In a passive aggressive relationship, underhanded and sneaky attacks are his preferred “weapons of mass destruction.”

You have been asking for a detailed plan to nullify your passive aggressive husband’s arsenal. Here it is: you will learn how to call the attack for what it is and then respond in a way that preserves you from being manipulated.

We have been offering our experience before, like Tips to manage PA Behaviors

Take our suggestions with a grain of salt:

we offer them as an extreme response for some of our women readers who really want to learn the most straightforward way of managing his passive aggression, experienced as a direct attack against them and their marriage.

Here’s a step by step process for counter-acting a passive aggressive attack.

Stop Listening and Start Looking

This step is based on the idea that, in a passive aggressive marriage, many interactions are foggy and vague (purposefully). Thus, the most important thing to remember here is that you must separate words and deeds, and look only at the facts. Regardless of what your partner says about “forgetting” and other promises, start asking yourself is there is:

• Discrepancy between promises and delivery, causing delays;
• Non-acceptance of responsibility;
• “Good” words abounding, but no deeds.

These can be signs of passive aggressive punishment, provided they are consistent and often centered around one particular type of activity. Here’s a good example: if Robert generally is dependable and is home on time for Tina to attend her meetings, the one “miss” may not be motivated by passive-aggression. However, if he often only sabotages Tina’s attendance to a particular event (her therapy sessions or her female friends’ group monthly dinner) while denying he is intending to do so, an attack pattern is emerging.

Start “Operation Consequence” if there is no match between words and results:

In order to nip his passive aggressive attack in the bud, you must show that you are going to handle it in an adult way, not with the child-like temper tantrum that he wants to see you degenerate into.

Your task is then to:

• Suspect sabotage and resistance;
• Suspend expectations;
• Terminate cooperation.

Learn his hidden anger indicators:

You can halt future attacks in their tracks by learning his patterns and indicators. People are creatures of habit, and passive aggressive husbands are no different. Here are some examples of indicators that he is hiding his anger and is trying to attack/punish you:

• Vengeful “accidental” actions, such as ruining belongings, deleting files, burning food, etc.;

• Withdrawal of emotional response, such as refusing to share your joy over an accomplishment;

• Detaching from family connections, such as deliberately ignoring family members you love.

Confront efficiently:

• Collect proofs by having another person around or taking notes;
• Prove connection between actions and damages by showing how one leads to another;

Control Your Desire to Attack Back

• Do not respond emotionally, as in throwing a tantrum (discussed above);

• Remember that outraged reactions to passive-aggressive behavior emotionally reward the passive-aggressive husband.

Practice Self-Discipline

We say not to throw a tantrum at your husband, but anger and frustration is of course normal, and must be dealt with in a healthy way. So, you need to:

• Work on yourself, to sort out any deep animosity you may have towards this person;
• Examine the relationship and find moments in which you gave control, responsibility or power to this person;
• Link the power given to him with the results obtained, and ask yourself: “Am I being shortchanged here”?
• Pay attention to your first reaction, the emotional one, because this is probably the most truthful. You are allowed to feel resentful, frustrated or angry at his skillful defection; it’s a natural reaction. And it is the tantrum version of this reaction that your husband is setting you up to have. You can take back control by handling that anger in an adult way.

• Now, you want to confront this person in the most productive way, diverging from showing this person how much he can hurt you. The “emotional outburst” type of confrontation will not serve your purpose. If you allow yourself to show your disappointment, then he has fulfilled his mission!

Decide what you want to accomplish:

Your counter-action rides on knowing what you’re trying to accomplish by recognizing and handling his passive aggressive attack. Ask yourself, what is your real goal upon seeing him attack you? What goal will help you live a better life and not be brought down to his level? It is to…

• Let your husband know of your frustration?
• Have a cathartic show of your own hurt?
• Get him to finally deliver?

All of these are worthy aims, but remember that the first two are dangerously close to the tantrum throwing result that he wants to see. Finally, what you want is to get him to deliver, right?

Is time then to do some Fair Fighting, in a calm, rational but direct way. Remember that the best way is to detach emotionally from any result, and see if he can recognize his involvement in this marriage and moves towards cooperating with you in making it happen.

How to Deal With a Passive Aggressive Husband? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

Can you say more? what can you say to a person that is the depth of despair like her? Her words tell us how much despair is there, how much loneliness and how many frustrated emotional needs are in her situation. How is she required to raise those three children feeling such isolation?

A spouse going into complete isolation, silence and withdrawing all communication to the other person sharing life with him is directly attacking the basis of the home his children need to grow up nurtured and loved. Even if this person considers that he needs to defend himself from some imagined o real insult, the presence of three children should convince him of making a decent effort to improve the situation.

Today, I’m going to reverse the usual provision of ideas, and ask you what can you suggest to make her life better. What ideas, support and ways of changing this despair into a reasonable companionship can you offer? Let’s see if the shared pool can share some ideas that she can use?

Thanks already for your good will!

My life is crumbling, largely because I have a completely passive aggressive husband.  I like the advice I have seen so far but don’t think they’re relevant to my situation because I don’t think my husband would mind one bit if I ignored him when he behaved badly.  He wouldn’t even notice.  In fact, if I didn’t talk to him or look at him or touch him or anything ever again, he wouldn’t give it a second thought.  I am single and yet stuck in a marriage with three children.  Any advice welcome.  Thanks.

Nora Femenia is a well-known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Visit her blog and sign-up 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 Conflict Coach

Help: I am single and yet stuck in a marriage with three children! is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

At Psychology Today, Susan Harrow wrote an article explaining this new book. Here’s a snippet:

“According to communication pioneer Professor Albert Mehrabian,”7% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is sent in the words that are spoken;  38% of feelings and attitudes contained in messages is expressed in the way that the words are said, and 55% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in the facial expression.”

… What complicates the matter is that when the person who receives an apology isn’t buying it, or feels like it’s just being said to shut them up, the apology itself can ignite a cycle where the person sincerely apologizing feels hopeless. When his apology isn’t accepted, it refuels his anger.


This is one of the reasons Dreyfus created her written flash cards which can help couples who are fighting or at an impasse calm down and get through to each other in less than a minute and turn a mean interaction into a loving one. The flash cards are a series of warm and calming self-aware messages that can be held up in the midst of an argument. For example it may be scary to say, “I’m afraid if I say I’m sorry, you’ll make everything all my fault.” But holding up the card can neutralize the difficulty.”

Make Sure Your Passive Aggressive Husband Gets the Message is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

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

Are you coming short of your dreams? Still believing that with a bit of support and learning some good communication skills you would feel more gratified in your relationships?

We have been thinking along the same line here….

We wanted to challenge the “End of the Year Blues”, as we realized how many issues are still without improvement or resolution when it comes to our important relationships…

With this in mind, we are proud to announce that December will be

“National Relationships Repair Month”

This FREE program spans over 4 whole weeks for a good, meaty discussion and healing of the issues that form the base of our relationships, so hidden we usually do not take the time to reflect on them…

We provide here good reading materials for you to learn from, questions and answers and finally, a good plan to restore your relationships. Knowing that you read this blog frequently, we are sure you would be interested in this project.

Get a good look at our new offer, and hop on board! Here is the link, and remember that we are waiting for you!

Relationship Repair

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 http://www.creativeconflicts.com.

Planning to Repair your Relationships? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

“Understanding Why Your Husband Uses Passive Aggressive Behavior!”

is a post on Ezinearticles.com, a site where other of Nora’s articles are published.

If you are so kind to click here, you will find it on the site of Ezinearticles.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5957902

Or you can go here: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Nora_Femenia

Thanks!

Understanding Why Your Husband Uses Passive Aggressive Behavior! is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

It goes more or less like this:

• She complains; he denies all responsibility;
• She suffers; he ignores her suffering and walks away;
• She gets educated or a therapist; he laughs at them;

And this can go on for years! Most of the women writing to this site begin their letters saying: “I have been married to this guy 20 years…or 15, or 25…”

This is because only recently have they put a name to this situation, and having a name situates them into a new category: “I’m married to a PA person! That is the reason for all those indicators I didn’t knew how to understand before…!”

How can she really know? Well, as with some psychological disorders, the victims are the telltale indicators that something is not right. By compiling the victims’ narratives, we get the picture of a behavior that is real because we can now observe its impact on its victims.

Because victims have this pain of the gap between expected behaviors and their own reality, they observe, compare, and get educated about the differences between loving, healthy relationships and the toxic ones.

There is now a lot of information coming out, and we know more and more about how passive aggressive behaviors work and what is their impact on marriages. In fact: we know that it surely kills trust-based relationships such as marriages!

As a result, for him it is becoming more difficult to deny that those separated and isolated incidents now fit into a large, ominous picture where he is now seen as the culprit of her unhappiness.

So, is there no good place left to hide, husbands? Well, there is still your well-used resource: deny and deny that you have these tendencies… and attribute the situations your wife complains about to “bad luck,” misinterpretation or any other accidental cause… the purpose here is to divert, confuse and obfuscate your wife; never taking personal responsibility for anything.

How long can this work? That is the main problem with this strategy… it can work in the short term; in the long term, people tire of your endless “It wasn’t me….” answer and withdraw from the emotional connection with you.

So, what’s going on?

Basically, the lesson life is teaching you is “Grow up! Review those strategies coming from the times when you were a defenseless boy, and learn how to really, really have a deep connection with the people you say you love.”

Because is not how many times you say that you love them, is how much sensitive you are to their inner wishes and needs. Is not how good a provider you are (that’s not enough now…) but how deeply you get to know and support the growth of the people around you.

Helping them grow will help you grow and mature at the same time… which you can’t do when you withdraw into your silence.

So, next time you are tempted to go into your cave, clam up, keep the silence and individual “business” for two weeks and wait for the storm to pass giving everybody the cold shoulder, remember:

Perhaps this is the last time life is giving you an opportunity to look around, see the wounds of the people who (still) love you, and take a deep breath: this is your life.

Isn’t there something more courageous you could be doing with it? Like asking around to your wife the magical question: “Please, can you tell me what hurt you? This time, I’m ready to listen…?”

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! You can even begin a conversation about your possible passive aggression with her!.

How passive aggressive can you be? 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

Passive aggression is just that – aggression (or anger) that is passive (or hidden). The passive aggressive person learned to hide their anger from the very start, in a home where it was not safe to express such frustration. This home could have been unsafe for many reasons. There could have been drug or alcohol addicted parents, or parents whose gender roles were heavily enforced (for example, the wife was not allowed to express her frustration against the husband).

As the child (later passive aggressive) was taught to suppress and deny their feelings, they sought out ways of getting around that. They found other channels to express themselves, ways that were passively resistant. This is how sabotage (covert behavior, forgetting, ambiguity, chaos creation) and retaliation (overt punishment, eye for an eye, “justified” abandonment or abuse) are learned.

Children that grow up in this environment are never taught to find healthy ways of expressing anger. To the people who are in charge of these children, anger is not supposed to exist in the first place. Thus, the child continues to adulthood, still suppressing anger and venting it in vindictive ways.

So, what are the ways of healthily expressing anger? How do we teach our children to identify feelings and accept them as part of themselves? How do we show them that there is no need to run away?

The child needs to know they can say “I am angry.” They need to be taught the vocabulary for this.

When they do, appreciate their voicing it. “I’m glad you shared this with me.”

Ask them to stay in that feeling. “Why don’t we sit down and talk about why you’re angry?”

Why are they angry? What do they need that they don’t get? “I’m angry because they left me alone in the house.”

Validate those feelings, let the child know those feelings are theirs, they are human, they are OK. “Well, it’s normal to feel sad when you are alone.”

But now – follow that up with teaching the child that there is no need to become distraught. Instead of jumping to demand an immediate solution (“Don’t ever leave me alone again!”) the child needs to learn the value of owning their feelings, and finding ways of helping themselves feel better (“Playing with my toys makes me feel happy when I’m lonely”).

This manner of handling emotion is an extremely important part of human development. If we make others do things so we feel better (“if you never leave me alone, then I won’t feel sad”), we create this idea that feeling sad is bad and that we should do everything we can to block and prevent feeling exactly that…

Instead, as a healthy human being, the child should learn that emotions are healthy and valid, and that they just need to listen to themselves and take care of themselves when they are upset. Instead of demanding you stay (using other people making the feeling stop), they can learn what to do and what to say to themselves to reframe being lonely as a normal and not a catastrophic situation,  helping themselves accept sad or angry feelings as normal and transitory stages. This is the most basic lesson in self-sufficiency.

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. Get emotional management skills from our conflict coaching sessions!

Avoid Teaching Passive Aggression to Your Child is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband