Reply To: Taking Action (Mechanics)

[Eric Disco]

Please provide some more context here. Do the two of you live together? If not, why was she at your place when you got home? Did she steal your phone and leave without you? What kind of relationship do you have?

Is it necessary that she initiates the next convo?

It’s almost always better if she does but there are a few cases where you may want to. But as a rule, yes, she should initiate.

What if I decide to take at least X days off and she reaches out within that time frame. Should I still respond? Be short?

If her behavior was egregious and then she contacts me too soon, I will take a longer time to respond to her, like 12 hours, or maybe not at all. This all depends on how egregious her behavior was.

Once I feel like talking again, should I elaborate on why I reacted the way I did? What if she asks why? Should I downplay it and just change the subject?

Sometimes you need to explicitly communicate in some way that it is her behavior that you are responding to. For example, if she gets angry at you for no reason, you could respond with, “I don’t communicate with people that way.” Typically though, if you respond immediately, she will get a pretty good idea that it was the last thing she did that was problematic. If she said she would text you that night and then doesn’t you can wait a very long time to return her text the next day. She’ll know why.

Is there any limit to how long you can use space and silence before women start catching on and predicting it?

There is no limit. You want her to catch on, that way she’ll stop doing it. You aren’t playing a game here. It’s real. You are distancing yourself from her when she acts inappropriately. You are taking away the prize: yourself.

She won’t be able to predict it because every time she does the same thing wrong, her punish should be more severe. Let’s say a week later she says she’ll text you again and then doesn’t, I would put her on ice for a lot longer.