– Has Your Marriage Reached the Stonewalling Stage?

Last Updated on October 27, 2015 by Chris Roberts

CAN MARRIAGE COUNSELING HELP EVEN WHEN THE COUPLES NO LONGER TALK TO EACH OTHER?

References “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.” By John M. Gottman, Ph.D.

In previous articles about marriage counseling and marital therapy, we discussed ways that couples find themselves in unhealthy and damaging patterns of interaction.  Up until this point, the ways marriage partner’s have been harmful to each other have been through their words and fights.  In Dr. Gottman’s wonderful book about making marriage’s work, he describes a fourth stage where spouses can no longer even stand to verbally communicate with each other.  No doubt there is still communication between the two occurring, it is just through silence and coldness.  This is what is referred to as: Stonewalling.

Marriage therapy can be effective with stonewalling, but it must first be identified and named for what it is.  Dr. Gottman helps illuminate this concept when he states, “During a typical conversation between two people, the listener gives all kinds of cues to the speaker that he’s paying attention.  He may use eye contact, nod his head, say something like “Yeah” or “Uh-huh.”  But a stonewaller doesn’t give you this sort of casual feedback.  He tends to look away or down without uttering a sound.  He sits like an impassive stone wall.  The stonewaller acts as though he couldn’t care less about what you’re saying, if he even hears it.”  (p. 33)  For most people, this is common sense.  But Dr. Gottman makes an important statement when he says, “the stonewaller acts as though he couldn’t care less.”  This is a critical component of these types of interactions between marriage partners.  It takes effort to intentionally not respond in some way to another person when they are speaking, unless that peson has autism or some other mental disorder.  It’s not far stretched to assume the stonewaller interacts with every other person in their life in a courteous and polite manner.  This very act of not responding is an intentional effort to illicit some response.

Marriage counseling works from the premise that as long as there is something other than pure indifference occurring between spouses, there is material to be worked.  Stonewalling itself indicates there is enough (or too much) tension between the two parties, that indifference is not the issue.  Dr. Gottman writes, “Usually people stonewall as a protection against feeling flooded.  Flooding means that your spouse’s negativity—whether in the guise of criticism or contempt or even defensiveness—is so overwhelming, and so sudden, that it leaves you shell-shocked.  You feel so defenseless against this sniper attack that you learn to do anything to avoid a replay.  The more often you feel flooded by your spouse’s criticism or contempt, the more hypervigilant you are for cues that your souse is about to “blow” again.  All you can think about is protecting yourself form the turbulence your spouse’s onslaught causes.  And the way to do that is to disengage emotionally from the relationship.” (p. 35)

The hope of marriage counseling lies in this last comment by Dr. Gottman.  The hope is that the stonewalling is a reaction to the other spouse’s overtures.  If the marriage therapist can get the stonewaller to see that they are responding to their spouse, then there is an opening for dialogue.  If the marriage therapist can get the other spouse to see that they might have some responsibility in creating the stonewalling, then the marriage has some hope for recovery.  In general, people don’t stonewall randomly.  The danger of stonewalling is that it creates severe resentment based on long periods of pent-up frustration.  There is hope for marriages that have reached the stonewalling stage, but it will take some time to muck through the poor patterns the marriage has become accustomed to.

If you are reading this and find your marriage in this stage, please don’t despair.  Two Trees Counseling Nashville can work with you and your spouse.  Chris Roberts is an experienced marriage therapist in Nashville, TN and would love the opportunity to work with you.  Please feel free to contact him at (615) 800-9260 or email at chriskroberts@gmail.com.  We wish you well on your journey.