How to Deal with the Silent Treatment and Gain the Upper Hand (2024)

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So you want to know how to deal with the silent treatment and gain the upper hand, huh?

You can almost smell victory.

And among the thousands of articles out there, all promising you instant results and an immediately healed life, one has caught your fancy.

Just ignore the narcissist, they say.

But there’s a problem.

You’ve heard a lot of good things about ignoring a narcissist.

You’ve also heard many bad things.

What’s true? What’s fiction? Can you really rely on ignoring a narcissist to successfully deal with the silent treatment? How can you effectively navigate the perilous silent treatment waters?

That’s what this post’s about.

An unvarnished look at how to deal with the silent treatment, warts and all.

Let’s get to it.

But first, let’s figure out if you are being given the silent treatment as a form of abuse…

Is the narcissistic silent treatment abuse?

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the need to belong and feelaccepted falls under the basic needs of food, water, and safety. In fact, this needcan be so strong, it can override the needs of food and safety.

Psychologists consider the narcissistic silent treatment a form of abuse. It’sa popular form of mental torture used by narcissistic individuals, whereby they cut their victims off by not talking to them for extended periods of time. Sometimes days or weeks, which keeps the victim in a constant state of fight-or-flight during which they feel isolated and rejected, as well as physically sick.

Narcissists use the silent treatment as a tool for exerting power over someone or creating emotional distance. If you’re on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, you might feel completely out of favor.

1. Don’t Make the Mistake of Assuming the Narcissist Cares

Don’t ever assume that the narcissist has genuine feelings or cares. This can be one of the toughest realizations for a kind, caring person. It can be very hard to believe that another human being is really that cold and calculating. We have a tendency to go into denial about this sort of thing. But just try to drill this into your head: Narcissists really don’t care. This is especially true when they use silent treatment to punish you.

They don’t have the same feelings of longing and remorse as you do after spending time apart. And they certainly don’t feel guilty about it. Accepting this will be part of your journey.

2. Don’t Second Guess Yourself with the Narcissist

You don’t need to justify yourself to the narcissist. But, that’s the game they are going to play with you. It’s all about making you doubt yourself and your perceptions.

What narcissists typically engage in is an insidious psychological technique called “gaslighting.”

On a very simple level, it goes like this:

The narcissist does something selfish, and you confront them about it. The narcissist then twists this event around to make it sound likeyouwere the selfish one. To drive their point further, they disappear off the face of the earth.

Narcissists are experts at reframing reality in a way that makes them look good, and you look bad.

While it can be infuriating and confusing, don’t fall for it. Stick to your guns. Silent treatment is never a healthy or functional way of dealing with problems in your relationship.

3. Don’t Think That Blocking the Narcissist is Giving Your Power Away

Many people are worried about “letting the narcissist win” or “making the narcissist feel powerful” and use this as a reason not to block the toxic person from their devices and social media. Unfortunately, this form of self-sabotage can keep you stuck for years, never being able to move forward or live a life free from abuse.

The fact of the matter is, if you block the narcissist, they will feel offended and angry, but they certainly won’t feel powerful. Quite the opposite. They will be riddled with rejection and feel powerLESS.

They feel powerful, however, when they see you’re trying to move forward with your life but have left them with complete access to contact you. This makes them feel like a GOD (or GODDESS), especially if you have a new partner in your life.

This tells the narcissist, under no uncertain terms, that they still have a place in your mind and in your life. They see it as an invitation to send you random crippling abuse via SMS, to send out the occasional “dipping” message (to see if they can hook you), and to continue to keep you participating in their mind games…and this is exactly what happens when people don’t block the narcissist.

What most people don’t realize is this — while it may be a power struggle to the narcissist – you should not see it the same way. This is a matter of emotional survival. I have seen people out of the relationship for a while – who haven’t blocked the narcissist – and these are the same people who deteriorate to the point that they lose their jobs, lose their homes, and sometimes even custody of their own children.

This kind of relationship instills trauma, and it should be treated with the same seriousness as any traumatic event. Would we run in front of a shooter because we want to show them we’re not afraid? Would we invite a rapist into our home to show them they don’t have any effect on us? Of course not…and we should feel the same way about blocking the narcissist. It must be done.

4. Make sure they can’t reach you by phone or social media

Although you may feel an overpowering urge to leave the lines of communication open for them despite their ghosting you, it’s best to ensure they can’t have their cake and eat it, too.

Narcissists often can’t contain themselves and may check in to see if they’ve successfully ruined your life. If they’re able to get through to you, they can be very convincing by pretending to care about your well-being. However, once you’ve told them how you’re having a hard time and can’t get motivated to do anything, they’ll hang up with a smirk on their face because 1) they obliterated any progress you may have made and, 2) they know they’ll have an easy in once they decide the new supply needs a good ghosting of their own.

Remember, when the narcissist reaches out, it’s not because they miss you or feel remorse for how they’ve treated you. When they return, it’s often due to an initial Silent Treatment they’re giving the new supply.

To the narcissist, it’s never too early to plant the seeds of rejection and abandonment.

Block their number and remove them from your social media accounts. In fact, don’t post anything on your social media about their being gone. This way, if they open a fake account to spy on your mental state, it will appear that you couldn’t care less that they ghosted you, which would be wonderful redress.

5. Remember that the narcissistic silent treatment has nothing to do with you as a person

It’s easy to imagine that there’s something aboutyouthat triggers the narcissist to pull their disappearing acts. This is precisely what the narcissist wants you to think. Because, if you believe it’s all your fault, they can avoid taking responsibility for their abusive behaviors.

In fact, the narcissist’sentirepathological agenda is geared towards making you feel responsible for everythingthey’redoing wrong in the relationship, which almost always involvesvarious stages of relationships with other people.

This reasonaloneis why they must disappear for days or weeks. The added bonus for them is that this also succeeds in strengthening any abandonment vulnerabilities you have.

You may believe your love can change them, but it simply won’t. The only way to win is not to play.

6. Don’t fall for their ‘horrible childhood’ or ‘family of origin wounding’ tales

The narcissist is keenly aware that you have a caring, compassionate heart. They know you like to help people overcome their pain, striving to make life easier for them.

This is precisely why, when they come back after a round of silent treatment, they will often tell the woeful tale of how they are so scarred from childhood, they get a little wonky when they feel they are getting too close to someone. They can’t help it. It’s some deep, unconscious drive to bounce when the relationship gets too serious.

You’re not going to leave them alone and vulnerable, are you? *cue the furrowed brow and single tear*

Don’t be deceived. If the narcissist pulls the same disappearing act every time you want to have basic, adult communication, it’s not due to wounding, it’s due to their being highly manipulative and abusive.

7. Never believe that there is a way to successfully communicate to the narcissist that the silent treatment hurts you

There are reams of articles that give you very unfortunate advice on how to deal with the silent treatment.

Dig deep into the reasons why, they suggest. Respond to the silent treatment with calmness. Clearly state your boundaries. Talk to the person kindly.

These recommendations might be helpful if you’re dealing with a normal person, but the major flaw here is that normal people don’t use the silent treatment on a regular basis, and trying to implement these steps with a narcissist is downright laughable because they will never work. In fact, they might cause the narcissist to lash out even harder!

You simply cannot use logic to deal with an illogical person. Narcissists tend to do the polar opposite of what you’d expect in a reciprocal and rewarding relationship. This is why you can never seem to ‘make them get it’ or help them finally see the light.

They don’t want to see the light because they’d rather keep you in the dark. This explains why years of couple’s counseling and therapy never help in the long term when you’re dealing with a narcissist.

NEVER believe the narcissist will be a decent person.

It’s so easy to fall for their false friendliness because people like you and I always want to see and believe in the goodness of others.

But when it comes to the narcissist in your life, you cannot fall into a false sense of security and believe they will do the right thing.

Don’t throw caution to the wind just because, in a brief moment, it feels like the two of you are friends and you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. This will backfire on you. Every time.

How to Deal With the Silent Treatment

One of the first steps out of Narcissistic abuse is therealizationthat one is, in fact, dealing with a Narcissist.

When you love the narcissist, it’s almost impossible toeven thinkof ways you might stand up for yourself due tothe threat of the narcissist disappearing again.

If someone in your life has used this form of emotional abuse to get you to comply with their demands, you should consider using the opportunity to initiate No Contact. Do not reward this passive-aggressive abuse tactic, as it will lead to them doing it even more since they derive a sense of satisfaction (if not “guilty” pleasure) at seeing the negative effect they can have on you.

When a narcissist uses the silent treatment against you, he or she isplaying an emotional game of chicken with your mind. You will be tempted to reach out and speak first. When you do, the narcissist will have considered your reconciliation action a form of “flinching.” In their gamebook, they win, and you lose.

It is in comparing one’s own experiences with the experiences of others who have endured similar (Narcissistic) dysfunction and abuse that one finally becomes aware of the problem of Narcissism and all that it entails. With awareness comes choice, and with choice comes change.

Don’t send pleading text messages or lengthy emails asking them to respond to you. From their perspective, it proves to them that they are highly important, even more important than you are to yourself.

Do, however, be prepared if the narcissist tries to hoover you. You might erringly believe that they are trying to contact you because they miss you or because they are having second thoughts about the way they’ve treated you.

But this is not the truth at all. The narcissist only reaches out after a bout of narcissistic silent treatment to see if you’ll allow them to get away with their bad behavior.

Implementing No Contact during the silent treatment in a relationship would put you back into a place of power because when they prance back onto the scene believing you’ll fall to their feet, they’ll encounternothing but the sound of crickets.

If you’re ready to go deeper and change your life right now, I offer a wide range of effectiveresources and techniquesto protect against toxic people – in my bestselling program,Break Free.

I’m excited to share with you the psychological tools I and thousands of others have used to heal from narcissistic abuse.

Explore techniques derived from behavioral therapy (vetted by the psychological and neuro-psychological communities) to finally heal your life.

Learn more here!