What happens when you file for divorce in 2024 and the other person says “no”?
What happens when your solicitor receives no response for months?
When you try to sell the house, put forward offers, and hear nothing?
When “For Sale” signs are quietly removed in the night?
And then—one year later—you are accused, sued, or taken to court for the very delays you tried to prevent?
From the outside, this looks like confusion.
From a trauma-informed neuroscience perspective, it often isn’t.
It is mixed signalling used as control.
The Illusion of Inaction
In healthy conflict, delay is accidental.
In coercive dynamics, delay is instrumental.
Refusing to engage with legal processes while simultaneously blocking progress creates a state of chronic uncertainty. The nervous system does not experience this as neutral waiting—it experiences it as threat without resolution.
Neuroscience tells us that:
- The brain craves predictability
- Prolonged ambiguity keeps the stress response activated
- The body remains on alert when outcomes are deliberately withheld
This is not passive behaviour.
It is active destabilisation.
Mixed Signals and Cognitive Load
One moment there is silence.
The next, legal action.
One year of no responses—then sudden accusations.
This creates what neuroscience calls cognitive overload:
- The prefrontal cortex (logic, planning) becomes exhausted
- The amygdala (threat detection) stays switched on
- Memory, concentration, and decision-making deteriorate
Victims often ask themselves:
Did I miss something?
Am I imagining this?
How can both things be true?
That confusion is not a personal failure.
It is a designed outcome of mixed messaging.
Legal Processes as a Control Extension
In coercive relationships, separation does not always end control—it can relocate it.
Silence followed by litigation keeps the other person:
- Waiting
- Hyper-vigilant
- Spending time, money, and emotional energy
- Unable to fully move on
From a nervous-system perspective, this maintains a power asymmetry:
One person dictates timing.
The other remains reactive.
Why This Is So Destabilising
Trauma research shows that:
- Lack of response is processed similarly to rejection
- Inconsistent engagement mimics intermittent reinforcement
- Intermittent reinforcement is one of the strongest ways to condition stress responses
Your body stays braced because it never knows what comes next.
This is why people say:
“I was prepared. I had a lawyer. I was waiting. And then suddenly I was being blamed.”
The nervous system doesn’t experience this as a legal dispute.
It experiences it as ambush after endurance.
Reframing the Narrative
This is not about being “difficult.”
It is not about being “slow.”
It is not about failing to cooperate.
It is about having your agency stalled, then being punished for the stall.
From a trauma-informed lens, recognising this pattern is crucial:
- It reduces self-blame
- It restores reality testing
- It allows the nervous system to shift out of threat mode
The Body Knows
If you feel constantly on edge
If paperwork triggers panic
If legal emails spike your heart rate
If delays make you doubt yourself
That is not weakness.
That is a nervous system responding appropriately to prolonged, strategic uncertainty
