Lots of people come to me because they're arguing too much, but more come because they've stopped. They describe evenings in different rooms, chats about the shopping and the school run and nothing else, and a politeness that feels like ‘weird’. This isn't only about couples. It happens between friends, and it happens between teenagers and their parents. A teenager says "nothing" when asked what's wrong. A parent stops asking; everyone is being careful, yet nothing gets solved, and the distance between you increases. Going quiet can seem the sensible option. If bringing something up always ends in a row, why bother? But the things you don't say don't go away. Each of you starts guessing what the other is thinking, and the guesses are usually worse than the truth. I see this as movies playing in your head.
Researchers have studied one version of this in couples, called demand and withdraw. One person pushes to talk about something, and the other goes quiet, changes the subject or leaves the room. A 2014 review led by Paul Schrodt at Texas Christian University, covering 74 studies and more than 14,000 people, found that this pattern was linked with less satisfaction, less closeness and poorer communication. The same cycle is easy to spot at home with teenagers. Both people are usually trying to protect something. The one pushing wants to stay close and would rather have a hard conversation than feel shut out. The one pulling back is trying to stop a fight they think will make things worse. Then it feeds itself: the more one pushes, the more the other backs off, and the more they back off, the more the first one pushes.
Whichever of you you think you are, I'd ask you to look at the pattern rather than who started it. Almost everyone I see has a pattern like this somewhere in their life. Silence tells you less than an argument does. A row, if it isn't too bad, shows you what matters to the other person; silence leaves you to assume or guess, and we often guess wrong. Going quiet to calm down can look like not caring; asking again and again can look like criticism when the person is just worried. I don’t know about you, but for me it feels like a catch 22.
Taking a break isn't the problem; leaving a heated conversation for twenty minutes can stop you saying something you'll regret. What matters is whether you come back to it. In sessions, whether we work one-on-one or with both of you, I'm less interested in who's to blame and more in what you feel at each point in the pattern, what you notice in yourself, and what you learned about arguments growing up. I use a method called Internal Family Systems, which looks at the different parts of you, such as the part that wants to talk and the part that wants to hide. Then we get practical. We might go back over a recent disagreement slowly so you can see what was going on underneath; we might work out how to say "I need a break" without it feeling like walking out and how to come back afterwards.
I can't promise how things will turn out. Some people find their way back to each other, and some decide to part, more kindly than they would have otherwise. If the quiet at home has begun to feel worse than the arguments did, you can book a free consultation here. I see individuals aged 12 and over, and couples, in person and online. If you're the parent of a 12- to 15-year-old, you're welcome to get in touch first to ask how it works.
Sources: ScienceDaily summary of Schrodt et al. (2014), Communication Monographs, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804122903.htm
