How To Handle Silence & Coldness When You Want To Connect

Published: Fri, 06/26/26

Updated: Fri, 06/26/26

Hey brother,

Why doesn't anyone want to talk about this subtle, sneaky cause of divorce?

Because they are STONEWALLING!

This is a commonly known predictor of divorce and one of the hardest to fix.

Why??

Because we're too busy playing games with stonewalling, sometimes referred to as "The Silent Treatment."

There's this guy named John Gottman who does a ton of research on marriage.

He's kind of a big deal because of all the detailed analyses he's done on what makes relationships last and marriages survive...or crash and burn.

I'm putting his research into easy-to-understand language and easy to implement actions to stop the madness!

He came up with the term The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. These are the FOUR BEHAVIORS that can predict divorce with about 90% accuracy.

In other words, if these things show up consistently in your relationship, you can bet things won't be going your way in the future.

The four behaviors are:

Criticism

Defensiveness

Stonewalling

Contempt

In this video, I will break down stonewalling to show you:

What it is

What it's not

What is looks like or sounds like

How it poisons your relationship

How to change your behavior now and start doing something different

How To Handle Silence And Coldness When You Want To Connect

Stonewalling is the deliberate attempt to withdraw from interaction in order to manipulate and control the situation.

Stonewalling erodes trust, respect, connection and attraction.

Stonewalling also breeds hopelessness. Whenever you get into any type of conversation or interaction around problem solving, and you know that she is going to go quiet, you begin to believe that ‘this will never work’, you begin to believe that ‘it’s hopeless’ and you start to resent the other person.

So how do you change stonewalling?

When you’re the one doing the stonewalling, avoiding her and giving the silent treatment, you have to know that the stronger man will stand strongly on both feet and stay present, calm and confident.

Stop believing that what’s happening is going to hurt you.

Stop thinking that the best relief of the pressure you’re feeling is to run away from it or avoid it because that reaction causes more fear than you standing there with her.

Women always say that they feel more fearful when you run away and can’t stand there with her in a conflict – stonewalling is eroding her trust and confidence in you.

What if she’s stonewalling?

Many women do this, give us the silent treatment, cutting you off fro connection and safety, maybe she’s locked the bedroom door and tells you to go and sleep on the couch - yes, that’s stonewalling!

First of all, call it out.

That’s why it’s good to understand these terms so that when you let her know how to respond.

“What you’re doing right now is not acceptable. I don’t treat you like that and I don’t want to be treated this way.”

Call it out. Make sure she knows that YOU know what’s going on.

But you also need to release the pressure.

If she’s stonewalling, she’s feeling pressure and she’s moving away from that pressure.

You have to back away.

You have to wait for the clouds to clear and the pressure to reduce before you come back together.

Then you can hopefully have a conversation where you can talk about this stonewalling not being acceptable and how it doesn’t help anything.

If you want to handle silence and coldness from your wife with more confidence then, let's talk...

Apply for a free coaching call with us - in one 90 minute call, we will help you get clear about what to stop doing that's contributing to the current issues you're facing and what to do instead to improve things starting today.

What You'll Actually Get From a Call With Us

Watch the short video above to understand what you get from a free coaching call with us.

As Teddy Roosevelt said:

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Lotta love,

Steve & Dan

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Steven Horsmon

550 Drake Ranch Rd., Livermore, CO 80536, USA

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