The Silent Treatment

[leonsfangirl]

Hey,

I'm having some problems with my SO and i really don't know what to do. It seems every other day we have a fight about something stupid and i have started shutting down on him. I get upset and i find myself unable to say anything and it's getting worse.
It used to happen once every few months but now it's seems like every other day. We had a HUGE argument about 2 months ago which i think has made more of an impact than we realised. Long story short, he'd been telling me consistantly that he was getting his passport sorted out (just after our first visit in September till late November)/December) then he cracked and told me it just wasn't an option given this current employment situation. He'd been telling me he would as he thought thats what i wanted to hear. I clinged so desperately to his promises and it's what got me through when i missed him more than i could bare. It broke my heart that he couldn't be honest with me and tell me he was struggling. I was always so honest with how i felt and what i needed from him was to be straight with me. Since then it's just fallen to pieces, we can be laughing and joking one minute and then something will come up (nothing at all major) and i go to pieces.
My SO is at the end of his rope, he tries so hard to get me to talk about it and i cant which hurts him alot and in turn makes me feel even worse that i can't talk to him. He's desperately trying to make this work but when i shutdown he feels like he's doing it alone and he can't do that forever. I know i'm over reacting to the situation but it's like a block i can't find a way past and i don't want to lose him over this. We want to resolve this but we just don't know how.
It's gotten to breaking point, he can't handle it anymore and i can't say i blame him. He doesn't want to leave me but at the same time he can't carry on this way. We cant carry on this way, it's not healthy for either of us.
Does anybody have any suggestions? i've tried serveral times to get counselling but it just doesnt happen.

[anlgp]

If you think the fight is over something small or stupid what I find works for us anyway, is we call the other out on it. We might have started nit-picking already, but for example about a week or more ago maybe I reiterated something she had said to me and she said "no, it's not an issue we've both just had really bad days". As we love each other it's inevitable we know which buttons to press inadvertently to get the other going. When we're as stressed as we are with our home life and everything else we've got going on, sometimes that doesn't take much. At the time, I was getting really frustrated because we were fighting over something so dumb, but I was proud of us that we called each other out on it and it squashed the fight. The night didn't end like I guess you could say a normal night ends usually for us, but we resolved it the best we could without it blowing up into a huge argument and that's something we were having a huge issue with once upon a time and something we agreed needed to change and we've been doing it.

I don't have any advice for anything else. I wish I could say I did.

[sweetshay]

I notice that you're placing a lot of blame on yourself which is very mature of you, but no arguments are a one way street. There is fault to be placed on both ends. If this is something that you really want to work out, and it seems that this issue is something that over time is slowly eating away at you, you have to be strong and communicate. Once communication goes, especially in LDR's, the relationship starts going down hill fast.

When me and my SO had issues that seemed like we could never orally work them out over the phone or whatever, we either wrote each other long emails, or just chatted on msn to make it easier to get all of our thoughts out, and then that way you have it down in writing.

I can see that you are shutting down much like I have in the past, and although it was wrong of him to lie to you and tell you only what you wanted to hear about the passport situation, he is probably very ashamed/embarrassed/upset about disappointing you again, and didn't want to see you this way.

It's gotten to breaking point, he can't handle it anymore and i can't say i blame him. He doesn't want to leave me but at the same time he can't carry on this way. We cant carry on this way, it's not healthy for either of us.

This just seems like typical break-up talk, but I think that you should give it once last chance, write a letter, I know it's difficult, but get it ALL out and be brave for the sake of keeping the relationship. Once you have tried to establish that communication, and nothing changes, then maybe ending, or simply taking a break is the next step (and I hate telling anyone to end their relationship because I never know the whole story, only you can judge properly whether you should truly stay together.)

[lucybelle]

He let you down, and now you think he'll do it again. I think that you need to come to peace with the fact that you won't be able to close the distance as soon as you thought. You need to be okay with being LD until he's financially able to get his passport (although, I don't really get why he can't get a passport. Don't know about Canada, but USA it's like $70 which isn't a lot to scrounge up) This sounds a lot like Zephii's situation where her SO waited and waited and waited to send in visa stuff, and then he didn't get it on time. I can't imagine how frustrating it is to be lied to and deceived, but in the end you HAVE to forgive him in order for your relationship to move on. You're carrying around too much resentment.

[Haley53]

He let you down, and now you think he'll do it again. I think that you need to come to peace with the fact that you won't be able to close the distance as soon as you thought. You need to be okay with being LD until he's financially able to get his passport (although, I don't really get why he can't get a passport. Don't know about Canada, but USA it's like $70 which isn't a lot to scrounge up) This sounds a lot like Zephii's situation where her SO waited and waited and waited to send in visa stuff, and then he didn't get it on time. I can't imagine how frustrating it is to be lied to and deceived, but in the end you HAVE to forgive him in order for your relationship to move on. You're carrying around too much resentment.

This.

Because of that, I would try and avoid solutions such as calling each other out on when you're arguing over something petty. Though this may do well in a healthy relationship, it's too easy a "system" to abuse when resentment comes into play.

What I would honestly consider is space. Tell me if I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like if you have an argument, you shut down, and he continues to try and push at you to get you to open up/talk about it? Or you're both still online, on the phone, or generally around one another? What if you had a system where if you felt like you were shutting down, you could go for, say, half hour or an hour. Go out for a walk, go take a hot bath, make something to eat, read a book, take a nap, do something to help you unwind/relax, and then come back to where you're talking with your SO, and make it a point to talk things out. You may find it comes easier to you after you've taken some time to settle down and relax.

That being said, we could give you all the tips and tricks in the world and it's unfortunately not going to work as well as simply forgiving your partner for what happened, and coming to terms with the reality of what is. I do know what it feels like to be deceived, and it does hurt, incredibly so, but the thing is that if you don't decide to move past it, and work on what you need to do to move past it, then it's going to prevent your relationship from reaching points that you want/need it to, and it may end up destroying it completely. Resentment can do that almost faster than a lack of communication.

[Engel]

Werent you going to get married really soon? maybe you should rethink when you do it. sorry if im crossing a line here, but as far as I know you have kids and have been divorced before, so to enter a marriage having problems like that isnt wise. and Im no pshycologistm but I bet it wouldnt be nice for your kids if they witnessed another divorce.

I dont want to be a downer, and I wish you all the best, really do, so I hope you dont get offended by what I said

[leonsfangirl]

Thanks ladies.

@Lucybelle. He was working temp so didnt want to push his finances, which i can understand. We did talk about it and i trust that he didn't set out to hurt and i really do want to let it go but im struggling with it.

@Eclaire. He trys because he doesn't know what else to do, he asks if i want him to leave me alone i say no, do i wanna talk,i say i dunno. Is there anything he can do.. again i dont know. I'm getting the feeling that i just want him to be here, i need the "it's ok" hug and it's not possible.

@Engel. Your partly right, marriage was penciled in for this year more than likely late summer. Yep divorced with children, thats why i dont want to have these kinds of issues popping up. My relationship with my ex wasn't great, he never fully listened to me and now i have a partner who does it's thrown me. I wouldn't dream of putting my children through another divorce, or myself for that matter. It's just too painful. No offense taken, if i was afraid of the responses i'd get i wouldnt ask.

[digitalfever]

I don’t think your SO can do anything in this situation. While the initial problem stemmed from his dishonesty the issue here is now the aftermath. Forgiveness is a big part of letting ho of resentment and stress. The longer you hold onto something the more you hold onto something the more likely it will affect the relationship.
If he needs to get his passport then he could set down a plan to save towards it. Passport are not out of reach – I just got mine and it was a fairly straightforward process that costs under $100.
Have you tried simply taking a step back and assessing why you’re holding onto this? While you want him your attitude says otherwise. If you want him to be around and give you that “hug” then you need to tell him what you need, what you want. On a more personal level you’ll have to work on forgiving him and moving past this.

[Haley53]

Well it honestly sounds like it's up to you. You can choose to take some time to calm down and act more reasonably about it or you can continue the way you are and drive a wedge further between the both of you. It sounds like he's trying and you're shutting down and being unwilling to open up, take some time for you, do really anything but sit there with him pushing you. :/ I think it might do you well to think about what you need to do to be able to let this go.

[LilyChiba]

I agree, it's not hard to save for one. My SO's passport is going to cost him around $140 or something. He could have forsaken games to get it a long time ago, but he wanted to wait on his tax money so he had some money for here. He isn't in the best situation financially either, but he's still made somewhat of an effort. I've pretty much forsaken everything I want since last november to save up for him coming here, saving between $50-300 a fortnight (if I can manage it). It's not hard to toss $20 a week in the bank to save up and it all builds up. He should be glad that passports aren't as expensive as here. I got mine when I was 15, so I will be due for in a couple of years. Back then it was $150. For me to get a replacement... $225. So yeah.. that's more of a huge junk.