Recovering After Divorcing a Passive Aggressive Husband

April 7, 2012 By 1 Comment

Passive aggressive marriages are notorious happiness-drainers, because your energy and satisfaction keep going low and lower… Divorcing a passive aggressive husband can be even worse! During your marriage, he made sure to trash your self-esteem and dignity, while ensuring that you took care of him and his needs, no questions asked. When you want to divorce him, he makes you look cruel in front of friends and family, tries to manipulate you into staying and thinking that you’re giving up “happiness.”

Getting through a passive aggressive divorce may seem impossible, but you can achieve it. However, what happens afterward? It might feel like the post-divorce period is where things really start to get hard. You may be plagued with grief and guilt, or doubt that you did the right thing. He may be hounding you financially or emotionally, and your self-esteem will be in the gutter.

What can you do to recover after divorcing a passive aggressive husband? We’ve compiled some great tips to help you regain self-esteem after divorcing a passive aggressive man.

Plan To Reinvent Yourself

You must start by reinventing your concept of who you are and what you want from life. It’s important that you think about how to think of yourself as a VALID individual, worthy on her own and not only as part of a couple. What is your plan to reinvent yourself – do you need to completely rediscover yourself by going on a trip? School? A new city? Dance lessons? Think of the craziest thing you could do, something that makes your heart beat to try. Go do it!

What Were Your Life Purposes As A Child?

What did you want to be when you grew up?

What did you love the most, what were your hobbies?

Reinventing yourself into someone happy and connected rides on finding what you really love and value, and going back to your childhood could be a great place to start.

Look at your childhood pictures and connect with who you were, identify your childhood dreams and start from there. What excited you, made you happy?

Now make a list of the things you love (don’t censor yourself telling that it is impossible; list everything you love!).

You can then make several loved things coalesce into a new “discovering my new life” project. Here’s an example: If you love cats and animals, taking care of living things, gardening, child care, then you should pursue a life direction that focuses on creating and protecting living things. Don’t held yourself back by saying, “I have to find a real job.” You’ve wasted too many years on being “reasonable” and “realistic.” Seize the day!

Now that you know what you are good at, make a list of all things (jobs or otherwise), possible and impossible, that you would do to use those skills. Brainstorming can take different directions – you could design your own job, volunteer at different agencies that interest you, chat with friends and family, or just travel a bit. Give yourself a goal and plan once you find your most exciting life prospect, and don’t forget to write down the steps for tomorrow and beyond.

All the way keep telling Yourself:

  • I KNOW I CAN
  • I KNOW I’M WORTHY
  • I KNOW I’M LOVABLE

Leave this plan/list in a place where you will not see it for two days… stop thinking consciously about it, because your unconscious soul is already working on it!

Finding Love After Divorcing A
Passive Aggressive Man

 

Discover what you want in a man by making a list like you just did for life prospects.

What excites you about a man? What are you looking for?

Think long and hard about what you husband didn’t give you, what you were hoping for all those years.
Don’t fixate on all the things he “could” have been – think about all the things you’re going to pursue in your future and find for yourself. You could make a visual list, with pictures that have something to do with your idea of “love,” or cut words from print and make a verbal collage that speaks, “This is what I’m looking for.” You can also explore what used to be important to you, but now isn’t as important as others (perhaps you value adventure more, or perhaps you value being good with children).

Put the collage in a drawer, and two days later edit, correct and end the official “ideal match.” Put that list in a visible site, and allow your subconscious mind to take over.
You will begin to look at your new relations from this point of view; from a stronger self-esteem and new view of yourself.

Is your journey of reinvention endangered by low self-esteem, guilt, or threats from your ex-husband?

Do you need a coach who can motivate you to grab the reigns of your own life? Register with us here at Passive Aggressive Husband to receive information about passive aggression, being independent, and leading a happy, healthy life. Talk to our coach, Dr. Nora, to get personal feedback on your situation and in-depth relationship coaching on how to recover after divorcing your passive aggressive husband.

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What is Passive Aggression Doing to Your Heart?

February 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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!

 

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68% of Men Prefer to Retreat and Say “Yes” To Avoid Fighting

October 3, 2011 By

More than 68% of men prefer to say “yes” and back down to avoid confrontation, according to a survey recently conducted by Creative Conflict Resolutions.

Creative Conflict Resolutions tested more than 900 men by using an online questionnaire, in order to determine the presence of passive aggressive behavior in each test-taker. This test has twenty-one questions about the way people approach communication and conflict in their relationship, and it is still available for free at their site, Passive Aggressive Test.

Using their findings, Creative Conflicts began to construct a map of the game of life, according to the passive aggressive mindset. The mindset demands “going along” with others by pretending to accept their requests and needs. In this way, the basic incompetence of the passive aggressive person to feel empathy is successfully masked. Essentially, what is produced is a “make believe role play,” where the passive aggressive person feels they are required to mask their own feelings and play a part in order to receive any sort of love.

Creative Conflicts wants those findings to be shared with the thousands of couples struggling with passive aggression. The partner of a passive aggressive person can spend the best 20-30 years of their life trying to decode this maddening double message. Meanwhile, in trying to decode it, the innocent partner can be accused of being crazy, aggressive and overly demanding.

This reveals why Creative Conflicts used their results in the way that they did: they created a new set of tools for the passive aggressive husband. With their survey, Creative Conflicts gained greater perspective on the mindset of the passive aggressive man and where his emotional needs lie. To change this situation, the system Creative Conflicts has created offers a road map that helps the passive aggressive person own his lack of empathy and the need to fake commitment, exchanging them for real emotional bonding. Creative Conflicts’ new system is ready for their clients, and has already met with success. It can be found at Passive Aggressive System.

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 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!

Filed Under: impact of passive aggression, passive aggressive behavior, passive aggressive definition, Passive Aggressive Husband, passive aggressive marriage, passive aggressive personality, toxic relationship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Teaching Your Husband to Stop: Is This the Cure for Your Unhappiness?

September 23, 2011 By

Over the years, most of what we’ve discussed here has been about how to deal with the impact of your husband’s passive aggressive behaviour in your life. However, not much attention has gone to helping your husband understand what is going on, and to motivate him to change his ways.

But now, we have created a system that does exactly that. Want a peek?

If you think that this approach can help your marriage, would you suggest to your husband that he start this process? Taking the Passive Aggressive Test is easy and free! After he takes the test, there will be no more confusions: you will know what the next steps are!

Filed Under: impact of passive aggression, passive aggressive behavior, passive aggressive definition, Passive Aggressive Husband, passive aggressive marriage, passive aggressive personality, toxic relationship Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Passive Aggression Means We Can’t Fight to Connect

September 23, 2011 By

Many researchers (whether of the brain, psychology or communication and conflict) will agree that when we communicate with others, we are attempting to connect with those people on some deeper emotional level.

This is true of a hurled insult as well as a warm hug.

That means that when you are fighting, say, over which way is best to punish your children for misbehavior, you are not just fighting to establish house rules. As hard as it may be to wrap your head around, your brain is also trying to renew some feeling of being connected – essentially, you are able to fight with each other because you are emotionally close enough to do so.

In that case, wouldn’t you say that an angry connection is better than the indifference and lack of connection between strangers? Which association would you rather have with your partner?

We know – you’re thinking to yourself, “What about the really serious fights?” Thinking about fighting as a means of connecting can help you here, as well. Usually, after a serious fight, you fall into despair about the future of the relationship, right? Everybody does. However, thinking of a serious fight as our brains searching for intimate connection can help us override that sense that “fighting equals division.” If you begin to think about fighting in this negative way, the relationship can suffer even more – each of you avoid raising issues that will cause conflict, inhibiting any possible growth.

Thus, a healthy relationship can sometimes be linked by anger as well as love – both are normal ways the brain seeks connection. It’s the way we’re designed to work and interact with one another.

In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Susan Johnson (a research expert on intimacy) states that it makes sense scientifically that couples fight over silly things. Beneath the content of what partners say to one another in fights, each wants to be assured of their value in relation to the other, essentially asking basic questions like, “Will you be there for me?”

What happens when one of the partners has learned to do passive aggression since childhood? It becomes a weapon of sabotage – by “defending” against and “avoiding” both anger and love, the passive aggressive person refuses to answer those questions his partner is asking. Given his inability to feel a deep connection with anyone, because of his childhood trauma, he can’t connect with others or feel others’ need for connection.

His partner can escalate the search for a positive response by continuing the fight, but the passive aggressive husband will retreat more and more until finally abandoning the interaction. He will say his partner is “full of anger” or “making all this drama,”  or whatever reasons he can give himself to cover up the fact that he can’t feel any compassion for her distress; he can’t offer any assurance that he is there, and that he is connected. He will do the opposite behavior: either leave, clam up or express disgust for the other person’s needs.

Sadly there is no way to nurture the abandoned partner when this passive aggression happens. Some wives call it “the wall of silence,” referring their communal sensation of knocking at a wall without any emotional response. The perception of being let down and ignored in their need for reassurance is difficult to avoid.

Because we can see fighting as the intent to make the other person pay attention to us, and to make them answer the question, “Are you connected with me?” we can also see passive aggression as making a mockery of this intent. The husband will retreat and he will never confirm that he understands the deep need for connection motivating the confrontation; he  will end up blaming the other side in her desperation as “aggressive” and “out of control.” The need of the brain to experience the security of connection will be frustrated.

Fighting is a way of making the other person pay attention to us; it is a weird form of re-connecting. If your ability to re-connect with your partner, via fighting or loving, is being thwarted by passive aggression, the very life of the relationship is being threatened. That is why, if your relationship is important and something you want to strive to keep alive, it is important that you work toward stopping passive aggression in the marriage NOW.

If you are not clear where this healing of the relationship would start, we have many resources for you to begin with:

Don’t wait a minute longer for things to “just get better.” All relationships require effort, both on your side and his. That is why we often suggest that you take advantage of both the resources for you, and the resources for your husband.

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 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!

Filed Under: impact of passive aggression, passive aggressive behavior, passive aggressive definition, Passive Aggressive Husband, passive aggressive marriage, passive aggressive personality, toxic relationship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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