What is Passive Aggression Doing to Your Heart?

We all know by now that passive aggression can damage everything it touches: the passive aggressive man, his partner and family, and their relationship. It is psychological warfare conducted both on himself and everyone around him, an incomplete coping mechanism that tries to make up for the life lessons never learned.

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

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!

 

Is silent treatment making you feel isolated and lost in Valentine’s Day? Here is our love!

We have been busy lately with a question that a client sent to us. She was looking at her situation, and noticing that she had a domestic situation where her husband would not attack her directly, but disappear in a cloud of silence for weeks at the time. Coming and going, she would bump on him, sharing the same house, but he would avert his eyes and go about his tasks as if he was all alone in the house.

Can you see how she was getting more and more confused and alienated? Who was this foreigner in her own house, not saying a word, not even looking at her? what was the proper etiquette with him? should she demand an answer, or force him to answer? that seemed the wrong behavior, because he was signaling that he didn’t want to engage with her. However, what to do with the hundreds of petty everyday decisions that needed his input? And, if she would force herself on him to get an answer, how to process his angry eyes, telling her that she was trespassing on him?

A person doing the cold shoulder as a means of communicating disgust or anger, is sending a truncated message…his anger can come through, but the object of this anger is not clear. What should the other spouse do? imagine what kind of transgression he/she has done to have the spouse so high in  his contempt? it seems a lost battle, because there can be a lot of different reasons for the isolation.

What is real, and hurting as much as a physical pain, is the isolation inflicted. His silent treatment, full of contempt is really a permanent rejection, a hurt that doesn’t diminish with each day of continuous isolation ….It negates whatever is expected from such an intimate relationship as a marriage.

Are you also “married alone”? Do you recognize yourself in this picture?  As a way of comforting you in this Valentine day, when you should be feeling supported and loved instead of suffering the silent treatment, we offer you a free book, “5 Ways to Fight the Silent Treatment.”

Feel free to share it with your friends…meanwhile, keep up your search for positive ways of love and support….and learn how to stop silent treatments in your life.

NoraNora 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 http://www.creativeconflicts.com.

The Passive Aggressive Dance

WE ARE STUCK IN THIS DANCE:

HERS

HIS

I feel let down, isolated, and lonely.

If I  confront you to get you to see what
is hurting me
and come back to me..

It Just Drives You Away,
You became defensive and justify yourself.

 

If I despair, you retreat even more
Then I get more upset,
desperate, and lonely…

And I Lose My Faith in You
And In Our Marriage.

Looking at you being down gets me
scared but you don’t keep silent,
you tell me and your tale of hurt scares
me even more…

Did I Do That To You?
Really?

Is better to see you angry with me
than hurt I want to escape anyhow, or
to show you how wrong you are,
why don’t you see how I care?

If I explain my reasons, it drives you mad…
What can I offer you, but my logical reasons?

I’m Terrified By
The Fear of Losing You!

 

What are we doing? We are repeating a performance where we hide our sore spots from each other:

You hurting and lonely, and me feeling like a kind of idiot…

I need, says her, to be able to ask for company and don’t feel rejected or ridiculed.

I need, says him, to be able to use my usual responses in a way that you don’t label them as negative, so I feel accepted and can replace them with better others.

He could say: “I know I have neglected you, worried about work issues. When I hear that you are sad and angry, I don’t know what to do and escape… and I have to deny my needs of being near you. If you give me a chance and stop evaluating my behavior, I can get together and appreciate your needs better.”

She could say: “I now know that when I panic and imagine that I’m left alone, is because it hurts so much remembering that my family left me alone too many times… If I give you a chance, and don’t compare you with them, probably then you can get near me without conflict? Because I really need your attention!”

What are they doing? The exchanges you see above demonstrate what we call the basic passive aggressive dance. Each person “dances” around in a passive aggressive way because neither really knows how to get what they want from the other. (Of course, without asking for it: this is the passive aggressive piece of the behavior)

What is needed is a different kind of conversation, where we can invite the parties to acknowledge their basic needs…. She has to say how lonely she is, he has to say how terrified he is of losing her, and how impotent both are of  fulfilling simple needs, because they are so wrapped up in their own perception that they can’t see the other’s perspective.

The dance finishes when both sides can acknowledge the other side’s basic human needs…. and accept that the marriage deal is exactly that: I will take care of identifying and solving your needs… and you will do the same for me.

NoraNora 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 http://www.creativeconflicts.com.

A Passive Aggressive Marriage Breaking Point

People have different times to process emotional contents…when one person is fast to acknowledge that for them there is a need to stop interactions and protect themselves, other person could still go on and deny their personal hurt a bit longer.

There is also a gender difference; where women are trained to use self-examination as a daily tool (“am I adequate? did I do right here?”) men thend to fix their views on external factors and therefore are not so used to self-examinations.

All this talk leads to a tentative answer to the question:

What is the point of no return in a passive aggressive relationship? When one side finds out that “meta talk” (that kind of conversation that reflects on serious questions such as: how are we doing together? are we making each other happy? what could we improve?)  communicating about the relationship is impossible with the other person.

And why is it so hard to talk with a husband about his PA reactions? Well, the answer is here:

In “ASK NORA” (http://passiveaggressivehusband.com/asknora)  we have a person telling:

“Because admitting to a problem is equivalent to an immediate negative judgement against him and being told “you’re a failure”.

This is the reason men can’t get involved in a conversation about how they could improve: they are always positioning themselves in the very demanding situation of:

examining yourself=failing=rejection risk

Why is this attitude of ONLY focusing the self-examination on their own failures? What about their good behaviors that deserve recognition? Is there no self-esteem that can balance the automatic negative evaluation and include the positive aspects that each of us has? Whatever the hidden cause, men block self-examination and thus they lack opportunities to learn how to improve their wrong actions. This is a tragic result because puts people in a direct way to failure, as you can see reading this woman’s story:

“I truly believe, based on my own personal experience, that my PA husband never gave it a thought that his anger, stonewalling, sarcasm and long weeks of pure silence etc. etc. would cause him to eventually lose his marriage/family.

Never being one to threaten divorce unless I really meant it, I mentioned the “word” 3x over our 30+ yr. marriage.  I wanted it to be taken serious as in “last chance”.

The first 2 times he did not answer; walked out of the room and that was enough….I followed through on 3rd time & have never looked back. Personally at 56 years, divorce is not what I wanted; I just could no longer “continue my slow death” from loneliness, lack of physical or emotional love & his continued  ”under current” of anger & blame waiting to go off at any moment!  Why his anger? I never understood it before & now I no longer care! “

Tragically, we can see that is this falsely protective behavior of the passive aggressive person which leads to rejection. It produces (in a magnificent example of a self-fulfilling prophecy) the same results it tries to avoid. He ends up rejected! This time, because he is not man enough to own his 50% responsibility in making the marriage relationship happen with full involvement, disclosure and communication.

There is no other way: if you want to stop the falling out of love, the destruction of trust and the loneliness of both of you in a marriage, you need to know how to identify toxic behaviors, signal to your spouse that you respect and value her as much as to examine and change what needs to be changed and get on in the program.

Isn’t facing now some fear about being rejected better than ACTUALLY being rejected when you can’t face up to hurting your family?

Every journey starts with a single step. Our “Six-Step System to Stop Your Passive Aggression” is ready for you at Passive Aggressive System, but even if you’re not ready to commit to such an undertaking, you can talk to one of our conflict coaches to see if the system is right for you and your family.

 

Neil Warner

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 Conflict Coaching Session, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

 

New Test for Passive Aggressive Husbands

Conflict Coach presents a new, effective way for men to end couple’s miscommunication and its associated pain.

Miscommunication in marriage is a common problem. Men and women, depending on the ways they were raised or how their parents communicated, can both talk in ways that don’t always fit the bill for making communication easy and comfortable for both. Often, men are accused of not being “open” enough, and sometimes, they are also labeled as “passive aggressive” by their frustrated wives.

Whether or not men think they are talking enough and supporting their wives emotionally, there is still the fact that some women feel the communication in the marriage is not sufficient. It is as if a whole generation of boomers (and perhaps even younger people) never understood how to fulfill each other’s communication needs; now, they get into couple conflicts about this gap.

If women remain feeling isolated and not listened to enough, marital grief is present – plain and simple. Can this situation be improved?  Conflict Coach, through years of research, family mediation and finding innovative solutions that work, believe that this situation can be turned on its head. First, the label of “passive aggression” must be dealt with; the one that is now so easily to attach to men’s behavior. How true can is it that being reserved, non-communicative and harboring hidden anger is part of a person’s natural, born-with-it personality? Conversely, how much of that “personality” is a conflict-causing trait that he may have picked up or learned without realizing it?

Conflict Coach is exploring this question deeper by studying childhood experiences. Their research has led to interesting conclusions in the realm of passive aggressive psychology. In discovering what is a personality trait and and what is defensive behavior in a relationship, Conflict Coach proposes that passive aggression may be largely dependent on the attachment model learned within the child’s relationship to their guardian.

For example, when a man was a child, was he restricted from expressing his anger toward his parents? If he had a need, and was feeling it keenly, what happened when he expressed it? If he was guilt-tripped for being too “needy,” shamed for being a baby or a whiner, he probably taught himself to just shut up when he needed something from other people. In order not to feel pity for himself, he would have then taught himself that repressing emotions and sucking things up was an admirable trait – a feat of skill, something only a manly man could achieve.

A future passive aggressive man, in order to learn how to control himself and not open up, would have shown his frustration in ambiguous ways, like falling behind in school, even if he was very smart.

Conflict Coach is using their findings to help the passive aggressive man heal the behaviors that are causing miscommunication and pain in his marriage. They help a man identify the lessons of his childhood, and appraise the real situation at his home, where these old defensive mechanisms may still be at work. For example, he may be going silent for days or weeks, reflecting the lessons he taught himself in childhood. The truth remains that this behavior is destroying any intimacy he was able to build within his marriage. His wife feels condemned to loneliness by his withdrawal and silent days, and the man himself is trapped in a lonely jail of his own making.

If a husband wants to know how to solve this frustrating challenge, Conflict Coach invites him to identify here and now what inner forces are sabotaging his marriage.

It is now possible to take a free, short online test on Conflict Coach’s new website, Passive Aggressive Test. The test is an intelligent strategy for getting to know a husband’s personalized answers and communication style; whether the results are normal, passive aggressive, or mixed, he can know exactly where he is on the spectrum, and this crucial definition can then be explained to the frustrated partner.

For men interested in assessing themselves and learning how to heal miscommunication and conflict in their marriage, the next step is simple: take the Passive Aggressive Test at

http://passiveaggressivetest.com/passive-aggressive-test/

If a husband is found to have no passive aggressive behaviors, he will know that there is something besides just his personal behavior going on to create a wound between him and his wife. Alternately, in the event that some of his behaviors are passive aggressive, he will receive immediate options for change from Conflict Coach’s growing collection of resources, such as life-changing products, coaching and community support.

 

Neil Warner

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. 

Conflict Coach offers a complimentary phone consultation , with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!