30% OFF·code APEX30

No contact · also called grey rock

how to cut someone off completely

No contact is a boundary of complete disengagement, used where a relationship cannot be made safe. Grey rock is its partial form for situations that cannot be fully exited — co-parenting, work — where you become deliberately unrewarding to engage with.

What to do about it

Decide in advance what you will do when they make contact, so the decision is not made under pressure.

Books that work on this

Each is a 90-day programme. Start with the first — later books assume the work in the earlier ones.

Part of the Connection series.

How people say it

Nobody looks this up by its clinical name. These are the ways it actually gets said.

  • should I go no contact
  • how to cut someone off completely
  • he keeps contacting me
  • grey rock method
  • how to stop responding to my ex
  • cutting off a family member
  • I broke no contact again
  • how long does no contact take

Written by Brian Spiker, who has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — the receipts. More terms in the encyclopedia.

About the author

Brian Spiker has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — a real service business with real customers, real Google reviews, and 13 years of work most self-help authors will never do.

He writes the way operators talk: brutal, funny, and built from work that actually has to get done. Verify everything at spikercarpetandtilecare.com.