Relationship Advice on Communication Styles and Choices

Does he make you play “20 questions?” This is actually a form of “the silent treatment.” It happens when one party shuts up and tries to “communicate by not communicating.” In other words, they’re trying to send you a message that you did something they didn’t like, but want you to figure it out and apologize. 

Our friend, marriage and addiction counselor Charlie Risien of San Antonio, calls the silent treatment, “The Violence of Silence.”

It’s not physical abuse, like a slap or a punch. But is IS psychological abuse.

Abuse is abuse.

There’s a variation of the silent treatment that we call “20 questions.”

It’s based on a conversational game where one person knows a secret, and the other person, or persons, get to ask 20 questions to try to solve the mystery.

The person who knows the secret divulges as little information as possible, answering questions only with a “yes” or a “no.”

Your Prince may decide you’ve done something he doesn’t like, and he’ll only tell what it is if you drag it out of him, bit by maddening bit, until you finally have enough facts to know what he’s mad about.

A genuine Prince doesn’t mind sharing information, even if it’s something that may be unpleasant.

A frog makes you play 20 questions.

Does he use technology to control communication between you? Email, voicemail and caller ID have been great leaps forward in helping couples communicate more quickly and effectively.

Unfortunately, they’ve also made it easier for one party in the relationship to communicate less quickly, effectively, and most important of all--honestly.

One of the women in our group was asked by a guy to go to dinner and the theater recently. As her date with a seemingly delightful Prince approached, he failed to call or even email her to confirm or let her know when he’d pick her up, etc.

The day before they were supposed to go out, she tried calling his direct line at the office several times. Her calls went to voicemail

She tried emailing him, both at his office and at home. She never got a reply.

Then she tried calling his cell phone and his home number the morning of their scheduled date.

No response.

She spent her Saturday night at home, watching TV. And wondering.

There’s nothing subtle about standing someone up when you’ve set a date. This guy, deservedly, got “thrown to the curb” immediately.

Or should we say, thrown back into the pond he hopped out of.

The point here is…once upon a time it would have been a lot harder for him to “hide out” the way he did. But thanks to caller ID he knew she was trying to reach him and had the option to ignore the call.

Besides being inconsiderate, we think it was downright cowardly.

Does he purposely delay getting back to you? In a less blatant (but still extremely annoying) way, email and voicemail can be used psychologically.

Communication delays can be used as a means of control. And anytime someone’s purposely trying to control you…it’s bad.

We mentioned earlier that some guys (and admittedly, some women too) just like to make other people wait for them. It’s passive-aggressive behavior and we think it’s a bad sign for the future of a relationship (in addition to being bad form—and downright inconsiderate).

One person in our group is fond of saying

“Uncertainty is what drives people crazy the most.”

Phone calls that aren’t returned in a timely way and emails that don’t get a reply in a reasonable amount of time contribute to uncertainly and therefore, a certain amount of stress.

Anyone who makes you go through stress on purpose is unworthy of your affection.

Related articles in this section:

Communication Style

Talking and Conversation

Body Language

Verbal Abuse

Unspoken Expectations