My last Ex was ALL about the silent treatment, but I came to realize there was nothing conscious about it. It wasn't like "he did x or y so therefore I shall be silent and miserable". It was more of like a knee jerk reaction.
I remember asking her one time "do you even know what your mad about?" and there was no answer. She literally didn't even know, lol.
I'll totally admit I screwed up at times, but most of the time she just
felt like I did something, when really I did nothing intentionally. She
felt I did, so therefore I did. And now we are fighting, again and again and again.
It was truly exhausting. I strait up told her "when you shut down, that just makes it 100% worse, please just try and express what you feel and we can talk about it, but the silence it just making me anxious and worried and upset"
She seemed to get my point, but by that point there was no saving that relationship
And the one time I tried to give her silent treatment, she pretty much had a mental breakdown with being ignored. It didn't work at all. There were no revelations like "wow, this really sucks and I shouldn't do it to him", it just turned into a massive fight. So that didn't work