Stuck in a passive aggressive marriage?

Can you still be happy in a passive aggressive marriage?

Here is the map to understand your situation:

http://alfaprimalm.hubpages.com/hub/how-to-survive-a-passive-aggressive-marriage

Of course, you can always write to me:

Neil Warner
neil@passiveaggresive.com

How the passive aggressive game is played in your marriage?

There are many interactions, but mainly they are repetitive....One person wants to get near and makes moves to invite the other person into a shared activity that includes some intimacy; the PA person senses the wish/need underneath the invitation and freaks out, and tries to build up some reason for the distance, the coldness, the separation....whatever you want to call the wall between the two.


And, in this play, you can spend your life....WHY? Find a tentative response here, in this clear and deep article:

A Passive Aggressive Husband needs his anger target: Is that you?

Are there long, hostile silences in your home?

Well, you already know that this is a special kind of isolation, right?...
no reasons, no dispute, but you are left in the dark of why you are being ignored by his silence...


And if you ask, you will be answered with a curt "Nothing, why do you ask"? response!


Want to know more? We have the complete description of what you need to have instead of long silences, at the Passive aggressive husband site!

See you there! and inviting you to leave your own comments.....

How much do you need to be needed?

Humans have social needs....at the least, we all need to engage in some kind of relationship with others, to develop and grow.

Because we all have human needs: basically we need to look at both spouses' reciprocal needs for love and connection.

Some people displaying passive aggressive behaviors are also trying to satisfy their needs for love and connection...but given their ambivalence they need someone to be there, with them, as their object of love but also as the object of their hidden hostility.

Because they have developed a toxic image of what a relationship is while growing up, now try to duplicate the kind of relationship they learned before, this time with another person, with themselves playing the controlling role. As an individual, he needs to pick up a woman who will agree to be on the receiving end of his disowned anger, so he can play out the only dynamics he knows, the one from his childhood...

He needs a good, intelligent adversary to provide him with expectations and demands he will then be able to resist and warp, as he plays the interpersonal routine he learned with his first family. Why do you need to experience this kind of treatment is beyond this posting, but something that really needs examining in depth.

Once initiated the relationship, he then needs to frustrate you a little bit every day, building up in you a pattern of frustration so high that eventually you get to express the anger that he has been repressing all his life.

Why is it that you are in this kind of relationship? Well, for openers, some women have a higher need to be needed. Being needed is a confirmation of our own worth, we have been told....right?

Interesting? Please, continue reading about this tale of passive aggressive behaviors!

Are you missing a bit of old fashioned conflict?

Perhaps some of our readers are asking What???....and others are saying Yes!



Some people could just now be missing a good confrontation, one of those that clean the air and allow you to discharge pent up thoughts and feelings...so you are ready to reconnect again, baggage dropped, and complaints aired enough.
At least, you know where you are...if you share your life with someone so scared of confrontation that systematically avoids conflict, then you are in another pickle.

If your partner, being told long ago that expressing thoughts and feelings that are negative is socially unacceptable, avoids conflicts, then you are in very shaky ground. You never know for sure what the person is experiencing....but you know enough to be sure that the trash is building up; resentment grows under the shield of silence, and some storm is brewing in the horizon.

How do you know? well, you learn fast that the signals are there, for you to see: “Forgetting" to deliver what you need and he promised; couching his anger in kind words followed by a sharp comment on you, agreeing with you and then telling others you’re wrong, being habitually late to meetings where you are invested – these are just a few of the ways a passive-aggressive person manages to express his hostility while still maintaining his “good guy” image.

Using passive-aggression is a way to control situations and people without seeming to be in control, or avoiding accountability. It is a very weird way of being there, but not taking responsibility. By allowing others -in this case you- to take charge, he leaves himself only one option for getting what he wants: sabotage.

What is the solution? To train yourself on assertive techniques, of course. Once you have identified the various ways in which he hides from taking on his share of tasks, you can know when he is hiding.

There is a sequence of words, the "I" assertive sequence, that works in this way:

When you....(here you mention the behavior you want to target) I feel (include your feelings) because (explain how his behavior affects you in a direct way).

"When you make fun of me in front of your friends, telling about my shopping expenses, I feel disappointed because it makes me look as if I'm an idiot that doesn't know how to take care of money."

"When you forget to come back to the house in time for us to go together to the doctor's for our child, I feel very sad because you leave me to face his indications alone, without any support."

This way of confronting him is not magic, but takes away the sting of reproach and accusations that he can experience and surely will make him hide again and be angry at you. What you want to say is the impact that his behavior (no more ignored by you, carefully described as fact) has on you.

If you practice this way of reporting your feelings to him, and expect nothing afterwards (don't wait for his excuses or apologies) you will give him all the impact of his behavior without the chance of covering it up with his logic, silence or pouting. Say the phrase and walk away.

Can you get a passive aggressive person to change?

All the time, when we talk with long suffering wives,
the first question on passive aggressive relationships is:



How the other person doing this behavior will change?


Well, we could be going around and around with the answer, but if you really want to know what is the lever to make him change, you probably would wish to visit this blog about


Passive Aggressive Husbands.

So, here is your answer! direct, unvarnished and straightforward! Now, what are you going to do with your relationship?

Stress, conflict and the wrong way of keeping the peace

Recent research has shown that our bodies are intertwined with all our emotional states. Having constant stress means that we are faced with the need to find peaceful surroundings.

What happens when you look for peace and love at home, and you find too many squabbles? You are searching for refuge and find instead constant quarreling with your spouse? Wouldn’t it be healthier to be able to go home and find loving companionship? This kind of home will give your health a boost, and make your heart sing with joy.

We need to say that couple fights are inevitable given that both parties, male and female need to start a fight sometimes when in need of refreshing the connection and companionship, and to keep the relationship growing. But fighting without skills can do a lot of damage to your health and your relationship. It’s the quality of the fighting the factor that matters in preventing unhealthy consequences.

There is the special case of marital conflict when one partner shows passive aggressive behaviors, where a supposedly mature person behaves in a way that pushes their own share of responsibilities to their partner’s side.

And if the partner tries to redress this issue, the response they get is not a good conversation about “what do we need to do now to improve”, but blaming, accusations, bad temper and either sulking or complete withdrawal. Then, women retreat.

When women make the decision to be silent, they are choosing the short way out to protect themselves from a sad situation, and it also signals that they have given up the hope to be treated with respect. Giving up your right to be respected is so stressful that affects women making them more vulnerable to heart attacks.

Now we know more about the price women pay for “keeping the peace by self-silencing”: studies led by Dana Crowley Jack , a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., have linked the self-silencing trait to numerous psychological and physical health risks, including depression, eating disorders and heart disease.

The quality of the interaction hinges on the mutual respect parties can show for each other, even in the heat of an argument.

Knowing this, there has to be a way to learn how to create a safe environment where both spouses can equally communicate with respect, and this is the area of fair fighting skills.

These are a set of skills that help partners to clarify the situation, allow both sides to recognize their needs and provide a way to find a solution without violence.

Women due to their ignorance of methods to fight fair and assert, find themselves being more attacked, hurt and put down. That is the reason women need fair fighting training! Do you want to learn the necessary skills to be more assertive? Do you need training in fair fighting techniques to deal with any passive aggressive partner in your life?

Here is the way to emotional healing.

The power of recognition to change toxic silence

Is this barren land the territory of your relationship?







"My husband and I can barely have a discussion about anything without us getting thoroughly annoyed with each other (subject matter can be anything from the most mundane to the most sophisticated) because we are both hurting and feeling unloved and unfufilled by the other....so there’s not much of an effort to really engage.

Neither of us is excited by the other person’s ideas or feelings anymore, it is really all logistics.

The bad communication, constant traveling, blame blame blame and hurt hurt hurt followed by loneliness loneliness loneliness all happened first and then you add that passive aggression that blocks any initiative to communicate and we end up living like two zombies together...."

The interesting point is that both feel unloved by the other....Reading some of Chloe Madanes' work, she mentions six human needs, of which love and connection is one very important and the other is recognition.

What if, (assuming that you have a bit of energy to apply to your relationship), you decide that you are fulfilling some of these needs in your partner? To break the cycle, perhaps to change the dynamics...whatever the motivation, it will be the equivalent of a guerrilla attack on the other....At the moment when he or she is waiting exactly nothing, you provide some recognition? It's shocking!

It doesn't need to be anything elaborate, enough to say "It's good that you filled the gas tank in the car, so I can use it now...." and leave it there. Find something real to appreciate, there is no need to invent any fake characteristic because it will received as a cruel irony.

Basically, see with other eyes: find some positive aspect, and mention it with no sarcasm or irony.
And wait. See the changes....there must be some softening of positions, or less anger in the air, or suddenly the silence becomes communication again.

We all have those needs...it's important to offer positive reinforcement of the truly good qualities of the other. Don't evaluate if the other deserves or not some praise, just do it. And see the dynamics change for good.

BASICS OF PA BEHAVIOR

REMEMBERING THE BASIC DINAMICS OF PASSIVE AGGRESSION

If there is a lot of hidden aggression in his interactions with you, and you don't see it coming, you will be presented with some painful situations.


You can have your loved one:
• Eternally making excuses to avoid his routine family obligations;
• Performing a task so slowly and inefficiently that you decide to do it;
• Always complaining of being unappreciated while doing less and less;
• Showing a permanent pessimistic mood, even when all is going well;
• Making attempts at humor mixed with hurtful put downs and sarcasm toward you;
• Agree with you in private, then go out and side with others against you.

If passive-aggression is “crazy-making behavior,” which is its target? Of course it is your self-esteem! You, the perplexed person on the receiving end, already engaged with a passive aggressive husband or boyfriend, who doesn't know if she is loved or hated or both at the same time.....


You are so confused by his double message, (the contradiction between what he says and what he does), that you feel like screaming while he remains calm.

Women are supposed to use low voices and avoid shouting, and if you do, it suddenly seems like you are the aggressor!!! After several episodes of this routine, you end up believing this yourself. Then you are ready to apologize to him to end the discussion, and recover some peace....

The combined impact of these two behaviors will eventually wreck your relationship. Passive-aggression played in earnest, as if you were his enemy and not his partner, will eventually cripple any relationship, and especially an intimate one, where both have to trust and depend on each other to be safe and prosper.

If he continues the denial of his feelings of affection and connection with you, he will prevent the development of true intimacy and trust. Now, you are alone, because who wants to live with a person they can’t trust?

Searching for more information and support?
Here is more!

Our PA Husband Teleseminar was a success!

HERE IS THE POSTING BY LADYBEAMS, at our friend blog:

If you didn’t know already, last night was our first seminar for victims of passive aggressive partners or spouses. I thought it was a great stepping stone to the future. We had a great turn-out and conversations were flying. Thank you so much to all who joined us.

As usual there is always a technological glich or two, and this time was no exception. I personally like where you can talk and hear each other vs. a chatroom like atmosphere, but we got some good conversations and hopefully gave some good information. I’m looking forward to using some of the conversation here.

Nora Femenia launched her new book last nite at a discounted price for participants in the call. For a limited time still this discount will be page up. The book is titled “The Art of Living With A Passive Aggressive Husband”.

Just reading the page is helpful, as you can see. It’s a heck of a package, as she’s offering 2 coaching sessions when you purchase the book.

Here is the friendly blog:

http://padontstandforpaloalto.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/the-victims-of-passive-aggression/

Limit the Passive Aggressive Husband's impact!

When dealing with a passive aggressive husband, it is easy to get frustrated. Their forgetfullness, lack of involvement, and all around negativity is bound to take a toll on you. While you may feel that it is impossible for him to change, taking one small step at a time will bring forth positive changes.


From a personal email received yesterday, we know that: "He absolutely has an passive aggressive personality. Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, is his fault. He gets angry and he can walk around the house giving me the silent treatment for days, even weeks. I am so hurt by it because it is so hard for me. I am a talker and communicator. I thrive on it. I teach high school."

If your husband is often behaving in a passive aggressive way, you must be sure to always be direct and straightfoward when speaking to him. Do not allow his passive aggressiveness to make you passive aggressive as well. Think of a defiant child.

When a child misbehaves, their behavior should not be rewarded, but corrected. A passive aggressive husband knows your weaknesses and will exploit them to his benefit. Do not fall into this trap. He is just trying to upset you and bring you down.

When setting limits with your husband, you first must decide what you would like him to change and what you are willing to live with. Realistically speaking, you will have to live with some of his quirks. Know what you absolutely need changed to survive in this relationship, and don’t be unrealistic in your expectations. To start with, you could ask him what he is willing to give.

Your passive aggressive husband may want to change as well, but maybe he needs your help in doing so. Try to stay patient with him and remember that he is breaking a life long habit. Your support can make all the difference.

The passive aggressive husband will often fall back on excuses to make himself feel better. You should never accept his excuses, as doing so will only cause him to repeat this behavior even more. If your husband has a problem of constantly forgetting things, you could try asking him how it would make him feel if you behaved in that same way towards the things that make his own life comfortable.

It is important to set limits with a passive aggressive husband. Remember to be realistic and stick to your limits. And, try to have fun, thinking on raising your teenager husband...

You have been following my postings, or Neil's postings, posting your own comments live, and starting a conversation in the blog passiveaggressivehusband.com well beyond what we had anticipated.

This is the proof of the need to have a more personal conversation on the issues of passive aggression.

Now, we have news for you!

We will have a live Teleseminar, to ask questions and get answers about the issues of living with a passive aggressive person.

You will have the opportunity to ask your question, listen to the answers, type your comments and in general, share a supportive environment with other people in the same situation.

I will be there, offering my best strategies to improve your life.

Please, feel free to ask anything, we will provide advice and support to all of you there. We have already several good questions to talk about!

Please, go to this link,

http://passiveaggressivehusband.com/ask

and fill up your question. You will receive a confirmation email, with the information necessary to participate in this FREE online seminar.

Just now, save this date:

DATE: Tuesday, November 24th 2009
TIME: 4pm Pacific Time / 7pm Eastern Time

Waiting to see you there, and sending you all our love and support!

Nora Femenia
Creative Conflict Resolutions

PD: Remember that you need to go here to include your question!

http://passiveaggressivehusband.com/ask

We are waiting for your response!

Creative Conflict Resolutions, 3415 Galt Ocean Drive, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33308, USA

Living With a Passive Aggressive Husband

Is your husband passive aggressive? The funny thing about a passive aggressive husband is that they don’t really act in an an angry manner, but they act out in different ways. While an aggressive husband may take out their anger by yelling or even hitting, the passive aggressive husband attacks his wife in an underhanded, indiret way.

A passive aggressive husband is angry, but instead of expressing his anger directly, he rebels in a more subtle way. Examples of this are constantly “forgetting” to pick up something at the store for you, secretly sabotaging your efforts, unreliability, and fault finding.

Passive aggressive husbands will seldom settle disagreements with their wives, leaving the wife feeling frustrated and empty. Because of this the wife often avoids conflict with him, since nothing is ever settled anyway. It is important to pick your fights wisely, however, shying away from confrontation, will only make things worse. Identify which behaviors bother you the most, and speak to him about it.

Sit down with your husband and try setting some agreements with him. Remember, this is not a time to argue. If he starts getting upset, take some time to cool off before starting the conversation again. A passive aggressive husband almost never makes a decision on his own. They want you to be the decision maker so if anything goes wrong, you are to blame. Perhaps you can encourage your husband to make more decisions on his own, by letting him know that you made your own decision and his decision will not change yours. This projects an image of you being able to do your life without being paralyzed by his inaction, but it has some costs.

The passive aggressive husband always will portray himself as the victim of your actions and decisions. The reason for this is because he wants people to feel sorry for him. He most likely has low self esteem himself, which is why he takes so much out on you. To stop this behavior, repeat that whatever he is doing, its his own decision and not yours. You preserve the right to decide on your own life; so you are ready to do things on your own. Speak this position to him in a calm, matter of fact way and see the impact on him. He can stay home and sulk or be resentful, but you will begin to do the things you like.

In a marriage you always have a choice. Changing a passive aggressive husband is a difficult project where you have more to lose if you get too emotionally involved with him even if this mean that you need to reevaluate your feelings for him.

"Forgetfulness" by a Passive Aggressive Spouse

I’d like you to meet Tim and Jane. Outwardly, Tim appears happy, agreeable, and obliging. But when Jane asks Tim to do something for her, things never seem to get done properly, or sometimes get done at all. When Jane asks Tim to pick up the dry cleaning on the way home, he forgets. When she asks Tim to help tidy up the living room, he does such a poor job that Jane ends up doing it all herself. Why does this always happen? Tim always says he’ll do it, but very rarely does he ever follow through.

Does this sound familiar? Then you may be dealing with a passive aggressive spouse. The passive aggressive spouse is angry inside, but is unable, or unwilling to share his feelings with his spouse in an upfront manner. As a result, he takes out his frustrations on his wife in a passive way.

A common sign of passive aggressiveness is a spouse that is constantly forgetting to do things. Just as Tim forgets to get the dry cleaning, or forgets to clean the living room, the passive aggressive spouse will say “sure, I’ll do it,” but in the end, he will deliberately lose sight of what he had just agreed to do. This forgetfullness may seem innocent at first, but eventually it will grow into a routine with the ability to destroy a marriage.

This pattern of passive aggressiveness often begins in childhood. Think of what happens when you ask a child to put away their toys. The child will say yes, but instead procrastinates, starts playing with something else, and ignores what he should be doing. Before you know it, an hour has passed an not a single toy has been put away. While this is acceptable behavior for a child, it is not acceptable for the pattern to continue into adulthood.

If your spouse is frequently "forgetting" to do things, you may want to consider that it is passive aggressive behavior. What do you do next? It depends of the relationship, the time you have been married to him (the longer the time, the more resistant to changes he will be) and of your needs to really have his support...

More information on this kind of passive aggression and its impact on marriages can be found on our blog.

Setting Limits With a Passive Aggressive Husband

When dealing with a passive aggressive husband, it is easy to get frustrated. Their forgetfulness, lack of involvement, and all around negativity are bound to take a toll on you. While you may feel that it is impossible for him to change, taking one small step at a time will bring forth positive changes.

If your husband is often behaving in a passive aggressive way, you must be sure to always be direct and straightforward when speaking to him. Do not allow his passive aggressiveness to make you passive aggressive as well. Think of a defiant child.When a child misbehaves, their behavior should not be rewarded, but corrected.

A passive aggressive husband knows your weaknesses and will exploit them to his benefit. Do not fall into this trap. He is just trying to upset you and bring you down.

When setting limits with your husband, you first must decide what you would like him to change and what you are willing to live with. Realistically speaking, you will have to live with some of his quirks. Know what you absolutely need changed, and don’t be unrealistic in your expectations.

Your passive aggressive husband may want to change as well, but maybe he needs your help in doing so. Try to stay patient with him and remember that he is breaking a life long habit. Your support can make all the difference.

The passive aggressive husband will often fall back on excuses to make himself feel better. You should never accept his excuses, as doing so will only cause him to repeat this behavior even more. If your husband has a problem of constantly forgetting things, you could try asking him how it would make him feel if you behaved in that same way.

It is important to set limits with a passive aggressive husband. Remember to be realistic and stick to your limits, while limiting your expectations of what he can give to you.

Is Your Passive Aggressive Spouse Sabotaging You?

A spouse that demonstrates passive aggressive behavior will always show hostility to his mate in an underhanded way. Some examples include procrastination, deliberate forgetfulness, making you feel like you are the problem in an otherwise "happy relationship," and lastly, hidden efforts at sabotaging her projects..

Two examples of sabotage from a passive aggressive spouse are the husband that secretly destroys his wife’s diet, and the husband that systematically comes home so late to watch the kids, that his wife is unable to go anywhere else she wants to.

Julie has been working hard to shed the weight she had gained after having a daughter last year. She cut out junk food and sweets from her diet and began working out twice a week. Her husband, Mike, feels threatened by Julie’s determination to look better, and begins bringing home chips and candy for snacks. He knows that Julie loves chocolate, and encourages her to have dessert after dinner. He does this all in a seemingly nice way, telling her that she deserves a break from her diet. While it may seem thoughtful of Mike, he is really blocking her efforts to lose weight.

Carol attends craft club meetings once a week after work. Her neighbor usually watches her son while she’s gone, but this week her neighbor is sick and unable to babysit. So Carol asks her husband John to be home by 6:00 so she can make it to her meeting on time. Carol gets ready for her meeting and patiently waits for John’s return home. It’s 6:00 and John is not home. He comes home an hour later and Carol misses her club meeting.

Why does John do this? He is a passive aggressive spouse who felt jealous that Carol was making new friends in her club. He purposely comes home late in order to sabotage Carol’s efforts to go to her meeting. What he really fears is her becoming a bit more independent from the home, the kids and her wifely duties...

He needs to present his intentions in the best possible way, so he also gives her an excuse saying that he needed to help out a friend at work and couldn’t possibly get home in time. That way, he is the victim and she can’t be mad at him.

When a passive aggressive spouse feels threatened with the inevitable changes that life brings to each one of us, he often will find ways to secretly sabotage his mate's personal development. He doesn't want to change, and he intends to block his spouse from developing herself...

This is a very self-defeating position in a marriage, which is a relationship based on both sides' commitment to help the other grow up and become the person he/she needs to become.

Responding to a Silent Partner

When there is something that irritates your partner, you don't get any inking of his/her disgust. What you get is more silence than before...

Have you already learned to interpret more silence as anger?

You'd better do...your loved one is swallowing his feelings, ignoring and denying that there is a conflict to be resolved, and and in general withdrawing cooperation from daily life.

Perhaps you can see yourself excluded from some projects, no notice given, or find that there is no follow-through to previous projects...This is the time to ask yourself: could it be that he is angry as hell, and can't show it?

Scary as it can be, it's true that some angry reaction is brewing, and that is your task to bring it up to a level where it can be confronted and resolved. NOTHING will happen, but more hidden anger, if you don't step up to the plate and do something.

First, the self-care help: don't feel invalidated or criticized; maintain your self-esteem and think of the situation as produced by his non-existent skills at conflict resolution. It's not your fault, OK?

Refuse to match the denial and begin your talk about "our present concern" in terms of a shared responsibility. Offer a supportive mood: "we'll talk about it as soon as you feel ready" and keep being clear about the issue: "we both need to have a shared decision on this issue, because it's important to both of us."

And clarify your expectations: if this person has a way to discuss things with you, and this is a momentary situation, be encouraged and keep supporting. If he has not the disposition or habit to discuss things with you, and focus only on his hurt feelings, you can have a steeper battle in front of you.

Marriage is a shared endeavor, and we need talk to share opinions, ask questions, and decide issues. As much as your silent partner bails out from this task, and leaves you alone deciding things for the two of them, you don't have a husband but a dependent child. It's now the time for you to make that distinction?