Being quiet hasn’t been very popular lately. The “democratization of news” has meant that any joe can get on the horn and spout alien abduction stories and link them to the last election. Social media has people raising their pitchforks because of some celebrity’s hair. Everyone’s making so much noise about so little. Why isn’t your silence being more appreciated?

TLDR

Quietly self-aware means you’re accessible. Quietly shutting down is a way of fighting.

In Style Since The Buddha?

Being quietly self-aware has been in fashion since that hip guy known as The Buddha in 563 BCE. When being viral probably meant you and your village were going to die. (rimshot-I’m here all week). But isn’t being measured and careful in how you respond a good thing? Isn’t understanding how you feel about things better than all this noise? Why isn’t it getting more appreciation from your spouse or partner?

Are You Being Quiet Or Shutting Down?  

Sometimes your spouse or partner may be reacting to your non-reaction. In other words, instead of seeing your quietness as being contemplative, they may be seeing it as shutting down, or you giving them the silent treatment.

What’s The Distinction?

Being quietly contemplative carries with it the term “contemplative.” You’re able to take in new information and consider it intentionally. Being shut down means that you’re not accessible. Couples have really good radar for each other, and couples can talk about feeling disconnected from one another. Couples will often tell me that this is a distressing feeling.

Another way to say this is being shut down is a way of fighting. When couples come to me, sometimes they say,”We don’t fight that often.” Then I explain to them that fighting can mean the Hollywood yelling and gesticulating, but it can also mean shutting down or just avoiding.

How Is This Fighting?

The most common pattern in couples conflicts is one where partner A says or does something that triggers partner B. In response, partner B does something back that triggers partner A. Partner A then reacts back by doing something that triggers partner B, and so on. . .

This “does something” can mean one of three categories of responses:

1. Getting big/loud/questioning/pecking/pursuing.

2. Going away/disappearing/being emotionally unavailable/ being physically unavailable.

3. Shutting down.

There’s a reason for these reactions: they are adaptations to trauma.

What Is Trauma?

There are clinical definitions, but a practical one is this: Trauma is something happening in your past that dictates your present. Not “inform,” but dictate. We can have one one of the three above reactions because they are adaptive. The human brain has short, long term memories, and it has traumatic memories. These seem to be stored in different parts of your brain. They are there so that you can react quickly to threat in the future and possibly save your life. In relationships, this is not often useful because the reactions you can give, while fast, aren’t very nuanced. Let’s think about a physical example of trauma.

The Lion, The Triggers, And The Shutdown.

Let’s give a pre-historic example of Melvin, who is walking along a trail one day, when after hearing rustling bushes, sees a hungry lion leap out of the bushes. Due to his fast reflexes, Melvin runs away to fight another day. Those rustling bushes have become a trigger so that the next time Melvin hears rustling bushes, he will run right away. This lets him get a head start on the lion.

Now anything close enough to that rustling bush signals to Melvin a possible threat to his safety and gets him to launch in to fight, flight, or freeze mode. In this scenario, being hunted by the lion is the trauma, the rustling bushes are the trigger, and the traumatic reactions are the fight, flight, or freeze reactions.

People get how lions can be threatening. What people don't understand is that threats to the relationship can also be threatening. We talk about the other person “having your back,” and when we view it in a life saving context like this, we can see how the threat to the relationship means a threat to your own survivability.

Putting It Back Into The Relationship Context

Now think of this put back into to the relationship. If Melvin experienced an incident where he felt triggered and shutdown benefitted him, you can see how this can quickly become a “go-to” strategy for him. He may have felt that shutdown come naturally, and now that shutdown is going to generate immediate safety for him. Except that his relationship suffers.

What To Do When You Keep Shutting Down

When things aren’t going well despite your best intentions, I recommend getting professional help from a therapist that’s trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples. EFT-trained therapists are trained to prioritize understanding the relationship cycles that hijack your relationship. When you try but can’t help but withdraw, it means your relationship is being hijacked. If you want to find out more about how I think about marriage counseling, read through my marriage counseling page.

If you want help changing the way you respond to your spouse or partner and you’re in Minnesota, I can help. I am physically in Edina, west of Minneapolis, but am seeing everyone by video. Contact me at 612.230.7171, or email me via my contact page.