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Withholding affection or withdrawing favor is not okay. It’s emotionally manipulative, psychologically abusive, and it’s what I call, “The Yo Yo.” It’s that place where I don’t know where I stand with you, am I in? Am I Out? Am I canceled forever? Am I supposed to do something to win back your affection? What did I even do to lose it?
(Don’t confuse this emotionally abusive, manipulative tactic with just needing to take a break or temporarily walking away. Or deciding to just stay away from negative or toxic people.)
This is called “The Yo Yo.” Stringing you along. Yanking you back and forth. Withholding affection to punish you and keep you constantly off center, second guessing yourself. Making you feel as if you have to dance on eggshells.
Blech. I just hate this behavior. Also, I don’t play this game. I come from this place already, and I have had to learn how to not repeat the pattern by refusing to play this game myself.
Hubby and I are really miracles, because we are both very avoidant, we come from dysfunction, and yet here we are decades later still able to go, okay, as soon as the heat of the moment passes and cools, I’ll still be here, we’ll still have a connection. I will not withdraw my affection. It’s not always so easy.
You know who else is like that? God. Yep, that’s where I learned what actually is healthy behavior, however flawed and imperfect my attempts to reflect it are. The Bible says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God does not play The Yo Yo game. He does not withhold His affection in order to punish, control, and manipulate us. God is God, if He wants us to do something, He can just send a whale, swallow us up, and spit us out right where He wants us.
Yes, I am talking about relationships, marriage especially, but really this post is about social media and facebook. Ha! Trigger alert, but it is FB that has gone and pushed my buttons. I am currently locked out of my account. I have found myself in FB jail several times over the years. Do I threaten, harass, or intimidate people? No. Do I post pornography or engage in excessive foul language? No. All I ever do is politely disagree with current narratives, somebody reports me for having caused them great offense, and poof, I’m locked out of my own account without so much as the opportunity to defend or explain myself.
What has gone and got my knickers all in a knot is that they have now decided to lift their ban. It’s like an abuser showing up on your doorstep with wine and roses….wanting to borrow some money and the car.
I don’t play that game. Facebook can just go get itself some therapy, build a relationship with Jesus, and learn how to treat people with some respect. I am not your plaything, Facebook. I’ve now washed my hair, moved on, and I’m seeing other people. You aren’t the only monkey on the monkey tree.
I am chuckling and in relatively good humor, but I just think somebody else needs to hear my words as much as I do.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Yea, I have been locked out several times too… But I am accused of re-posting God’s group here on FB too many times a day… Recently I have been posting to 30 faith-based sites with over 10 million people total… God has been good !! haven’t been flagged for a few months !! Blessings in Christ, bruce
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Amen! I am so pleased you have been able to get the word out. God is good indeed! Glad you haven’t been flagged recently. I sometimes joke, if you’re going to be a trouble maker, be a trouble maker for the Lord. That’s the best kind to be. 🙂
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Never been a fan of Facebook.. Glad you stepped away from it.
We don’t need Facebook. We are customers, and Facebook’s primary
product is entertainment. Facebook needs us.
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Well said, Tom. It’s only taken me about 3 or four times of them treating me poorly for no reason and then reinstating me for no reason to figure out they need me a whole lot more than I need them.
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I finally got fed up with being put in detention whenever I attempted to post something that the Ministry of Truth didn’t like. Apparently FB thinks they can treat people like $#@&% and we’ll just keep using their stupid site anyway. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. I’m FB-free now and don’t miss it a bit. Now I have more time for blogging, not to mention more time for lurking about other people’s blogs and making snarky comments.
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That’s a really good observation about how ‘cancelling’ and ‘banning’ is a social version of the ‘withholding affection’ tactic. So many of these ‘Great Reset’ utopian visions all seem to be based on (often faulty) parenting strategies. Incidentally, ‘withholding affection’ in a family setting usually gets the same results that FB (or ‘Meta’ these days) got from you. It doesn’t work.
“Hubby and I are really miracles, because we are both very avoidant, we come from dysfunction, and yet here we are decades later still able to go,”—in reality a couple coming from dysfunction usually does work out well, despite what pop psychology propaganda says. People from those backgrounds tend to understand each other.
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Good point about how people from dysfunction can often understand one another. Pop culture psychology is often wrong about most things.
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I was recently threatened by them to remove a comment I made or I could be put in FB jail and did I remove it nope and they didn’t put me in jail…yet. Being with my second husband for nearly 20 years they have nothing on him. He would turn his back on me literally when I was talking to him and told me it was because everything I said was BS. So FB has nothing on him and if they ban me I am done with them it is as simple as that. I have been in too many abusive relationships and I am not going to be in another.
Me and my man we don’t play those games either it is not worth the damage it does. I will take a little bit to calm down, but if he were to come up and try to hug me I would never turn my back on him or push him away ever. My mother was great at the yo-yo game and taught me well and I use to use it all the time. A friend of mine angered me several years ago and we lived in the same house with other friends and I looked through him for nearly a year as if he wasn’t even there. I am not proud of it, but that is how well my mom taught me to play that game because she did that to me and it was better than a beating.
I have gotten better over the years though and I never pulled that crap on my kids either. I knew how that felt as a kid and it wasn’t good. They know even now they can come to me about anything and I will be there for them.
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Yes, I hear you. My mother was also big on withholding affection. Still is, it just doesn’t really affect me anymore.
You are also right about having experienced enough abuse to know what it looks like. Like, I’ve already been there and I even bought a tee shirt, so we won’t be going back. 😊
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Same here I am never going back either and I think I will buy a T-shirt as well.
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Great post! Had no idea this can happen in social media. Whatever happened to free speech and taking responsibility for our own feelings, whether offended or not. I also related to your notion from a relationship perspective as I’ve been myself guilty of it. Not so for conscious, malicious reasons but because that’s what I learned growing up in an emotionally unpredictable family where love could be withheld or flooded my way according to laws I didn’t understand. So I repeated that behavior just because I wasn’t sure; I was afraid, and so things became reciprocal and transactional. But I had to admit I own how I feel and what I do with, to stop the blame and change, to give unconditionally because I am created in the image of an unconditional giver. It’s hard and takes a lot of courage, and I am in it to keep practicing. Not perfect but better than yesterday. Thanks for reminding me of what that behavior looks like.
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Nice to hear from you!
Oh yes, a big amen to your comment. Many of us learned this behavior from others, often while growing up, and just didn’t really know that there was another way to be in the world. Children can help to open our eyes, we would never treat our own children like that, casting them out of our lives every time they got on our nerves. Well, we are God’s children, He is an even better parent, and that’s not in His nature either.
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Not a great tactic with me, either. I quit after one try. If it is done, we are done.
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I can be a bit more persistent then that, or foolish if you prefer. It usually takes me about 3-4 times before I finally yell, “Ichabod.” A guy taught me that and it always makes me laugh. It’s from the Bible, shake the dust from your feet, but Ichabod actually means, “here there be no glory.”
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Ah, The yo-yo. ’tis the manipulative behavior of narcissists, propagandists, brain washers, and other hypnotists.
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Yep. Cut that yo yo cord. 🙂
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Maybe you should post this one last piece as your Facebook farewell.
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Ha! That might be fun, but nah. People will just have to find me on WP, mewe, gab, or twitter. I spend enough time on the internet already. Have to go smell the roses once in a while. 🙂
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