In late September 2000, my husband, John, and I had a doozie of an argument about me procrastinating on my writing. To drive home his point—that I was going to have to learn how to say no to things I didn’t want to do (such as respond to my mother’s every whim) and yes to things I did (supposedly) want to do, such as write—he decided to give me the silent treatment.
Seriously?
In the twelve years we’d been together as a couple, he’d never pulled that stunt before. When we needed to hash things out, we talked.
Not this time.
My silent treatment lasted three days. I was beyond livid. But…I did do a little thinking.
Finally, on the afternoon of Thursday, September 28th, 2000, John suggested we go for a walk. We were at the dog park and I said to him, “I am so scared I am going to wake up twenty years from now and still not having finished writing a book.”
John stopped walking, turned to me, and said, “You’re probably right about that, Maryanne…just as long as you know that will have been your choice.”
Ouch. What a jerk.
But…twelve years IS a long time to listen to someone talk about their dream of becoming a writer—yet doing very little in the way of any actual writing.
I got his point. Sort of.
After our walk, we went home, and John had a nap before going in to work for 9pm. He was a police officer. Before going to bed, I promised myself, again, that I would wake up early the next morning and do an hour of writing before going into my regular job at 7am. In those days, I worked as a civilian for the same police service John did. I was a report processor and took incident reports from officers over the phone.
But when my alarm clock went off at 5:00 a.m. the next morning, I reached over and pushed the snooze button. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t feel like writing. I don’t want to go back to my job either. Why do I have to type police reports for a living?
Ten minutes later, the alarm went off again. I pushed snooze. I don’t want to get up. I can’t write today. I’m too tired. Maybe tomorrow.
Ten minutes later, the alarm went off; snooze was hit. I am SO anxious! I don’t like my job. I don’t want to go back there.
And nor would I. For during that exact same time frame of me pushing snooze on the alarm, John was lying on the lunchroom floor of a warehouse, dying of a brain injury.
He had responded to a break and enter complaint at a warehouse and was searching the mezzanine level for a suspect when he stepped through an unmarked false ceiling and fell nine feet into the lunchroom below. There was no safety railing in place to warn him—or anyone else—of the danger.
The complaint turned out to be a false alarm; there was no intruder in the building. My wake-up call, however, was devastatingly real.
By the time I saw John in the emergency room, they had given up trying to save him and were stabilizing his body for organ donation. Since it was the back of his head that struck the concrete, he looked much the same as when I saw him the night before—except he was unconscious, flat on his back, draped in a white sheet and had tubes sprouting out from his chest, neck and arms.
I raced to his side and grabbed his unresponsive hand. I kissed his cheek.
“John!” I cried. “I love you.”
No response. My silent treatment had been reinstated. Only this time, it was permanent.
Two weeks later, I started writing what would become my book, A Widow’s Awakening. It took me eight years, a dozen rewrites and an ocean of tears to get it (and me) where it needed to be for publication. But I did it.
I often wonder if, on some level, John knew his time was nearly up. And since I clearly wasn’t getting the message—to stop talking about writing and just do it—he gave me the three-day silent treatment to try and get me to figure it out for myself.
If so, then his death was my final test. I could either learn the lesson—and become a writer—or I could be forever angry at him for being mean to me.
I chose to learn the tough love lesson and finally hear the message he had been trying to tell me, in words, for years. Sometimes silence really does speak far louder than words.
Fast forward twenty years and a close male friend (who I have known for many years) recently gave me the silent treatment. At first, I was livid. And then, once I calmed down and realized that (as was the case with John) the silent treatment was not typical behaviour for this guy, I began to do a little thinking about what might he be trying to communicate to me?
What message might he have already verbally told me multiple times—but I had refused to hear?
What is your take on the silent treatment?
I don’t think anybody likes to be on the receiving end of someone’s stony silence. It’s not a very nice feeling to be shut out by someone we love. But maybe sometimes the silent treatment really is the most effective form of communication…a tough love last resort that clearly communicates: “I mean business.”
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