Women are from Venus, men are from Mars. Women respond to communication and honesty and men respond to silence and distance.
Is this true and, if so, why?
Whether you’re starting a new relationship or have been in one for a while now, you might be having the struggle of communication vs. distance in your relationship.
In this situation, you are the one who wants to resolve every issue with words, while your man is trying to avoid problems. The more you push him, the more he distances himself.
Have you ever thought of not talking? There’s a relationship rule out there that can work wonders if used correctly.
It can be applied to struggling couples or to relationships that have just ended where one partner wants the other back.
This marvel is called no contact rule .
What is the no contact rule anyhow?
Depending on your situation, this rule can be applied in different ways.
If you’ve just broken up, you’ll want to apply the good old classic no contact rule where you don’t contact your ex AT ALL for a month or even longer.
You simply don’t send him text messages , call him on the phone, or respond to his social media posts. And when he contacts you, you don’t answer.
If you haven’t broken up but want some issues resolved, you might want to apply the less intense version where you simply don’t contact him first but wait for him to make a true effort before you start responding to his messages.
How does it work and what is he thinking during no contact period? Let’s find out.
7 Ways Your Silence Breaks Him
It makes him think he could lose you
Before you decided to give him a taste of the silent treatment , he maybe never even thought of losing you. It’s very possible that he took you for granted.
You were completely committed to him and keen to solve all your issues, pushing conversation as your ultimate tool.
This sometimes even made him feel smothered and as if you were trying way more than he was, which made him believe that you cared more than he did.
Once you begin saving your words and showing him that the version of you that’s always passionate about communicating your problems is not something to feel bothered by, but something to hope for, he’ll start realizing he made a mistake.
Not talking to him will make him think that there’s a chance of losing you – something he never even thought about before.
He starts thinking over what happened in the past
He will start examining everything that happened in your relationship. It suddenly won’t be too much effort for him to analyze the situations that were the cause of the problem for you two.
He’ll be thinking about what kind of person he was and you were in your relationship.
For the first time , he’ll start overthinking and burdening himself with actually trying to figure out what happened and what mistakes he made.
He’ll make conclusions about what he could’ve done differently, and how the course of your relationship would’ve changed if he was smart enough to do the right thing.
At this point, he’ll realize that he should’ve appreciated your words and passion for solving issues immediately more, because your silence and distance bugs him.
It challenges his routine
Before you decided to implement the silent treatment or the no contact rule , he had a certain pattern of responding to the issues in your relationship.
I’m not going to get into what those patterns were, but you are probably well accustomed to them by now.
This time, when your reaction is completely different, he won’t know what to do. Suddenly, nothing he used to do before will make sense and he’ll be left speechless.
He’ll struggle to find new ways to respond to this new regime you’ve decided to implement.
P.S. If there’s absolutely no response on his side, he’s either completely uninterested in you or doesn’t even realize there’s something wrong.
If either of these is the case, there’s a good chance he’s the wrong person for you.
He gets time to miss you
Does silence make a man miss you , you’re wondering? It absolutely does.
This is one of the main reasons men respond to silence and distance.
If you were around all the time, he never really had a chance to miss you. No matter how much someone loves you, sometimes some time apart is necessary to rekindle the passion in the relationship.
Think of all the ways you made him feel taken care of and secure… way too secure. Now that you’re not right by his side ready to be as involved in his life as he allows you to be, he misses you.
He’ll be thinking about all the things you did together and every benefit that your presence brought into his life.
He maybe won’t feel like this for the first couple of days, but as time passes, he’ll realize he needs you, and that’s why it’s important to go through the distance and silent treatment long enough.
It confuses him
He’ll be wondering what got into you. Wait a minute, weren’t you the type of girl who always talked so much, calling and texting him all the time?
Where did all the ” I love you ” messages go? Where did all the “Good morning” calls disappear to?
He’ll be completely confused with the new ways things are working.
A lot of times he’ll start contacting you, but even then it’s important to remain cold. If you rush to answer his first call, you’re just showing him that’s all it takes to get you back.
Long story short, he’ll be intrigued and shaken, and you should leave him feeling like that.
The less he knows, the more he wonders
After a couple of weeks , he won’t know what you’re up to, where you are and with whom, and that will drive him insane.
He probably used to know everything about your whereabouts and plans, and now he’s left completely in the dark.
He’ll constantly wonder what you’re doing, if you’ve made any major changes in your life, and what’s happening with you.
Are you sad? Are you lonely? Are you actually super happy without him? He’ll start secretly plotting ways to “accidentally” run into you just so he can satisfy his curiosity.
He gets angry and emotional
There’s a very good chance he’ll try to contact you, and once you ignore his texts or calls he’ll get super upset. And no wonder – his ego is hurt and he’ll go looking for ways to prove that he can have you.
While this is not the emotion every girl dreams of when she wants to win a guy over, it works.
In romantic relationships , especially early and immature ones, there’s often a power struggle. This time, you’re proving yourself more powerful and that drives him crazy.
Also, it shows him that there is a side of you that he could appreciate, a girl who cares about herself more than anyone else and won’t let a man play with her heart.
These are the seven ways you’ll know your silent treatment is working on him, but… if you don’t hear from him, how will you know what he’s going through?
Don’t worry, there are ways to know your plan is working by what happens to you during that period.
4 Things That Will Happen To You
You’ll discover the benefits of independence
If you do this correctly, you’ll have all this newfound time and energy for yourself. You’ll be surprised how many things you can get done (and enjoy) if you pay less attention to him.
You’ll rediscover who you were in the first place , before even meeting him, and this will be so refreshing to you.
You’ll learn to let go of negativity
After so much overthinking, overanalyzing, trying to solve your issues, you’ll finally be carefree.
When you choose the silent treatment as your way of dealing with things, you’ll suddenly feel like you can easily let go of negativity and welcome positivity into your life.
You’ll feel stronger, smarter, better… Everything that was driving you insane for weeks/months/years will now be a part of your past and the only thing on your agenda will be to take care of yourself.
It will become easier to forgive and forget
Once you distance yourself from a stressful situation, it’s so much easier for you to think more clearly.
You’ll feel that everything that happened between you and your partner somehow makes sense and that realization will make you feel relieved.
You’ll start focusing on yourself
You’ll need to get him out of your head and start doing things that make you happy.
Maybe you’ll go back to an old hobby, start reading or exercising again, go out more with your girlfriends – whatever it is, it will make you feel like you’re finally you .
No more thinking about what your man feels or thinks, only about what to do next to make yourself happy and excited. Definitely focus on yourself ; that’s your way to success.
No matter how hard you think you’re trying, there’s always a chance that what you’re doing won’t work.
There are some common mistakes most girls make, and making even one of them seriously decreases your chances of success.
5 Mistakes You Want To Avoid During No-Contact
Expecting to see results immediately
You might be too impatient to see the results and hope to see them the very same day you start the silent treatment . That’s impossible.
Think of it as a diet, just because you ate super healthy and exercised for a couple of days, it doesn’t mean your body will immediately change. It takes time.
In the same way, it’ll take him time to go through all the phases of dealing with what you’re doing, so he can realize what’s happening and react.
If you get too excited about seeing results too soon, you’ll end up making mistake number two as well.
Getting really desperate
If you don’t see results you’re hoping for soon enough, you might get desperate thinking that the method doesn’t work and go back to your old bad habits.
Again, it’s just like a diet.
If you don’t see you’re losing weight, you either go back to eating unhealthy foods and no exercise, or you drown yourself in doubt and negativity, thinking you’ll never lose weight, which slows down your progress.
In relationships, this translates to you either going back to calling and texting him, or commenting on his posts on social media or you starting to think that you are unlovable and will never find the right man for you.
Despair gets you nowhere. Remember to stay positive.
Constantly thinking about him
This definitely won’t work if you only cut out the communication part. For this whole period of time, you have to try to stop thinking about him altogether.
If you’re obsessing over where he is and what’s he doing, there’s no chance you’ll get through this. The whole process will feel like wicked emotional abuse and way too forced to be successful.
Focus on yourself, your own needs, and filling time with beneficial activities.
Trying to make him jealous
Actively thinking of ways to hurt him and make him jealous won’t work. That’s something that should be left for immature kids who don’t know how to behave in relationships.
He’ll probably easily see through your act and the whole plan will backfire.
Rehashing past events
It isn’t your job to be thinking all over again about what happened – that you should leave to him.
If you start overthinking about your past issues, you may come to the wrong conclusions because you miss him and want him back.
This is your way to failure, and you know it.
Even if you do everything perfectly, there are always exceptions to the rule. Some men, depending on the circumstances, simply won’t respond to this kind of treatment.
3 Kinds Of Men Who Won’t Respond To The Silent Treatment
A man who’s been hurt
If you’re the one who broke his heart and hurt his feelings, you can’t expect the silent treatment to work.
If you want to make things work with him, you have to show patience, because not contacting him will only prove that you’re not good for him, which isn’t your goal.
An insecure man
Because of his insecurities, he’ll be thinking he doesn’t deserve you. He’ll be afraid of rejection and won’t contact you so he doesn’t have to face the feeling.
He’ll take your silence as proof that he should stop hoping to be with you, even if he’s the one who made mistakes that led you to use this method.
A man who’s really, really stubborn
He won’t contact you because he’s way too proud. And even if he does, he’ll act like the above-mentioned kind of guy who only contacts you to make a point that he can have you.
For him, everything is a fight for power and he will punish you for being cold to him by even colder to you.
Silent Treatment In Marriage
Marriage is something that needs constant work on both sides. The no contact rule obviously can’t apply here, the same way it’s very hard to apply to long-distance relationships .
If you’re having marital issues, the following advice is what I believe is best for you:
You can’t stop communicating with your partner completely so the “don’ t talk to him” segment of the rule doesn’t apply to you.
What you should try is to stop negative comments, nagging, asking him to do stuff for you, lecturing, yelling… and everything similar to that. You’d be surprised how beneficial this can be for your marriage.
If you’re having problems that are truly worrying and big, I strongly advise contacting a marriage counselor and asking for their professional advice.
To wrap up…
In my point of view , there’s no way that one method can work for everyone. Think thoroughly about your situation and decide on what to do.
While men respond to silence and distance, it’s important to find a way to use that which will be effective for you personally.
Bottom line is, your goal is to resolve issues, not to hurt yourself or him. Always keep that in mind.
