When the Silent Treatment Can Actually Work in Your Favor

Or a grown-up version of it, anyway

I’m pretty direct with my husband, Chris. When I need help or want something done around the house, I’ll just ask him. But unfortunately, it doesn’t always work.

Here’s an example: I can chart the exact path Chris took before leaving for the day based on the light trail he conveniently left behind. Despite me repeatedly asking, reminding, and straight-up begging him to turn off the lights when he leaves a room, he’s still doing it.

I have no freaking clue, but it bugs the heck out of me. Of course, he ends up annoyed with my regular “let’s turn off the lights!” PSAs, and then everybody loses.

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So when I recently realized that Chris has never cleaned our house, despite us moving in last September, I figured it was time to try a new tactic. Instead of asking (and re-asking) him to clean, I decided to go the silent route—I went on strike from my usual cleaning and waited to see if he noticed. My theory: He’d see that our place was getting grubby, realize his wife shouldn’t be the only one pushing around a vacuum, and just do it already. Except for...he didn't.

Six weeks into my little experiment, we had tennis ball-sized dust bunnies in our bathroom, sand(?) in our living room, and enough dog hair on the couch to make a fur jacket.

Clinical psychologist John Mayer, Ph.D., says this adult version of the silent treatment is actually a great way to get your point across to your partner. “Repeatedly asking for your partner to do something can be viewed as nagging, and people turn off nagging—it’s not effective at changing behavior,” says Mayer. “This silent treatment shows them how they need to change.” Even more important, he says, is the fact that Chris feels the pain of my actions: Thanks to my going on strike, he’s forced to live in a dirty house, too. “People respond more when the communication results in some impact on them,” says Mayer.

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That is, provided he understands what’s happening and why. By just going on strike and never mentioning first that I want Chris to clean, too, Mayer says I set him up for failure.

Now that I totally bombed at my experiment, Mayer says I have two options: I can try it again or file this incident away and not give Chris something he wants the next time he asks. The hope, then, is that he’ll better understand how frustrating it can be and be more willing to chip in the next time I ask for help.

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After my (failed) experiment was over, I asked Chris if he even (a) noticed that our floors were dirty and (b) felt tempted at all to clean them. His response: “Yeah…but then I had more important things to do.”

I am so not buying his favorite ice cream next week.

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Korin Miller is a writer, SEO nerd, wife, and mom to a little 2-year-old dude named Miles. Korin has worked for The Washington Post, New York Daily News, and Cosmopolitan, where she learned more than anyone ever should about sex. She has an unhealthy addiction to gifs.