Optimist77 wrote: Every time I showed that I cared, I got punished for it: Silent treatment.
Is there a way around this, apart from "no contact"?
Me too,, exactly.
As soon as the sulking started, I stopped thinking about it. In the early stages I announced, "It appears you feel the need to have a major drama in your life right now, don't include me in it."
And ever since that day, I've always gone out, visited friends, entertained myself, did housework with a happy disposition. Visited parents or family, went shopping, and just generally got on with my own life as if I was single.
As time moved on, his sulking on the couch became an eyesore and each time it happened, which was almost 1 day every weekend, I'd tell him to go to the bedroom and shut the door.
It only works for a certain length of time. When they get wind that their sulks are ineffective, they move out of it, and suddenly without warning, they're back talking with you again. But the minute you say something back like, "Oh, you're talking again, how would you like it if I ignored you for 2 days? What would you think to that, how would you feel? Can you not do it please, or even why did you do it?" Leads them to exactly where they want you to be, within a flash of an eye you're into the argument they have been longing to have for almost 2 - 3 days (and I believe they have been obsessing about while sulking), and it NEVER gets resolved - NEVER. (SV writings gives you some real good insight into what is rolling through their minds eye while these major sulk-fests are going on. They are replaying arguments with you over and over and over....obsessing. They are planning their revenge, they are picturing you cowering with fear at their abandonment of you. They are FANTASISING. After I read SV's description of what he did while sulking, it clicked with me.)
What has to happen is you get on with your life like you are a single person and then suddenly this person becomes animated, starts talking to you, and you only have 1 choice, and that is to respond amicably. In the end, it erodes the relationship foundation, you never end up sharing stuff with 'em, other than what's on the telly, who won the footy, or what politician is not doing his job at present, or what the kids did/said that day. They eventually destroy the fabric of common decent adult communication.
So, no, there's no solution - never will be. That's why we have the term -cycle of abuse......it just goes on and on forever, or for as long as you put up with it. They'll never change it (ok, I exaggerate, perhaps some may try and even fewer succeed).