Episode 20: What To Do When Your Spouse Shuts You Out

In this episode, Kari Hoskins tackles one of the most maddening relationship dynamics: what to do when your partner completely shuts down and refuses to communicate—a pattern known as stonewalling. Kari breaks down why people stonewall (spoiler: it’s often not about you), what it looks like, and why it’s one of the top predictors of divorce. She dives into the damaging Pursue-Withdraw cycle, offers clear signs to help you identify stonewalling, and gives listeners practical tools to break the pattern, reconnect emotionally, and decide how to move forward. Whether you're the pursuer or the distancer, this episode is full of truth bombs, empathy, and smart strategies you can actually use.

Learn how to communicate with a partner who has emotionally checked out, rebuild trust, and—if needed—make the tough call with clarity.

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Website: https://www.karihoskinscoaching.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Stonewalling in Relationships
• 2:47 The Pursuit-Withdrawal Cycle
• 6:14 Recognizing Signs of Stonewalling
• 9:03 Effective Communication Strategies
• 11:52 Proactive Approaches to Difficult Conversations
• 15:14 Seeking Professional Help and Making Decisions

Transcript

 Episode 20: What To Do When Your Partner Shuts Down 

Hey everyone. So today we are jumping straight into it. We are going to be talking about what to do when your spouse or partner shuts you out. Meaning like when they just completely refuse to communicate with you. This comes up a lot with my clients, especially my newer clients. And it also happens to be one of the most frequently asked questions that I get from people on social media.

And by the way, if you're not following me on social media, I'm at Keri Hoskins Coaching. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and of course, YouTube. So please go hit the subscribe button and follow. So I wanna talk about this because it is probably one of the most frustrating relationship struggles out there, right? When your partner just absolutely refuses to talk, refuses to engage with you, to let you in, and is not only frustrating,

but it can create a lot of anxiety and uncertainty because you start questioning things, right? It's like, are they mad at me? Are they hiding something? Do they still love me? Do they even want to be in this relationship anymore? Why don't they talk to me? What's going on? You have all of these questions in an already kind of stressful situation or relationship. So before we jump in, I do want to give you just

one little quick piece of terminology here. When your partner does this, when they shut down, when they disengage, when they refuse to talk, it is called stonewalling. And if you are not wired like this, it can be really challenging for you to understand why they're choosing to withdraw. And so I thought I'd share with you just some common reasons why people stonewall.

First of all, I'm sure you can guess it's of course a defense mechanism, right? So they are emotionally overwhelmed. They don't know how to deal with what they're feeling. They don't like what they're feeling and they certainly don't wanna talk about how they're feeling and they want space and emotional distance. And so what they do is they create it by not communicating with you. They create it by shutting down. Now, sometimes people will use it as a way to avoid conflict. I see this.

Kari Hoskins (02:18.518)

especially in high conflict relationships. Other people will use it as a way to avoid taking responsibility. And in some cases, it does happen to be a learned response from childhood. people who grew up in families and circumstances where there wasn't a lot of emotional support or where there was a lot of high conflict, a lot of argumentation, a lot of drama, those kids

can learn to suppress their emotions as a way to survive. And then when they become adults, they don't know how to communicate when they are feeling vulnerable or when they're having really intense emotions, right? So it really manifests itself in adulthood as emotional shutdown, which has a really big impact, obviously, on their relationships. But ultimately, stonewalling signals an unwillingness to resolve problems that are essential to sustaining your

relationship. So this is actually a pretty legitimate problem. It's not just a pattern. It is a pattern, but it's not just a pattern. It's a problematic pattern, I guess I would say. And it happens to be one of the biggest predictors of divorce. So I would say that's pretty significant. When you're significant other stonewalls you, is very likely that you are stuck in or sucked into what we call the pursuit, withdraw,

cycle or pattern. Okay, so what happens is you become the pursuer and your partner becomes the withdraw or the distancer, right? That's the stonewalling piece. So as the pursuer, you want to engage, you want to talk, you want to connect, and maybe you want to address something that's happening in your relationship, something that's bothering you. Maybe you get the sense that they're unhappy and you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Maybe there's been a disagreement and it's not been resolved yet.

and you wanna deal with it. Whatever it happens to be, you're pursuing a conversation about it. And when you do this, your partner or your spouse doesn't want to. And so instead of engaging with you, they shut down and they become the distancer or the withdraw, right? So they emotionally shut down and they retreat inside of themselves. And then you continue to push and pursue because you want to get this conversation started. You want to resolve whatever it is. You just wanna talk about it.

Kari Hoskins (04:45.902)

and you want to connect. But this in turn causes them to withdraw even more. And just it continues to repeat. In long-term relationships, this is definitely a pattern and it becomes like a normal part of your relationship. And unfortunately, it's incredibly destructive to your relationship. Now what typically happens if you don't deal with this is you will become exhausted as the pursuer. You might even become hopeless.

You get sick and tired of trying to talk to somebody that just continues to shut you out. And so then you end up giving up. And then once this happens, your relationship eventually just becomes a void of all emotional intimacy and connection, which isn't healthy. And it's certainly not satisfying. That's what I can say. So, you you can see why this is one of the biggest predictors of divorce or breakup. It's just because there is

an absolute lack of connection and intimacy within the relationship. So how do you know if you're being stonewalled? I contemplated putting this in. I'm like, well, shit, if people are being stonewalled, I'm pretty sure they know. But I thought, you know, you just never know. So I'm gonna go ahead and give you some of the signs that you are being stonewalled. If you ask a question or you try to initiate a conversation about something and they just flat out don't wanna talk about it,

they may become dismissive of your feelings. They might try to minimize things that you're saying. They might even ignore your questions. And this is typically what I see happening, right? People will literally pretend not to hear you, so they don't have to answer you. It's so frustrating. They might change the subject. And in a lot of cases, they will simply find something else to pay attention to, like suddenly restacking the magazines and the books on the coffee table become very important and it has to be done right now.

or whatever's on their phone or whatever's on the TV is increasingly more interesting to them. All of this, right, something else to pay attention to, pay attention to other than you and the conversation. They will usually avoid eye contact and their body language is gonna shift. And I really think you can see it. I think it's a pretty visceral shift. They may stop giving you nonverbal cues that tell you that they're listening, right? So,

Kari Hoskins (07:11.892)

Even when people don't wanna talk about something and they're just kinda giving you the silent treatment, you will often see that they will still make eye contact with you or like you can see annoyance on their face. Like you know that they're listening. When somebody is stonewalling you, it's really hard to tell if they're listening at all, right? Because they're refusing, they put that emotional wall up, they're refusing to non-verbally communicate with you. They might even abruptly leave the room. So some people might do one of these things,

others might do all of them. Any version or flavor of this is going to be considered, in my book at least, stonewalling. So like I've already said, it's pretty damaging to your relationship. And one of the reasons why is because you can't address or resolve anything because they simply refuse to talk about it. And the impact that this has on your relationship is there's a lack of trust, right?

And I don't mean cheating or infidelity, though that could be going on. What I mean is they don't trust you with what's going on inside of them, what's going on in their mind, what's going on in their heart. And because of that, there's a lack of mutual vulnerability and there is also obviously a breakdown of communication. And if you don't have vulnerability in communication and a relationship, you're not gonna have connection. And connection is what keeps you together.

And I really think this is a complicated issue because it's usually deeply rooted in the person and then in the relationship. So I do want to offer you some things that you can try. When you are having a conversation, like let's say you start the conversation and in the beginning they are listening and they are engaging. What I would do is really focus on using I statements. Okay. So instead of saying something like, never make time for me.

I would say something like, I miss connecting with you, or I miss seeing you, or I miss spending time with you, okay? Can you see how different that feels? I statements are definitely received better than you statements because I statements, you take responsibility for what's going on with you. You're taking responsibility for your feelings instead of like placing blame on them.

Kari Hoskins (09:32.046)

And so what this does is this helps minimize defensiveness, hopefully. And of course, I suggest using I statements all the time, y'all, like not just if you're in a relationship with somebody that's stone walls. I really think that it's worth practicing because trust me, I statements do take practice. I don't think that most of our brains are wired to think like that. So I would suggest practicing them in all the conversations that you have.

Now, if you're in a conversation and your significant other just like suddenly like bloop, puts that wall up and again, you can kind of see it. I suggest that you refrain from yelling or following them from room to room, know, like trying talking at them, trying to get them to engage with you. That is overly pursuing them, right? Remember that pursue withdrawal cycle, okay? What it's going to do is going to make them withdraw even more and it actually

has the potential to become very dramatic. I've definitely seen relationships where just it blows up because the pursuer refuses to stop pursuing. So when they put that wall up, that is your signal that it is time to take a break. They and you are in a heightened state of arousal, a heightened state of psychological arousal.

And when you're in that state, it's really hard to critically think. It is hard to manage your emotions. You're probably going to say shit you do not mean or that you did not intend to say. And so that is one of the reasons why taking a break is a very wise thing to do. So literally what you say is, you know, things are kind of heated right now. Why don't we just take a break and we can finish this conversation tomorrow? Now, unfortunately, finishing that conversation might be challenging, right?

like getting them to revisit it can be a struggle. And so one of the things that I would suggest that you try to do is let them know that you know that this is a hard conversation. You can say something like, what can we do to make this conversation easier? Notice I say we, because we implies that you are teammates, that you are partners and not opponents. And that is again, more likely going to decrease defensiveness.

Kari Hoskins (11:52.578)

You can also try using a little bit of humor to ease the tension and lighten the mood a little bit. I would just be cautious. Like don't use humor as a weapon. Don't use humor in like a mean funny way because it's not funny, it's just mean. And sarcasm, sorry, sarcasm in that moment is not gonna be received well. So humor does work in some instances with some people. You just gotta be careful with it. Now I think one of the best things you can do

if you're in a relationship like this is to be proactive. I think that's really important. And what I mean by this is if you know that there's something that you wanna talk about that might trigger them to shut down and put that wall up, give them a heads up, give them some time to mentally prepare, right? So, hey babe, I really want to talk to you about X, Y, Z. I know that this can sometimes be a really difficult conversation, but it's really important to me. Is there a time that works for you to talk about this tomorrow? Okay.

Another suggestion that I have would be to offer just to be the listener. Tell them, all I want to know is your perspective and I just want to hear you out. I just want to hear what you're feeling. I promise, promise, promise. I will not say a word. I will just listen. But then you guys, if you tell them this, you have to follow through on your word. You have to keep your promise so you cannot interrupt them. You cannot like become defensive. So if they say something, you're like, that's not true.

You gotta let it go and do not defend yourself. Do not jump into correct. Do not do any of that. You gotta let them talk all the way through so that they feel like you were actually listening and you were hearing them. Okay? You can revisit your side later. The entire point here is just to try to create enough safety for them that they are willing to start opening up. Another suggestion that works for a lot of people is to write them a letter.

So you have to remember that your significant other is stonewalling you because essentially they either can't or they just don't want to be emotionally vulnerable with you. And so a letter gives you a chance to be open and vulnerable with them. It gives you a chance to be clear and tell them what you're feeling, like what's on your heart without putting pressure on them, without making them feel cornered. Okay, it kind of takes...

Kari Hoskins (14:14.904)

takes the pressure off and it gives your partner time to process whatever it is that you're wanting to express to them. And I think this is the last and the very best, which is why I saved it for last, suggestion. And it's to get help from a coach or from a therapist for reels, you guys. Now, I realize that this is just my personal opinion, but I'm giving it to you anyway. My personal opinion is that you wanna find somebody who is willing to work with you both individually

and as a couple, okay? I think that's what's most beneficial. The reason why is because you need to learn and process and deal with the ramification of being on the other side of their emotional wall. And they need help understanding why that wall is there in the first place and what they wanna do about it. And they need to learn how to bring it down if that's what they wanna do. And then the two of you need help breaking that pattern because stonewalling

is such an unhealthy dynamic, right? It's unhealthy for them, it's unhealthy for you, and it's unhealthy for your relationship. And this type of relationship dynamic rarely gets better on its own. It actually tends to just get worse. And so you have to address it if you want anything to change. Now, here's kind of the crappy part, to be perfectly honest with you. If you're in a relationship like this,

and you are the pursuer, you are not the person that is stone rolling. You are likely going to be the one that it's going to have to make a decision about the relationship. Meaning, you're gonna have to decide, is this something that I wanna live the rest of my life with? And if the answer is yes, you're going to need to figure out how to do that in a way where you are still healthy and happy, okay? And if your answer is I'm not sure or heck no, then you have some other decisions to make there as well, right?

And that's just the truth of it. Now, if you are curious about what coaching might look like, either for yourself and or with your partner or your spouse, I'd be more than happy to talk to you, of course. You can reach out to me anytime through my website, kahoskins.com. And I'm also, like I said, I think I said it earlier, I'm on social media, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Keri Hoskins Coaching. You can simply...

Kari Hoskins (16:40.534)

shoot me a message, a DM, whatever the heck those things are called, and I will definitely get back to you. Okay, my friends, that is what I have for you today. I hope that you found this helpful, and I'll talk to you next time.