TL;DR Love the silent treatment. It gives you room to breathe, and see that you do not need her approval.

I was just replying to a comment on /r/TheRedPill where a newly-unplugged person talked about how his LTR just started the silent treatment. I thought about all the times my wife used it on me, and the impact it had. You see, I was so bad into the beta, so buried under the feminine imperative bullshit, that I actually subconsciously wanted her approval to do things I wanted. Yes, I was so bad that if I tried to do something that I wanted to do, I would feel guilty about doing it if I had not previously gotten her approval. It was bad. I think she realized it to a certain extent, and would use it to reenforce her status as martyr in the relationship ("why do I always have to do all the things for the family, while you think you can just do what you want..." and so on). One of her favorite ways of enforcing this control was with the dreaded silent treatment. She would whip it out whenever she wanted, knowing that it would have an effect on me by denying me the validation and approval I was seeking from her.

I hated it. I hated it for many reasons. One of the more subtle reasons was that I always thought that women needed to communicate, that women needed to talk to their partners. I believed that this was so important to them that if a woman were to actually shut up for once, surely it was in response to a very bad thing. (It never occurred to me that she might just be a manipulative bitch...) Anyway, it sucked. It really sucked. Until...

One time she pushed me too far. She pushed me so far that I finally just said to myself, "fuck it, I don't care anymore..." And I fought back. When I hit back with a great one-line response to a shit test over dirty dishes, (Her: do you not know how to use the sink?! Me: no, could you leave the manual out for me to read?) she flew into a rage and shortly thereafter cut all communication (there was some more in between, but this post is getting too long). She stopped all but the most minimal communication needed to keep the family running. ("Honey, the house is on fire, you should probably call someone about that...")

My first thought was, "thank God, she is shutting up." I got a break from the abuse. I also realized that I no longer had to seek her approval to do what I wanted, since she was just ignoring me. It gave me a chance to see what it was like if I just did what i wanted because I wanted to, without her approval. I ate out when I wanted. I stayed up late when I wanted. I said and did whatever the fuck I wanted. I started teasing her about the silence. I started enjoying myself. I realized that the world ran just fine without her. I did not need her approval or validation to do what I wanted to. I can take that first step and defy her, and I'll be just fine. I saw it for myself with my own eyes: I am okay, and this stuff really works.

So for all you newly-unplugged men, do not fear the silent treatment. Do not be afraid. Enjoy it. Relish it. Play with it. Use it to your advantage. What is the worse she can do, start talking to you again?

Edit: More than six months later, and she has yet to try the Silent Treatment on me again. I still chuckle to myself when I think about it. After all of the arguments, verbal abuse, inane chatter about dumb shit, she actually thought not talking to me anymore was punishment. Women...