Strategies to avoid love in intimate anorexia: the silent treatment
Anorexia of intimacy is a term coined by sexual addiction recovery expert Doug Weiss to describe the active retention of emotional, sexual, and / or spiritual intimacy in the recovering couples he works with. I believe that intimacy anorexia is a particularly virulent subcategory of a more general relational pattern best described by recovery pioneer Pia Mellody as avoidance of love.
The intimate anorexic who avoids love uses multiple blocking strategies to create and maintain distance in her relationship; the silent deal is a favorite. Anorexic intimacy builds a wall to cut off the flow of meaningful communication in the relationship. While the wall kills any energy for verbal communication, the non-verbal communication of the intimate anorexic screams with icy indifference or anger: “I’m in control”, “Your needs don’t matter”, “I’m excluding you!”
Although women are equally capable of anorexia in intimacy, in my particular counseling practice the partner is much more likely to come forward for help. deprivation of privacy As a result of your anorexic spouse’s relationship walls of intimacy. Therefore, the following observations are more characteristic of the male love-avoidance-intimacy anorexia relationship pattern.
Silent treatment can occur on a continuum. At one end of the continuum, the intimacy anorexic may abruptly change the subject when her partner tries to discuss something important to her. Although anorexic intimacy is hidden behind a veil of superficial words, note that there is no verbal recognition of your partner’s desire to discuss an issue close to your heart. Your body language communicates that there is no deeper connection; there is no emotional intimacy; You may be married, but you are alone in this relationship.
Further up the silent treatment continuum is the symbolic monosyllabic murmur that conveys a non-verbal message of “I’ll give you the bare minimum.” This may progress to physically withdrawing to block any further attempts at communication by your partner.
The form of silent treatment that seems to be by far the most painful for intimate partners I advise is stony silence that screams, “No matter how much physical distance there is between us right now, there are miles between us in our relationship. … and alone I Will decide if that will change! “If you are the intimate partner, regardless of whether you are experiencing despair or anger, you are painfully aware of how powerless you feel in the face of the situation.
Relationship expert John Gottman sees silent dealing, or avoidance, as he calls it, a sign of a serious disturbance in the marriage. In fact, it is one of the four predictors of a destabilization of the relationship and an eventual divorce. The other three include contempt, criticism, and defensiveness.
In my experience, however, I have noticed that the intimacy anorexic who avoids love is only superficially disturbed by the silent treatment, whether he is on the giving or receiving side. This is because for anorexic intimacy the silent treatment is a tool to get what you really want: distance. From the anorexic’s perspective, the distance actually stabilizes the relationship. In the pool of committed relationships, the anorexic wants to be in the pool, but only wants to stay in the shallow end.
Avoiding deep ending allows anorexic intimacy to stay in control and remain emotionally safe. If you believe, as I do, that the willingness to be emotionally vulnerable is a prerequisite for true intimacy, then anorexia of intimacy also implies an anorexia of vulnerability. The intimate anorexic who avoids love is unwilling to be vulnerable either in the relationship itself or in attempts to improve the relationship, such as marital therapy.
This is why traditional marriage therapy fails so often when intimacy anorexia is the underlying culprit. The intimacy anorexic will have no real motivation to end the silent treatment because he has managed to create distance with his partner. Also, working on the problems that appear to be generating the silent treatment will be ineffective because the problems are just an excuse to use the distance creation strategy.
Marriage therapists trained to treat intimacy anorexia generally require a commitment to change anorexic intimacy behavior. before address the problems that cause anorexia. The underlying fear cannot be easily treated as long as the anorexic behavior is active because intimacy anorexia strategies help you avoid the underlying fear. More importantly, insisting on a behavior change first ends the spouse’s continued deprivation of intimacy.
If your relationship suffers from anorexia in intimacy, I urge you to seek a counselor who understands the dynamics of anorexia in intimacy and avoidance of love.