciliation and the health of your relationship.
This requires absolutely ruthless self-honesty. I say ruthless, not the trendier term “radical,” because it is brutal. If I have one personal value, it’s that. I don’t believe in “to thine own self be true.” I believe in “to thine own self be honest.” More on that another time.
At the end of the day, you’re going to be the only one who knows what your motivations are. Someone can know you as intimately as a twin or parent or your best friend since first grade, but we all surprise others at some point. It’s what makes life beautiful, interesting, devastating. So that’s it: you’re your own judge here.
The question to ask yourself is: is my behavior geared to encourage the healthy growth of a relationship? Or to win?
