However, what if it wasn’t just the heart of your relationship that was damaged by your passive aggression? Passive aggressive husbands, listen up: your behavior might just be putting your own life at risk.

According to a new article published on Medical News Today by Catharine Paddock, PhD, men who resort to passive aggression because of a feeling of superiority, self-importance or an unwillingness to see the other person’s point of view (narcissism) may actually suffer physically for it, putting themselves at risk for heart problems.

In a study published in PLoS ONE, many men with these personality traits (explotativeness, entitlement, arrogance) have higher than average levels of cortisol in their systems – which puts them at a higher risk for heart problems. According to Sara Konrath, quoted in the article, these men “may be paying a high price in terms of their physical health, in addition to the psychological cost to their relationships.” What is interesting about this new study is that men with these personality traits have high levels of cortisol even when they are not under stress.

Cortisol is the hormone that is released when your body goes into “fight or flight” mode. As a passive aggressive man, you may have high levels of cortisol/a “fight or flight” hormone in your system – does that sound about right? In your daily life, is your brain telling you “I can’t deal with this, let’s run”? Perhaps it’s saying “How dare my wife say that, I’m going to get her back”? When you feel threatened, it’s definitely telling you those things, isn’t it?

Why does your body release cortisol, even when you’re not in a stressful situation? One of the study’s authors, also quoted in the article, stated that this was perhaps due to the fact that ”[e]ven though narcissists have grandiose self-perceptions, they also have fragile views of themselves, and often resort to defensive strategies like aggression when their sense of superiority is threatened.”

This creates, in a sense, a feeling that the body is constantly under stress – it doesn’t matter if it is real or imagined, because the consequences are the same on the body. They lead to higher blood pressure and greater heart problems – we all know this!

Read the entire article at Medical News Today

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to suffer alone in an unhealthy relationship for one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.You can begin with our passive aggressive system created just for men, at  Stop Your Passive Aggression, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

 

What is Passive Aggression Doing to Your Heart? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

In their very useful cooperative way of writing articles,

several authors at Wikihow have summarized ways for dealing

with emotional abuse. Here are some of the suggestions:

1. “Realize that you cannot change your partner, only your reaction to him or her. You can attempt to show your partner how damaging these behaviors are and how they are affecting you, and hope your partner will agree that you are being badly damaged. You can hope your partner will then make the decision to change, but ultimately you cannot force change. Your partner must recognize it and decide to end the behavior on his or her own.”

2. “Set new, reasonable terms for the relationship with clear and consistently implemented consequences. Decide (ideally together, but if that isn’t possible, decide for yourself) that you’re going to learn a new way of being in this relationship. Abuse most often exists because the spiritual/emotional weakness of the abuser demands the exercise of control over others (you) to give him or her a feeling of emotional security. Read that again, because it’s important: Abuse really starts because of insecurity or trust issues with the abuser. It is most often enabled by (1) the victim’s inability or failure to recognize the abusive behavior or (2) powerlessness of the victim, as in the case of a child enduring the emotional abuse of a parent. In adult relationships, ultimately, neither partner understands a healthy way to diffuse abuse and to respect each other or themselves. Establish that, effective immediately, all interactions will be honorable, and will specifically and especially exclude: name calling, character attacks/judgments, raised voices, spitting, throwing objects, etc. and that if either partner breaks the agreement, then separation will immediately be imposed until mutual respect is restored. Be prepared to accept that this may never happen, especially in advanced stages of abuse, and that your commitment to a healthy, respectful relationship may result in the termination of this abusive one.”

3. “Set boundaries. Abuse, in general, is an issue of disrespect that usually involves trespass upon individual equality and freedom due to unclear or poorly-defined boundaries. If you are on the receiving end of abuse, it’s up to you to set up clear, reasonable boundaries for an honorable relationship and to consistently stick to them. Let your partner know that you now recognize your responsibility in allowing the disrespect in the past, but that this era has now come to an end. Recognize the damage incurred by the previous era and establish a commitment to obtaining the support needed to forgive and restore the peace and strength necessary for mutual respect in all of your future relationships.”

4. “Develop emotional intelligence. In cases of abuse, both partners are often unknowingly suppressing important emotions. Receivers of abuse are often uncomfortable expressing authentic, respectful anger, which is necessary to establish boundaries. Abusers are often expressing fear, not anger, when abusing. It is the “Fight” fear response that is coming through (as in “Fight or Flight”), and in order to end abuse, both partners must be willing to learn new ways of feeling and expressing their true emotions to end the pattern of blaming, shaming, and punishing. Express your deepest and strongest feelings only in forums where they will receive the fullest respect and support, such as a diary, a blog, a group of very close friends or trusted family members, a professional and respectful psychologist (best by referral only), etc.”

   This advice is really on target…if you want more, (or wish to share your own suggestion) you would like to visit this site:

   http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-with-Emotional-Abuse, and explore more ideas there.

   

   Neil Warner

   I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation with Conflict Coach, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

    

Dealing with emotional abuse? here is help! is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

Sometimes we hear about the challenges that passive aggression and other defensive behaviors have on marriages, but we fail to connect these present, adult behavior failures with the past conditioning produced in us by the family we grew up with.

So now we have a wife who is totally confused and blindsided by the spouse’s behavior, and that frustrated wife erroneously connects her husband’s unhappiness and their current problem to something she either did or didn’t do.

In short, the present spouse makes herself responsible for her husband’s behavior, and in taking this weight on, she tries to find the reason of the communication failure, so she can “heal it.”

Nobody enters into a relationship with a disclaimer, or an instruction letter that would make it easier for the wife to know the territory she is entering. If such a letter did exist, the instructions on how to deal with a passive aggressive husband would begin with capital letters:

“THIS IS A CONDITION YOU DID NOT CAUSE~

YOU CAN’T NEITHER CURE OR CONTROL IT,”

NOW, can you  stop blaming yourself!”

Wouldn’t that kind of disclaimer be a god-sent message? It would save so much pain, grief and time… which of course translates into lost happiness. Together in this blindness is the passive aggressive spouse, who will support to his death the conviction that his behavior is normal and everybody else is “too demanding” or “needy” or whatever way he uses to describe a wife with emotional needs going unsolved.

Let me recap: if you are in a passive aggressive relationship, take a step back and frame everything under this mantra: I did not cause his condition, I can’t cure him and the best I can do is not to take personally anything of the hurtful behaviors he is doing now.

When it gets hard, remind yourself:

Whatever he is doing now,

• it is his only way of responding; he doesn’t know better;
• it is the response he learned with his primary care-taker or mother;
• your best way of protecting yourself is letting the behavior go away without engaging on it. Just ignore it.

Now that you have this vital piece of information, what are you going to do?

Certainly not try to change him yourself. That role lies with him whose behavior it is! To encourage him to take his own behavior into his own hands, we encourage passive aggressive husbands to take our Passive Aggressive Test. He will be guided to see for himself that these are his own behaviors (not yours or your responsibility). And YES, WE can help him change himself with the “6 Steps System to Stop Passive Aggression and Save your Marriage!”

The Three C’s of Passive Aggression is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

We need to remember that each dispute is a request for understanding; each confrontation a hidden search for recognition from the other side. When the other side is yelling at you, don’t follow your first impulse to escape or shout back. Listen and own every word that comes out of her mouth. Validate what she says; repeat what she says back to her, and ask if you got the whole version or if there is something that escaped your understanding.

Then go into apology mode, by saying things like, “I’ve been such a selfish person. Please, forgive me; I don’t want to be that person anymore, because I don’t want to hurt you anymore.” And mean it.

If the other person i’s repeating the same rant over and over again, it means that you haven’t responded to her complaint in a way that makes her feel you HAVE heard her.

You’re probably responding in a defensive way, explaining again to her whatever she already knows that can improve your situation. This is not what she needs. She doesn’t care at all about your excuses, real or imaginary. Can’t you see the pain below the surface?

She needs you to hear exactly what she’s saying to you,  and to grieve, as she is grieving, the insensitive, selfish, out of control human being you have been with her for as long as you have. And she is grieving for the lost opportunities for love, for understanding and mutual support that are all in front of you two now.

If you want to do real relationship repair, begin for taking care of her needs. Accept her anger, as a fact of your life; hear her words of pain, validate her feelings as true and legitimate, and never forget that this marital strife is originated in the years and years of insensitivity towards her.

But, if you want to be really married to her, as a grown up and not as a child, you need to understand that this is what a woman wants in a relationship with a significant other. She needs and deserves your honesty. This means that you have to take a good look at yourself and discover, accept and heal those parts of you that are not matching her reality; those aspects of your life that don’t reflect adult commitment yet.

Relationship repair: The anger you hear is her pain is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

The national assumption about us being independent individuals crashes with the task of forming a new “WE” entity when we marry or establish a permanent relationship; both are antithetical.
And so, we find several degrees of permission to be near, and or permission to create distance from the other and be by yourself, depending of course on the attachment style we developed when children. If you have a secure attachment, you can go back and forth between your own needs for individuation and the merging with your loved one: neither will scare you either with abandonment or with engulfment. In the case of persons with insecure or anxious attachment who could express the following feelings:

• I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others;
• I am nervous when anyone gets too close;
• I often worry about someone getting too close to me;
• I am not comfortable having other depend on me;

we can perceive that there is some insecurity there, either trying to get close or to accept the inevitable dependence  on each other generated by a “WE.”

Where is this conversation going? Easy, the best way to keep a fixed distance with an intimate partner is using some of the techniques of passive aggression!

Let me explain: when you do the icy silence called “the cold shoulder” what you are really doing is regulating the distance….telling the other person:

“I’m not leaving you, but I’m in my cave, don’t get near me so I don’t get too scared of intimacy…, and the “WE” project goes into the fridge up until the moment I can reattach again”

When you do the nasty comments, and the put downs, and the inconsiderate critiques what you are doing is controlling the possibility of the other person getting dangerously near, by doing hurtful behaviors that will force her to withdraw in order to protect herself.

Having an insecure attachment marks a person for life, because he can’t ever trust completely the other person when she gets too near: what if she finally leaves him? what is he feels too dependent of her and so has to be too worried about his own survival without her?   Better to detach constantly from the other with passive aggression, so nobody can be so near him as to make him feel dangerously intimate!

Now we understand better this dance: when he withdraws, she chases him with her love and so forces him to withdraw more….escalating the passive aggression attitudes so finally get her to reject him.

And all this in the name of love, would you say? Probably, yes. This is the relationship that lots of people call love…not knowing something better as how to generate a more secure attachment.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today. 

We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation (by clicking here), with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

Defending yourself from love with passive aggression? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

This is not a common idea because we basically tend to think of ourselves as independent, self-reliant individuals and this is a very strong social myth. We are raised and aspire to be independent, resourceful beings that solve all personal needs in an efficient way. If someone can’t do this, he has to be a weaker individual, a dependent or needy one….In this way we reject the concept of interdependence in a very strong way.

Surprisingly, there is a gap between theories of human development and our social ideals. Biologically we are designed as social creatures, and is a fact of our biology that as babies we need to survive by attachment to our care-givers. Without this care, we would not survive.

The process of being raised by other grown up member of the species that guarantees our survival is based and supported by the creation of a bond between bay and caretaker called attachment. And attachment is predicated upon the quality of care that our parent or care-taker gives us.

When grown ups, we can achieve more if we have the right type of attachment. The more and better connected, the more effective we are.

What kind of attachment do we get from our mothers determines what attachment style do we have later as adults.

Basically, we have three options:

• Either our caretaker/mother can provide a Secure attachment, and then things go normal and we learn self-reliance in due time. Mother was there, patient and calm, supportive and caring. Because we want someone committed to us, is best to form a secure attachment.

Or the caretaker had her own problems reflected in the kind of care provided:

• Mother was psychologically absent, or detached and neutral; or demanding and critical of everything; not appreciative of baby’s progress:

Then, Avoidant attachment was provided: keeps you off balance; doesn’t want to be too close; talks about independence as a value; devalues others as “needy;” and you never receive verbal assurances of being loved.

• Mother was there, but oscillating between being loving and patient one minute and being upset, tired or exhausted the next one:

Then, Anxious attachment was provided: you could get close to your mother, but always worried about not being loved the next minute; always wanting to be close; to feel securely connected, but never completely sure of it; they wait to say “I love you” up until the other side says it…

Now, get a look at some characteristics of a passive aggressive person…and see the actual version of an old Avoidant attachment present now:

Fear of Dependency: From Scott Wetlzer, author of Living With The Passive Aggressive Man. “Unsure of his autonomy and afraid of being alone, he fights his dependency needs, usually by trying to control you. He wants you to think he doesn’t depend on you, but he binds himself closer than he cares to admit. Relationships can become battle grounds, where he can only claim victory if he denies his need for your support.”

Fear of Intimacy: The passive aggressive often can’t trust because an avoidant attachment made him always suspicious of being rejected later. Because of this, they guard themselves against becoming intimately attached to someone. A passive aggressive will have sex with you but they rarely make love to you. If they feel themselves becoming attached, they may punish you by withholding sex.

Can you make the connection? Can you see where from this attitude towards life is coming from? Not innate, but formed in the period of life between 0 and 5 years…and becoming “the” only way a passive aggressive person conceives relationships. He is trained to expect either an avoidant or an anxious mother…never to aspire to a secure connection, because he never knew one! This is the deep reason of all the defensive behaviors “protecting him” from the imagined perils of his present relationship. Very sad, right? to be reacting to the past loved one (mother or care-taker) and not being able to see and love the present partner!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today. 

We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation (by clicking here), with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

Passive Aggression and Childhood Attachment is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

There are four main things a passive aggressive person will try to control or violate, in order to protect themselves from rejection and/or confrontation.

• The Right to Know
• The Right to Feel
• The Right to Have Impact
• The Right to Space

When he violates your right to know, he gives you unclear information, withholds information that you don’t “need” (like the finances), or gives you too little or too much information. With too little, you are left shaky and uncertain, realizing after he leaves that he didn’t really answer your question, or in fact made the situation look worse than you thought. This is where you may feel as if you’re expected to draw your own conclusions or “mind read.” With no information (“the silent treatment”) you feel like you’re walking on eggshells – or a mine field. When you are given too much information (anger attacks or blaming), you are not given time to speak, defend yourself, ask for clearer information, or set boundaries.

Your right to feel is violated when he tells you what you’re feeling, what you’re about to do or how you’re going to react. He may make claims about how you “always overreact” or how you’re just being “emotional.” He’ll make emotional demands about what not to feel (“Don’t cry”) or what you shouldn’t feel.

Crazy-making situations really start to show when your right to impact is violated. This is when he denies (by ignoring you, by overriding your needs with his own, by refusing to meet your needs) that you have an impact on his life. We measure our existence by how much impact we have on others, both physically and emotionally. If you feel like you don’t matter to him (don’t have an impact), it’s like being told you don’t exist at all! He can make this worse by “thinging” or objectifying you. He may treat you like a piece of furniture, coming to you only when he has certain physical needs. He may also deny your impact on him by denying contact – in other words, anything you say about his faults will bounce off and come back as something to use against you.

The last way he may violate your rights is to deny your right to space. In many ways, this is your right to individual power – the thing he wants you to have very little or none of. He may violate your right to emotional, physical, time, or mental space by saying that you doing x violates his right to do y (thus painting you out to be the bad guy, every time). For example, your right to be alone in your office violates his right to come visit you. Your right to have friends and family over violates his right to privacy and quiet. And so on, and so on.

These are the four main ways a passive aggressive husband exerts his crazy-making control over his partner and other people. Looking at them as your rights helps to understand this behavior as abusive – a denial of your personal rights to sanity and respect. Which of these ways is your husband using against you? More than one? Maybe all?

We encourage you to explore our blog, videos, and discussions (under “Ask Nora” and “Your Voice”) to learn more about these abusive behaviors and how to defend yourself against them. But for immediate action and sanity-saving help, please visit Coach Nora, and receive a free coaching session.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation (by clicking here), with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

Passive Aggression Abuses Your Rights is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

He has done a lot of the following behaviors to me:

• Saying he will do something and not doing it;
• Doing something half-assed, and then blaming me for attacking him when I confront him;
• Never taking responsibility for things that go wrong;
• Defiant against authority and social mores, always criticizing those who have power in church, government, at his job;
• Gets back at people secretively – like shooting the neighbors car with a BB gun and then denying having done it;
• Lying to save himself or avoid punishment;
• Having an affair and saying it was caused by me not giving him affection.

When I confront him about any of this, or god forbid confront him about being passive aggressive, he says I’m “out to make him wrong” (his hidden anger, from when his family would make him the scapegoat). And that’s where the conversation stops! If we’re unable to move beyond this communication wall, our relationship is going to end, and badly.

- Madeline

 

My husband and I have a lot of communication problems because of his passive aggression. He often forgets conversations we’ve had, denies they happened, or denies any fact from them that would make him wrong. I’ve taken to writing things down, repeating them verbatim, or printing email records to prove that I’m not as crazy as he says.

I feel like I can’t talk to him even then, because he’s continually passing judgement on what I’m thinking and doing at the moment, showing me that I don’t pass his evaluations and expectations.

It’s like a constant mental game of chess – I’m always on the defensive, while he thinks the opposite. Meanwhile, we shouldn’t be competing or playing games at all! Failure to communicate honestly and openly is breaking up our relationship.

- Eden

 

His passive aggression is making our lives hell. The simple things like saying “I’ll do this,” and then actually doing it, are lost. He uses his passive aggressive communication/language as a way to make me feel demanding (when he doesn’t do things he said he would) or abusive (confronting him about how many times he’s let me down).

He is bitter and jealous of anyone else’s achievements, and either criticizes them constantly or refuses to talk to them at all. He continually gripes about not being recognized for his hard work, when he’s not really putting in any more effort than I am.

He mumbles so I can’t tell whether he’s insulting me or others, and he’s distant, even when we’re in the same room.

Help me!

- Georgia

What can you do to deal with this sad state of affairs? There are lots of resources here in this blog, as well as coaching available.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, offering you a coaching session to deal with hubby’s passive aggression!.

How Does Passive Aggression Kill Communication? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

“Passive-aggression is a personality trait that is marked by a persistent negativity and passive resistance to responsibilities and cooperation.”

However, we’d like to offer a better, more simple explanation that works to not only help you understand what’s going on during a fight, but also what is going on in the passive aggressive man’s mind.

What we see is that within the relationship, the wife and the husband each have different perceptions of their roles (the man feels he’s doing his duty by making the decisions, and the woman feels she’s not getting a say). In a healthy marriage, the two people can eventually calm down from a conflict, confront each other in a respectful way, and find out who did what that hurt the other. This creates gradual growth and mutual learning.

When the husband is passive aggressive, however, there is no learning or growth. A confrontation that goes like, “Well, do you see why I’m angry?” will end like, “Why are you accusing me? I’m not doing anything wrong, this is all because you don’t love me.” His sudden desire to get away usually leads to silent treatment and emotional withdrawal.

The cycle continues, and what we have are a husband and wife with two very different ideas about what a marriage is!

It’s useless to try to convince him to try to communicate better, in this case. You need strategies to address this person, and make this person focus. A third party always works best for getting these strategies started, until eventually the two of you learn how to do it on your own.

Ready to get started? Click HERE to visit Conflict Coach and receive your free coaching session! Don’t let the cycle continue… break through to him and get your marriage back!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

How to Break Through his Silence Wall is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

My best friend, Anne, was at the end of her rope. Of course she was developing ulcers and was taking some kind of pills for the rest of her life. Of course she was unable to sleep and would toss and turn the whole night, thinking that perhaps a new pill will provide relief!

It took me some time before I had the courage to ask her: What is happening to you? And she said “I’m sick and tired of the things my husband does each day…but I don’t know how to face him and make him stop such nasty behaviors, and I’m so angry at him that I could explode any time!”

What happens is that  she is afraid of his resistance and probably strong denial and thus she leaves a bad situation to escalate into a worst one, where her anger sits in a bed of despair and contempt. All because Anne doesn’t know how to confront him!

Or course, at this time, there is little love or respect left in her for him, who is oblivious to the depth of her negative feelings… He thinks that she has stress ulcers! Of course, he could ask the question: “what are the things that cause you so much stress…?” but he is avoiding exactly this kind of conversation! It is obvious how they are colliding in the same denial.

It took some private meetings with her to get to the bottom of her feelings and for me to be able to ask the question:

“Why is that you don’t confront him with his negative behavior”? And her answer was: I never learnt how to face him! Because I was only told to be always nice and polite, I don’t know how to confront anybody when they do things that upset or damage me! And now, I’m scared of his reaction…

Is this a picture that you recognize? How far in the path of self-destruction are you willing to go, only to continue thinking about yourself as a “nice person, never aggressive”? Could you identify with this situation, where you have neither the permission to confront, nor the skills to do it in a safe way? Are you afraid of any kind of confrontation, even a healthy one to defend yourself?

This is partially true: if you confront without knowing how to, in a respectful but firm way, you can get a worse response, and so confirm your fears. But, where does not doing a confrontation leave us? If we can’t confront, we stay frustrated and resentful, and the anger eats at us inside.

Meanwhile, the other person continues the offensive behavior as before, because nobody told him/her not to do so! When at last we do confront, we do in such state of frustration that results are not encouraging, and the other person, taken by surprise, can react very strongly.

If you don’t tell the other person when and how she is infringing on you:

* You are not in control of your life,
* You have a lot more stress.
* You begin carrying the emotional baggage of resentment.

The relationship deteriorates and the other person never has the opportunity to improve his behavior. Then, one day when “out of the blue” you decide to leave him, there will be a great shock!

THEN, if you confront:

* you get the control of your life back.
* You are not a passive victim.
* Stress level improves.
* Mental health goes back to balance.
* There is no build up of emotional baggage.

So, HOW do you confront someone about his/her inadequate behavior? It is simple, not by reproaching the wrong behavior, but asking for the right one:

If you are tempted to say something like:
“You are always a careless person! How do you dare to use my money without asking me if I could afford this expense! You are hurting my pocket in this way”

It is better to say:
“I need you to take better care of our money. When we have decided that this money should be used to pay X bills,, it would be better for us to stick to the plan, because there is no extra money now to pay for X. In this way, I will feel that we are really doing things together in a responsible way.”

Main parts of this new response are:
Focus is on “I” and not on “you,” because this expression is usually received as accusatory, and because it helps highlight the issue of what are our needs that are being frustrated now. You say it in a way that describes the problem’s impact on you, while providing a solution.

Three take away ideas:

1. It is best to confront soon, letting things fester is wrong.
2. It is best to confront skillfully, using this model.
3. Behavioral change requires that we keep confronting about the wrong behavior up until the moment when it improves, and then we praise the new behavior.

Nora Femenia is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Visit her blog and signup free to be connected to her innovative conflict solutions, positive suggestions and life-changing coaching sessions, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to “From Conflicts to Love, a new guide to Interpersonal Conflicts.”

How to talk to a resistant husband? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband