Sulking - Why?

busiscoming2

C_Mababejive wrote: »

I think we must make a distinction between sulking and withdrawl which may have similar outward appearance. Withdrawl may be due to stress,anxiety or depression.

In this case it is sulking.

cakeforbrains

Is he good at communicating the rest of the time? Maybe he, like others have said above, doesn't really know how to say what he's thinking or doesn't want to shout/have an argument.

maman

geoffky wrote: »

Sulking is for children.
And i do not tolerate it from grown ups..

Just as a light aside: our nephew (when he was about six) said to DH 'Do you want me to teach you how to sulk Uncle xxxx?

He'd obviously realised at his young age that it was a valued skill that brought great rewards in terms of attention so he wanted to share it with his favourite uncle!
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Vicky123

It's passive/aggressive, form of punishment and infantile.
I hate sulking and can't deal with it at all.

McKneff

Pfft, if my oh was sulking, the last thing I would do is ask him if he wants a cup of coffee.

I would just make my own, making sure he heard me doing it, take it into another room and read the paper and let him get on with it. Its extremely childish

summerof0763

my ex husband used to sulk for at least a week at a time, only started after we married, and used to drive me demented, he was a big baby, hence he now my ex, thank god lol x

valk_scot

Well it's a bit late now to do anything about it, after putting up with it for twenty years. Personally speaking though I'd have given him what...two warnings the first two times he'd pulled that one on me and then dropped him like a hot brick on the third repeat. By putting up with it you're letting him away with it tbh.

You could always buy a good set of earplugs and wear them 24/7, of course. Then it wouldn't matter if he sulked or not, you'd not notice.

pinkshoes

busiscoming2 wrote: »

In this case it is sulking.

Aka "man moods"! At least female moods tend to be predictably once a month!

fluffnutter

Sulking is passive-aggressive behaviour and primarily used by those who find it difficult to express their emotions yet need you to know they're cross. If you adapt your behaviour to accommodate their sulking, it's also wielding power. If you don't, it's still a power game, just not a very successful one. Whether or not they have a reasonable right to feel cross is neither here nor there, it's just a manifestation of how they're feeling.

For some people it's easier to sulk than to say 'I'm cross with you'. It's invariably learnt behaviour and people who sulk have either learnt it directly from sulky parents or have grown up in a environment where directly expressing emotions was not the norm.

I wouldn't laugh at a sulker, it won't help. I'd just carry on as normal, as if they're not sulking. In the longer term they might want to explore why they find it so difficult to express emotion in a constructive way.

Google passive-aggressive behaviour. Personally I find it really tiresome. Thankfully I'm not married to a sulker.

no1catman

busiscoming2 wrote: »

Me and DH have been together for about 20 years. He used to sulk for a couple of days at a time and would never tell me what was wrong. We got past that and really he hadn't done it for many years until recently. He had a sulk for a day last week and is having a bit of a mini sulk at the moment. I say mini as usually I get sent to Coventry but he is at least grunting answers to things like 'do you want coffee?'

My question is to all you sulkers out there: Why do it and what do you actually get out of it?

BTW my way of dealing with it now is to laugh at him and tell him how pathetic he is being and in my mind I just accept it as a sort of mental illness that occurs now and again. (Not meaning to offend those with mental health problems but its my way of justifying him being silly).

Sulking could be seen as no-aggressive way of demonstrating disapproval of something that has been done or said.
Why would someone, who is 'sulking' stop as a result of your aggressive verbal taunting of him!
No wonder it's been going on for years.
Perhaps, he feels there's no point in saying what's wrong - because either he'll say something he might regret later in the 'heat of the moment' or there's no point, his point of view won't be understood anyway!