*Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series. You can read part two here.

The refusal to communicate in relationships is more common than we think.

We often refer to it as stonewalling.

If you’ve ever been there, you may know how stressful and painful it is to communicate with a partner who withdraws during a discussion or a conflict.

It sucks.

It’s devastating.

They stop cooperating while we chase the problem again and again. They become distant while we become pushy. They get irritated while we get angry. The whole situation gets confusing, and the more we insist, the more difficult they become.

I’ve been there. I’ve been the listener…and the one who shuts down.

And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s this:

Partners who shut down always communicate with their silence.

Their lack of words is telling us something, but we’re not always present enough to grasp it.

I’m not excusing stonewalling (whether it’s intentional or not), but if you’ve been dealing with a partner who shuts down emotionally, I hope you know that this dynamic is one of the leading causes of disconnection between couples.

Disconnection usually transforms into a pattern that may last for decades if we don’t find solutions. You see, our partner’s withdrawal is usually a defensive mechanism. When they become emotionally flooded, their ability to listen to us and empathize with us decreases significantly.

What we may not know is that when they walk away, they don’t walk away from us; they walk away from the problem because it feels safer. Our actions or words may escalate the conflict, so they create distance to cool down.

When that distance is created, the only thing that the listener thinks about is how to shrink that space. The isolation, loneliness, and resentment we feel may push us to re-engage in unhealthy ways. That’s when we may start pushing.

But are we pushing the right way?

When I refuse to communicate, I automatically become vigilant. Any tension might force me to become unresponsive. When I’m the listener, conversely, I can feel my partner’s energy when he becomes unreachable.

We might be asking the wrong question here. In such confusing situations, we often think about ourselves: “How can I be heard?” “How do I stop feeling rejected?”

What we should be asking instead is:

“How do I get through to my partner?”

“How can I help them to open up?”

“How to help them to become more responsive?”

Thinking about our partner while we’re the ones hurting is extremely challenging. It requires reprogramming and finding new ways to communicate in our relationship.

The truth is old ways don’t work in stonewalling. To find new ways, we must first recognize when it happens. I will share in the second part of this article the signs of emotional withdrawal and how we can spot them.

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