You’ve recently felt that your partner hasn’t been treating you like you deserve to be treated. The honeymoon phase is abruptly over, and he chooses to focus on his education, work, friends, and family more than he focuses on you.
Maybe he’s been ignoring you, giving you the cold shoulder, or not spending any time with you at all. You’ve decided that need to figure out how to ignore your partner to make him realize what he is missing and to teach him a lesson.
You don’t want to break up, and truth be told, you’re head over heels in love with him. However, he needs to realize that he has to change his behavior and give you the time and affection you deserve.
He’s making you doubt that he’s “the one,” and you want to stop feeling this way. After all, you deserve to be respected and treated with dignity – not as an afterthought. And no matter how much you love him, you don’t deserve to be treated like trash.
Table of Contents
Step 1: Realign Your Priorities
If you’re attempting to teach your partner a lesson by ignoring him, you should first realign your priorities. If you’ve always put him first, now is the moment to change that. It’s time to teach him what it’s like to compete for your attention.
Here’s how you start: Rather than abandoning everything to be with him, tell him you’re busy. Allow him to miss your company for a while because that’s the only way he’ll understand how his life would be without you.
The first time you decline his invitation, it will feel like the most challenging thing you have ever done. But you have to keep reminding yourself that this is the only way he’ll see how valuable you are.
Step 2: Do Not Take the Initiative to Talk to Him
If you think your boyfriend takes you for granted, you should quit being the one who always calls or texts first.
Make your guy contact you first. Allow him to take some initiative. If you really want to call him but know that you shouldn’t, then distract yourself – go for a stroll or call your best friend instead. Be busy with something else so you don’t feel compelled to contact or text your guy.
If your boyfriend doesn’t take the hint, it’s okay. Don’t cave in and text him, no matter how much you want to.
Step 3: Set Clear Boundaries for Yourself
One important thing you will learn from this situation is the importance of self-esteem and setting limits early in a relationship. If you were scared to offend him by voicing your expectations unequivocally, this is your moment to put things right.
You probably noticed how he is half-assing the relationship but did not feel you had the authority to call him out on it, which made his behavior worse and worse. Your deliberate ignorance let him exploit your weaknesses and allowed him to never take responsibility for anything.
So, from now on, take responsibility for your behavior and make it clear to him what you want and need from the relationship. Be curt and assertive so that he respects your choices. If he senses your uncertainty, he will keep mistreating you.
Step 4: Stop Responding to Any Communication Initiated By Him
If you feel like your boyfriend is trying to patch things up but isn’t saying the things you want, then it’s time to ignore him a bit further and not let his unimpressive texts sway you.
Use the “silent treatment” as a weapon to reclaim power. Leave him guessing what’s going on in your head for a while without offering any explanation.
Silence is priceless. If words have failed to make your boyfriend understand what you want from him, it’s necessary to put some emotional distance between you two and disregard him until he realizes his error and learns to treat you with respect.
Step 5: Ignore His Phone Calls and Texts
The first step to effectively ignoring your boyfriend is learning how to keep your partner in the dark. If he is accustomed to knowing what you do and wherever you go, he will lose his curiosity. He will take a day or two to return your calls and ignore you or talk to his friends instead.
You need to reignite his interest in you by doing something drastic. To demonstrate your lack of interest, have boring, one-word texts with him. Giving him a taste of his own medicine could set him off and make him realize his error.
Step 6: If You Have to See Him Every Day, Don’t Make Eye Contact
Avoid making eye contact with your boyfriend when he meets you in person and asks about your day. Looking him in the eyes may drive you to give in, and you will no longer be able to ignore him.
If you want him to feel bad about ignoring you, you’ll have to hold firm until he knows you won’t put up with his hot and cold behavior anymore. Make an effort to be less devoted to your boyfriend. You must show him how happy you can be, with or without him.
What does a guy think when you ignore him? Remember that he is just as depressed as you are, but doesn’t say so. If you turn your back on him, he’ll probably notice how you felt when he did that to you.
Step 7: Be Assertive
Take control over what you say and how you say it. You don’t have to be rude to make sense and be clear about your objectives. Good foundations are necessary for strong partnerships, and that includes excellent communication with your partner.
He may have misinterpreted you and found a way to get away with his lackluster attitude by misconstruing everything you said. Make a distinct plan of action that reminds him of who you are and what you’re capable of.
Step 8: Pay Attention to Your Physical Appearance
While we’d like to believe that genuine love is blind, the concept doesn’t work for everyone. The way you present yourself or your aura significantly impacts how others see you and construct their image of you.
If you believe that improving your appearance would make you more attractive to others, or if your boyfriend has been whining and comparing you to other women, it’s time to get to work on that hot revenge bod.
Change your clothing or get a makeover. It will undoubtedly give you a leg up on your partner, and he’ll come running back to you like a lost puppy.
Step 9: Live Your Life Out Loud
We all know we should never put our personal life on hold just because we’re in a relationship, yet it happens from time to time, and we all unknowingly do it. You devote all your time and attention to your relationship, forgetting about the people who supported you before this person that you now want to ignore.
Now that you’ve decided to ignore your boyfriend, feel free to change how you live your life. It’s also an excellent way to ignore your partner for a while to teach him a lesson.
Live your life out loud and let your boyfriend know how much you’re enjoying yourself when he’s not around. Invite your bestie out and go dancing instead of wasting your days waiting to patch things up with him. Have a fantastic time partying and reminiscing about the good old days.
Step 10: Start Flirting With Other People
Sometimes, an effective way of showing your value to your partner is by making him envious of other people who are interested in you.
He may devalue you so much that he doesn’t notice or cherish your love and devotion. You can teach him a lesson by becoming closer to someone else and dedicating a significant amount of time to them.
He might as well understand what he’s going to lose if he discovers you missing or unreachable. Also, talk about and exuberantly praise this new relationship. Knowing that he has some significant competition in the neighborhood could drive him insane – and bring him closer to you.
Step 11: Take Sex Off the Table
Deny him sex and intimacy to demonstrate your commitment to your position. It wouldn’t make sense if you still had sex with him and went on not talking to him. For a man like him, that would be the ideal situation.
The more you deny him sex, the more contempt you can express.
If he’s been using you primarily for sex, he will undoubtedly try to engage you in some act by whispering sweet nothings in your ear. Understand that it’s a trap and that saying a firm “no” is a clear sign of your indifference.
If he does not want your soul, he cannot have your body.
Step 12: Take a Break
When it comes to long-term partnerships, it’s common to see the spark fade as soon when the honeymoon period is over. Men are drawn to women who can keep the attraction going.
Monotony and repetition can lead to boredom and, as a result, being taken for granted or undervalued in relationships.
When you’re on a break, ignore his calls and messages. Don’t use social media to tag him or to send him messages.
Taking a break from online networks is an excellent idea. This might pique his interest, and he may wonder where you are and what has suddenly made you lose interest. And, if the relationship still has promise, he’ll notice the void you’ve left in his life.
Step 13: Spend Time With People Who Love You Unconditionally
Instead of feeling lonely at home, spend time with your pets, friends, and family. This passive-aggressive situation will make you anxious and unhappy, and if you don’t divert your attention by spending time with loved ones, you’ll constantly be checking your phone to see if he’s responded (which is exactly what you’ve been trying to avoid).
Constantly checking on your boyfriend will exacerbate your mood and make it difficult for you to cope with the situation calmly. When everything else fails, call your bestie, tell her what’s up, and then leave the rest to her.
She’ll make sure you’re distracted from your worries. Take a short getaway or have a girls’ night out. Going on fun expeditions around the city will distract you from the dispute for a while.
Does Ignoring Your Boyfriend Work?
Call it the cold shoulder, the silent treatment, or ghosting. Ignoring your boyfriend is the pinnacle of passive-aggressive behavior and clearly indicates that you’re mad at someone.
Being ignored or neglected by someone who usually dotes on you is a stomach-churning experience. You may feel awful and neglected when your boyfriend starts acting like you don’t exist anymore, and the obvious remedy for this may be ignoring your boyfriend.
But does it really work?
When you ignore your boyfriend, he will miss you and want to tell you all about his day, the little victories and joys. He’ll especially miss your company when he has had a particularly bad day.
However, you just won’t be available or online – or in the mood to respond to his texts. All his messages will either be left on “seen” or not even that. He’ll become frustrated and won’t understand why you have suddenly turned so cold.
The classic silent treatment, also known as stonewalling, happens when a person refuses to interact with you by declining to speak to you or acknowledging your presence.
In contrast, ghosting occurs when a partner eliminates themselves from your life by keeping you from contacting them on all social networking sites and messaging applications, effectively closing all channels of communication and leaving you unable to contact them.
Ignoring a man is only effective if the man wants you. You can put in a lot of effort into ignoring somebody who doesn’t want to be with you but end up getting a big fat nothing. So, before taking up arms against your boyfriend, find out if they actually appreciate you or not.
Conclusion
If you give your boyfriend the silent treatment to teach him a lesson, there’s a good chance he’ll take action and change his behavior.
It hurts him to realize how easily the person he loves can change. This hurt will compel him to speak with you and drive him to investigate the behavior change. As a result, this shift in your relationship dynamic will motivate him to take action.
He’ll do whatever it takes to improve things once he realizes he’s the source of the problem and give you a billion reasons to stay with him and give him another chance.
