What Their Silence Is Really Saying and Why You Must Stop Translating it

One of the widespread experiences that has been the catalyst for many a therapeutic journey is that of silent rejection. Rejection that comes in the form of words and directness stings badly as well, but nothing leaves quite the same nasty echo in our souls as a rejection that comes in the form of a quiet withdrawal. Someone who turns their back on you without explanation and without any form of regard for the state it leaves you in.

For many clients I have treated over the years, facing someone’s silent withdrawal often comes to represent a ‘fork in the road’ moment. One path leads down the hole of rumination, self-doubt and emotional free-fall. The other path is reserved for those who heed the sign of silence, learn to focus more on themselves and regain their control and power without internalising the rejection.

If you are someone who has flogged that horse and wondered why it is still not coming to life, this reading is for you. You are gifted with a big heart, a lot of love to give and the patience of an angel. But the failure to heed the lesson that someone’s abrupt rejection can provide you with is going to waste your precious energy to no avail. Let this be the moment when you turn to yourself and promise to stop letting other people’s rejection dim your light.

Things I never heard in therapy

As a Psychologist, I have the privilege of helping all kinds of people with a wide range of backgrounds and attachment styles.

As such, I get to hear the reasoning about situations from many different perspectives. For this article, I wanted to drop some insights into what I have never to date heard from anybody who is dating a person who keeps pursuing them despite their own minimal or absent input….

‘They have really earned my love now. Never mind, I have ignored them for months, I am totally ready to meet them where they are now! ‘

‘I really respect the work they put in here. Chasing me when I am not responding at all is an admirable act! They clearly hold the greatest respect for themselves. Thanks to their convincing, I can now see their worth. I definitely need to start reciprocating’

This might sound like mockery, but as with all my writing, I tell the truth for good reasons. So that you can stop hoping, pining and tell yourself lies while you keep wasting your time on a person who is already speaking loudly in the language they know; the language of no words at all.

Silence is not ambiguity- it is clarity in disguise

In adult relationships, someone else’s silence or withdrawal is a statement- not an accidental act. Some people withdraw when they feel overwhelmed. Others stop talking when they lose interest and don’t regard the other person anymore. For those who fear confrontations, communicating bad news might be difficult, and it seems easier to just demonstrate with actions that they no longer care.

Most of you readers who were drawn in by the heading of this piece might suspect that your partner/date went quiet as a result of overwhelm and intimacy overload. And while this can be true, you really have to ask yourself: Does it really matter what reasons they had? If this is their choice of action, rest assured it would not be your final encounter with this hurtful behaviour.

Silence speaks louder than words

If silence is what you are getting, you are receiving communication. The problem is that it is not the type of communication you would use yourself, and perhaps also not in a language you are familiar with.

For those who are used to doing all the talking, silence can seem deafening. It can seem like a code that needs deciphering or a prompt to talk some more or to lean into interpretations. In reality, it is just as much a language as your words.

If someone is giving you silence, please note that they are choosing to communicate in this way. Yes, their withdrawal may well be a well-rehearsed autopiloted response. But even so, a fully grown adult does have the power and the ability to string a sentence together and let you know that they need to leave or that they are struggling to find the words to explain things. Yet they are choosing not to do so. This is an extremely important data point that should not be ignored.

Their silence towards you is loud and clear. They are choosing to let you go and are not worried about the consequences. This is where you need to make an active choice. Either you allow this pattern into your life and say ‘yes’ to the pain and suffering it will bring you. Or you make a different choice. The choice to honour yourself, your dignity and find the beauty of your own company.

Why people are so different in their response to rejection and overwhelm: The origin of attachment wounds

For those of you familiar with attachment psychology, you might have heard about the experiments with Mary Ainsworth called ‘Strange situations’.

The experimental design (which is still in use to this day!) featured 12–18-month-old toddlers and their primary caregiver. The toddler would be observed during a series of brief separations and reunions while a stranger is present. Based on the observations, the attachment style of the child would be revealed.

For those toddlers who go on to be labelled ‘anxious-ambivalent’ (the adult version often referred to as ‘anxious-preoccupied’), their early experiences with their caregiver usually involve some degree of unpredictability. Since they have already learnt that they cannot predict when and if their needs will get met, they have already developed anxiety and hypervigilance around relationships. As a survival response, they have often learnt to try extra hard to get attention by being amenable to the needs of the parent, or by simply making stronger bids for attention.

Their behaviour patterns in the experimental conditions would often involve clinging to the caregiver, intense protest when the caregiver would leave again, followed by attempts to regain the caregiver’s attention following separation. Not too dissimilar behaviours to what you see in adult anxious-preoccupied clients who are facing rejection.

The avoidantly attached toddlers who have often been at the suffering end of consistent rejection and emotional unavailability would already have learnt that fighting for attention would be futile, hence it makes more sense to retreat to the ‘safety’ of not even trying. The avoidantly attached little toddlers are in no way exempt from emotional needs. But rather than feeling the pain of rejection on an ongoing basis, such needs simply get suppressed. So they focus intensely on the toys in the room or pretty much pretend they don’t notice the caregiver’s departure on their return to the room.

When checked for physiological symptoms, the toddlers still displayed high levels of distress. Avoidantly attached adults who have not been able to heal their wounds will frequently display similar behaviours when they are overwhelmed. They will keep themselves busy on practical matters, often at the expense of emotional attunement, even within themselves.

The securely attached children who have benefited from safety, stability, and steady consistency in care and love, there would be an already established trust that their caregiver would return, and they are therefore more ‘chill’ and could even happily relate to the stranger in the room without too much anxiety. Trust in the return of the caregiver has already been established, and hence the parent can act as a ‘secure base’ for the toddler despite not being in the vicinity at all times.

What does the attachment theory literature tell us?

1. Humans are wired to want to be seen, understood, loved and attended to. Behavioural adaptations take place early on in life, depending on the relationships with parents or primary caregivers.
2. The relationship patterns are fairly consistent throughout our lives, although with intent, they can be healed and changed.
3. Depending on the attachment style, we will have different responses to rejection and being ignored. Unless addressed, these styles are learnt very early in life and are often difficult to shift, but with the right type of experiential learning and healing, they can be reshaped.

What is someone’s silence really telling you?

Being ignored cuts really deep, but what hurts us even more than other people’s rejection is the humiliating, shameful and self-inflicted feelings you end up manufacturing by persisting in chasing those who have shown you the door.

If someone is giving you silence, there is really only one way of interpreting it. They are choosing not to acknowledge you. No matter how deep the pattern runs for them, it is important to acknowledge that you do not control (nor have you been asked to control) their attachment style, behavioural response or how they feel about you.

Hard as this is to accept, you will be better off for accepting this at face value rather than trying to gap-fill and generate excuses for why they may have retreated.

Here is what you need to understand: someone who truly loves you and values you is not going to want to risk losing you while they spend their time watching your messages remain unread. Whatever your background taught you- ignoring someone is not an act of love.

By reading into someone’s silence and filling the gap with rationalisations, you are simply enabling a behaviour that will be highly likely to persist or get even worse. Meanwhile, you will be losing your energy, time and worth to someone who was never invested to start with. This is a hopelessly bad transaction.

Obsessively hoping or reading into silence is a sign of your own dysfunction

Less healthy dynamics often feature plenty of obsessional thinking and a felt need to run simulations in the mind of what ‘could be’ or what ‘might become’. Despite great big fantasies, there tends to be very little real-life evidence that the hopes will ever materialise. Indeed, there are typically very few data points that support the idea that things are functional and reciprocal in nature.

Any small signs that the relationship is headed in a good direction are often blown out of proportion, as it can be tough not to get excited about someone who finally shows an interest, even if the overall pattern is that they don’t. This is, however, the very essence of trying to sustain yourself on a breadcrumb diet and still wondering why you are still feeling hungry.

Note that a state of emotional undernourishment will not suddenly end because you get another batch of crumbs delivered! It is the very fact that you have accepted this diet to begin with that is the main problem.

What to do instead

If someone is giving you silence, is starting to withdraw, or you are left in a position where you are playing detective to figure out where you stand with someone, here are some dignified steps you can take immediately:

# Heed the silence

Stop interpreting, gap-filling and trying to provide explanations for someone who has stopped conversing. Respect that as adults, this is a choice that is being made with at least a degree of consciousness, and you must not think you are wiser or more insightful about another person’s decisions than they are themselves. If they chose to let you go quietly, that is a shame, but it is not your problem. It will be theirs so long as you spend your time looking after yourself and stepping into your own power.

# Learn to befriend your own silence

If you review your own experience, you would have noticed that silence can be very loud. In fact, louder than any words. For those who are known to generate excuses for those who stop communicating, silence can be one of the most difficult but powerful pathways to self-mastery. When you are silent, you will hear the calling of your own soul loud and clear. It will tell you in no uncertain terms when you are acting in ways that are misaligned with your personal power and values. Listen to that!

To think that you were brought into this world to chase other people for attention or to create sales pitches about your worth to a rejecting partner is… ludicrous. Your worth is there waiting for you to discover it. This is something that can happen when you turn inwards and silence the noise from the outside world. Silence should not be used as a weapon to take revenge on other people or to create reactions in those who have previously ignored you. Learning to take your control back is however a silent venture. It does not require anybody else’s validation, recognition or permission. You only need your own.

# Choose yourself

A powerful shift can be felt when you make a deliberate choice to choose yourself instead of chasing after those who have not wanted to freely offer you their company. When you choose to stay silent, you will gradually start experiencing a power shift. From having thought that you needed the world to cheer you on, you now realise that you are complete in your own right. You realise that you don’t need them or anybody else to validate you or acknowledge your existence since you are now doing that for yourself. When you start listening to yourself, you will stop overinterpreting other people’s silence since you now understand that it says something about them and not you.

So with that, find your safe space within and grow from there. Be patient and kind with yourself while you do the work required- and stop asking for other people to validate your journey.

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