Passive-aggressive

Have you been subject to passive aggressiveness?

It can be hard to single out when it has happened or when you have been a victim of it. It can instead show itself as a hard lump in your stomach and you notice that you have agreed to something that you didn't really want to do.

Passive aggressiveness is expressed in the form of a quiet and persistent reluctance to finding solutions, see things from different perspectives and to listen to other's opinions. The purpose of this persistent silence can for example be that the person wants to punish the other, or to have things their way by making the other person give up.

Often the ones that express their aggressiveness this way are people with great insecurity or low self esteem. They are not clear in their communication and think that the people around them should understand how they are feeling and what they need. They leave it up to the relatives to do a strange guessing game to try and single out what the person is annoyed about and what needs the person has.

Because of their insecurity the passive aggressive is often in need of attention and sometimes wants to shrink the space for the ones that surround them because they want all attention for themselves. As an example, if a woman is in a relationship with a man that controls the relationship with passive aggressiveness she might one day want to do something outside of the relationship. This becomes a threat towards the insecure man's self esteem and leads to the man acting with passive aggressiveness to punish the woman and steer her to stay at home after all.

Note: both women and men can try to steer others with passive aggressiveness.

Is this something that you recognize in one of your close relationships? It is not easy to handle. One step on the way is to stand by your values and what is important to you, regardless of the reaction. If you back out and let the other get their will through by their passive aggressiveness this will be strengthened in that person and it is possible that they will continue to use it.
You can also in a friendly manner be clear about that you don't appreciate that behavior and that the person themselves has to take responsibility for clearly expressing what they want and also take responsibility for their own feelings. And before the person communicates this without punishing, that will be something that you can not change.

Do you have experience of handling a person with passive aggressiveness? What have you learnt from this? Write about it in the comments! :-)

/Carina


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