The silent treatment is one narcissistic punishment tactic the narcissist is an expert at and will use whenever they think they are losing control of a situation. We have all likely used the silent treatment on someone when we are upset, however, the narcissist can take it to another level. They will use the silent treatment as long as needed to regain control of the situation, and this is easy for the narcissist because as they remain silent, they don’t consider how it affects you. They can stay silent indefinitely. The goal of the silent treatment for the narcissist is to rework the scenario in their favor so that they can manipulate the outcome of the false world they have created. The narcissist is a puppet master and wants people to act as they want them to and there is no individual thinking allowed.
Before we discuss the goal of the silent treatment used by the narcissist, let’s briefly review how the silent treatment is different from taking a time out in a situation that feels overwhelming. When we are placed into a situation where we are overwhelmed, don’t know what to say, or just need to step away for a little bit, we use a time out. A time out allows us to regroup our thoughts and move from a position of high emotions. Time outs are effective so that when you get back together again with the other person, the conversation can be more constructive. With the time out, the length of time away is limited and the goal of the time out is not to manipulate the other person, but to allow each of you your own space for a period of time.
This is different from the silent treatment. The silent treatment is meant to control the situation. The person who has gone silent has done this to manipulate the situation and will stop giving you the silent treatment when they think you have learned your lesson and will change your mind on what upset them to begin with. The silent treatment is 100% about control. The narcissist who has become silent isn’t silent to gather their thoughts or step away to prevent emotions from running high. They have become silent because the power differential is not in their favor and they can’t handle this.
When the narcissist goes silent, they want to ensure their partner starts to feel insecure, uncertain, and starts to think about how they are the problem. For non-narcissists, you want things to go well between you two and you consider your role in what has gone wrong and try to make it better by acknowledging what you could have done and what you will change. The problem is, most times you have done nothing wrong. The narcissist has enacted the silent treatment to make you feel you have done something wrong, and this is why you feel unstable in the moment. The narcissist wants to hear how you were wrong in the situation and what you will do to make things better.
The longer the silent treatment lasts, the more unstable you start to feel and the more likely you are to say and do things, including taking responsibility for what has happened. This is exactly what the narcissist wants. They use the silent treatment to blame shift and not take responsibility for anything. And because the narcissist lacks empathy and doesn’t care how you feel, they can hold out on the silent treatment for days, weeks, years, or even decades. There is nothing you can do to end the silent treatment. The silent treatment will only end when the narcissist is ready for it to end.
Again, the goal of the silent treatment is to control. As soon as the narcissist feels out of control, they will use the silent treatment so that you start to feel responsible for what is happening. This is more damaging when you have been through this before with the narcissist. You know that the narcissist will remain silent; so, over time, the more often this silent treatment happens, the more likely you are to take responsibility sooner as a way to relieve the tension. The narcissist feels accomplished and this boosts their narcissistic ego. The silent treatment is an effective technique used by the narcissist that allows them to have complete control over a situation with the goal of you taking responsibility more and more for what has happened. This doesn’t have to make sense, and you may not even know what you did wrong. But for the narcissist, they feel like they are at risk of narcissistic injury, and this is what largely contributes to the silent treatment being used. What you must remember when you are faced with the silent treatment from the narcissist is that there is nothing you can do to change the timeline of the narcissist’s silent treatment. It is 100% determined by them and no one else. They will stop giving you the silent treatment when they feel they have regained control and refilled their narcissistic supply.