Indeed, each house is a different world. In each couple there are behaviors done, and behaviors missing. And a lot of time waiting for happiness to come back, to be just in the center of this relationship….We know a lot of what makes you unhappy;
we know less of what is missing; what would you make happier.

If we look at the experience of “walking on eggshells,” we see that it is too common in the shared stories. If you had not to walk on eggshells, what would you like to experience instead of that behavior? What is the opposite experience that makes you feel secure and accepted?

If you identify with being in the receiving end of “Getting the cold shoulder?” what would you like instead, that offers you the opposite experience? how do you dream the feeling of having a partner that shares ideas and thinking and planning with you, and how does it make you feel?

We invite you here to share your thoughts. Please, look at the litany of passive aggressive behaviors our readers suffer and are describing in their postings at AskNora, check the ones that you recognize as part of your life….and feel free to describe what your soul wants instead. Nobody but you knows what is what would you feel right, loved and supported, so use your own words to describe what you want to have in your life now.

You can begin your comment by saying:

“Instead of this behavior (fill the blank here) what I really need/want/appreciate is this other behavior!” (describe your heart’s desire here)

Thanks for sharing!

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.

What are your dreams of a healthy, happy relationship? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

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If your passive aggressive partner is used to have you covering up for his withdrawal, silences and frequent claims of helplessness, then STOP.

You could train yourself on not reacting to cover up his missing activities. Given that your own welfare and livelihood are dependent on his, because living together, he is confident that you will save both of you at the last minute.

How could you pull this trick:

Declare somewhat casually that you are not to be automatically in charge of covering up what he leaves undone or forgets and that he needs to ask you for the favor of doing something in his own “to do list.” If there is no request from his side, inform him you will let the issue expire, drop or be disconnected.

Try to pick one issue not so fundamental to your own well being as the electricity supply. If this bill lapses because he didn’t remember to pay it, better you have your own flashlight hidden somewhere in the house.

Once you have selected your issue target, do nothing. Don’t remind him; don’t warn him; keep complete silence and see what happens.

Wait to mention the issue so he is the one first to recognize that something is not working. Wait to be asked if you did pay the bill, etc. then, look at him and say “That was in your list, and as we both are grown up people, we both need to take care of what needs to be done.”

Don’t offer to solve the problem; be prepared to live without, up until the moment he decides to go ahead and solve it. It can be difficult, but remember that you are making a point here.

Probably, the most difficult part of this strategy will be stopping yourself from helping, solving or taking care of things…This is a good thing to learn, so stay put, breathe deeply and remember to have fun and enjoy your own life.

PD. we have two more great strategies to teach you….keep reading. If you have a good friend in need of learning them, could you send this message to them? Thanks!

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.

Balancing Passive Aggression Strategy 1 is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

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We need to remember first that this kind of behavior
a) is not caused by or originated with the present marriage;
b) has deep roots in his childhood and family of origin
c) is connected with some kind of long forgotten trauma, still active inside him.

This short description is necessary because there can be so many misconceptions obscuring the understanding of his present behavior. She is not guilty of his present passive aggression, because he has been functioning in this way to protect himself from life’s hazards and tribulations for a very long time.

So, why the need for secrecy? If the original trauma and all the feelings included has to do with his parents, or a parent substitute as uncles, godfathers, or ministers, it could never be opened up. The victim, in this case your husband, had to keep everything inside as a way of colluding with his parents who decided that the situation was normal enough not to merit a comment or a defensive reaction. If the child was abused, emotionally oppressed or humiliated in some way, this was never talked about, because the loyalty to parental figures was stronger. Then and there, secrecy was the main line of defense: don’t say a word about what hurts you. Tragically, this “defense” ends up exterminating all humanity in relationships, because then the humiliated child has nobody to defend his integrity, and every one of the adults is a accomplice of the hurt.

The last thing a PA person will do is to complain about his own past or present unhappiness. He is still a five years old child inside, convinced that there is no justice in this world, that talking will get him punished and still will get no justice, and that opening up could end up in more ridicule, punishment or humiliation. No, he can’t say a word….which doesn’t mean that he is not hurt, resentful and dreaming of revenge!

This secrecy pact is what makes it so difficult to live with him…produces the impression that he is still more loyal to the people that then and there damaged him, than to his present situation and loving companion. Secrecy will make also impossible to provide him with the satisfaction and nurturing his own needs demand, and will generate resentment on both sides: on her side because she is willing to give love that he finds impossible to accept and from his side because whatever he can receive is not answering his deep needs for love and security coming from his past starvation.

Secrecy also gives him the illusion of conserving his own power; if nobody knows what hurts him, he can deny that some hurt exists in his heart forever. “Me keeping a grudge against my parents? Why would I do such a thing?”

Denial is a wall that blocks connection in marriage. It signals a whole part of his soul is not included in the marriage bargain. Allows withdrawal and isolation, and predicts more isolation, but the illusion of power and control.

So, what can you do? First, accept that this is his reality; no amount of coaching or preaching will make him leave this cave when he feels the need to be protected there. Perhaps allowing him to keep his secrets, giving him permission to withdraw in his cave and sulk there, is the only way of giving him what he needs. And feeling that he has not to fight for his right to some privacy, so he can feel secure enough of being respected as he is, could invite him to leave his cave more often.

SIGH? nobody said that this kind of marriage was going to be easy, right? What about your karma could be now putting you in this pickle?

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.

Why secrecy is part of passive aggression? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

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“In my own way to learn detachment, there were several moments I do remember as very important for me:

The first thing I decided to do: I completely stopped opening a conversation with him about the future of our relationship.
Then, I completely stopped touching him or getting near him in a loving way…and watched his reaction”

You probably are surprised, and asking: is this what I need to do?

YES, to reconnect with your own feelings, you need to detach. It doesn’t mean you don’t love him any more; it means you are opening your own space to get to know who are you and what do you feel…

If you perceive that he is ready to look like he will open up a conversation, (because you are strangely silent) saying something like “what do you think we could do…” just wait a bit more:

—Go and do the dishes, play with the cat, go to the bathroom, do something else, but do not accept his invitation to take over the conversation about “where do we go from here..”

—Focus your attention on watering the plants, feed the dog, take out the trash, but don’t engage.

—Instead, take the time to sit down, and explore your feelings…how do you feel? Angry? Exhausted? Hopeless? Own any feelings appearing inside you: there is only one way to recover yourself and is through owning your emotions.

—Cry, yell if you need to, but don’t let him see you, or communicate any of these feelings to him.

Stay in this contained situation until you feel that you own your feelings, and that you can manage them. You are not at his mercy, but you can control yourself.

This kind of detachment separates your own feelings from whatever he tries to make you feel; ends confusion and makes you the owner of your own power. Is a temporary emotional separation that allows you to recover the person you are and center in yourself. Without this centering, any “talk” with him will confuse you again, and make again feel that you are lost….Just take control of yourself, and center!

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.

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Here is an online conversation between a poster in a forum and the response:

“Whenever my wife and I have a “big” or “serious” argument, which is quite rare for us, she tends to be more emotional and therefore aggressive. She is hurt and/or feels an injustice has taken place, which leads to her anger. Her anger leads to her emotionally charged words directed at me.

Her goal is to make me feel the pain or frustration that she feels (to a lesser degree, an equal degree, or a greater degree). She is aggressive in her attempt to achieve this. I, on the other hand, am more of a “thinker” than a “feeler”. I tend to be more reserved and calm in my approach.

If I let her angry words produce anger in me, and I respond to her with anger, I get engaged in a fight and this is not what I want. I blame her for inciting me to fight, it really upsets me that she has the power to move me to use strong words!”

Dear Husband:

Many thanks for this deep and sincere post. I’m awed by the courage you show to get to the bottom of the situation, and to accept responsibility for your own actions. Many thanks for such a refreshing posting.

I was married to a very good man, a caucasian ex-mormon, very quiet and very PA. Your phrase: “she tends to be more emotional and therefore aggressive” was a shock for me…when I thought I was being expressive and showing him my emotions, perhaps he saw me as “aggressive!” Now I can understand the basic deviation of the lenses we used to see each other…

If this is the way you view her emotional attitude, then it’s clear for me that the need you had of “defend yourself ” was not helping.

I thought I was showing him my growing desperation… at the walls of his silence, I would escalate with my emotional state, and then, seeing the depth of my anguish, he would show his compassion. I was looking for his compassion, not for a show of how much he could close himself as self defense.

But, he would just leave the room. No words, no conclusion, no closure or decision; just silence….It was very lonely there.

You say:   “Her goal is to make me feel the pain or frustration that she feels (to a lesser degree, an equal degree, or a greater degree). She is aggressive in her attempt to achieve this.”

In my experience, it’s not a tit for tat….is her growing desperation at the communication gap that is producing the rift:

• I get more emotional,
• you get more calm and logical,
• it makes me more anxious to be understood,
• then you retreat into stony silence…

What other channels have you left her? What other ways are there to express her anguish, her loneliness and the pervasive wish to be understood, deeply understood by the most important person in her world?

The “serious argument” is but the tip of the iceberg, underneath is the anxiety for connecting. If a man sees this aspect, he is now on target. Real emotional strenght from a husband has nothing to do with passive aggressive “calm” and “restraint”

Perhaps wives have the need to receive a very real, caring and loving response from the husband that says:

“I’m here. I’m not scared by your emotional escalation, I see it as a signal of your deep need to connect with me. I will not leave you, or counter attack you; I’m here to listen, to understand, to console, to love you as you are…by the way, when you are so upset, you look so beautiful to my eyes!”

Nora Femenia is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Signup free to be connected to her innovative conflict solutions, positive suggestions and life-changing coaching sessions, along with blog updates, news, and more!

Is it anger or desperation? is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

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Here we will learn how to interpret more silence as anger, repressed anger from a partner.

There is no reason someone would fell suddenly silent, if she is not trying either to control a reaction or to show something that can’t be conveyed in words. Here we have non-verbal behavior, and this behavior has a message: “I’m very angry at you, or at the situation, or at something”

You’d better pay attention now, because your loved one is swallowing his/her feelings, ignoring and denying that there is a conflict to be resolved, but with anger festering inside.

The result is that, with broken communication between both of you, there is a growing withdrawing of cooperation from shared daily life.

Without knowing the reason why, you can see yourself excluded from some projects or find that there is no follow-through to previous projects, and no explanation is given…

This is the time to ask yourself: could it be that my partner is angry as hell, and can’t show it?

Scary as it can be, it’s true that some angry reaction is brewing inside, and you are left with the task to bring it up to a level where it can be confronted and resolved.

NOTHING will happen, but more hidden anger, if you don’t step up to the plate and do something. Whatever you plan to do, is better than ignoring the silent partner, because silence is a communication that you can’t ignore.

The first task is not to feel invalidated or criticized by the silence; perhaps you can maintain your self-esteem thinking of the situation as produced by his/her non-existent skills at fair fighting in a marriage. It’s not your fault, OK?

Refuse to match the denial and begin your talk about “our present concern” in terms of a shared responsibility.
Offer a supportive mood: “we’ll talk about it as soon as you feel ready”
Keep being clear about the issue: “we both need to have a shared decision on this issue, because it’s important to both of us.”

And clarify your expectations: if this person has a way to discuss things with you, and this is a momentary situation, be encouraged and keep supporting. If he has not the disposition or habit to discuss things with you, and focus only on his hurt feelings, you can have a steeper battle in front of you.

Marriage is a shared endeavor, and we need talk to share opinions, ask questions, and decide issues. As much as your silent partner bails out from this task, and leaves you alone deciding things for the two of them, you don’t have a husband but a dependent child. It’s now the time for you to make that distinction?

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.

The Silent Partner is an Angry Partner is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

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Once you accept that you are in this world to control others and make them do the right things, as you conceive them to be right, comes the real battle. Spouses have ridiculous ideas about being grown up people able to make their own decisions, so you need to find a way to impose control on them.

If a logical description of how things should happen is not enough, then the season is open for other ways of breaking the non-cooperative spouse’s will. What better way to control someone than to make them doubt their own perceptions???

What better way is there than to diminish her to the point that she has so low self-esteem as not to challenge male power? to reduce her to be dependent on money and all important family decision-making?

At the final stage, emotional-abuse victims become so convinced they are worthless, that they believe no one else could possible want them, either as lovers, friends or employers. Therefore, they “naturally” stay in abusive situations because they sincerely believe they have nowhere else to go.

We can recognize the end point of this de-humanizing process when she declares that her ultimate fear is that of being all alone. If the idea of being alone is extremely frightening, it is because her sense of self as a valuable individual has been totally demolished. Now, she can “gladly” give him complete control of family decisions about her, her children and her own future.

The toxic payoff is that now in the family there is a paradoxical “state of peace,” and supposedly the controlling husband is happy because he can reign in his own domain unchallenged.

If the children are not completely brainwashed, sooner or later they will want to be independent and make their own decisions, and here comes a painful break: to be able to grow up as adults, they need to leave their mother in the emotional prison that her marriage is. Or perhaps they can challenge their father and obtain some measure of independence for their mother also.

This is a sad picture; the end point of the fight for marriage control is the destruction of one spouse by means of abuse, attacks and rejection, so to get obedience.

This control battle, in all its different shapes and styles is going on in each household around us. Can we recognize its existence in our daily lives?

And how do we respond to the push for complete control in a way that respects the other person’s humanity while setting good boundaries around each one?

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.

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“My Husband and I can barely have a discussion about anything without us getting thoroughly annoyed with each other (subject matter can be anything from the most mundane to the most sophisticated) because we are both hurting and feeling unloved and unfufilled by the other….so there’s not much of an effort to really engage. Or interest, or excitement about the other person’s ideas or feelings anymore.

The bad communication, constant traveling, blame blame blame and hurt hurt hurt followed by silence silence silence and loneliness loneliness loneliness all happened first and then you add that to a passive aggressive type A constantly working business man who is blameless and always focusing on “facts and data” vs. emotions and feelings….and you get to this place.”

We need to be talking first about the shared responsibility to keep communication alive in a marriage.
To avoid getting to this place, women usually try to ask, demand, invite and cajole husbands into “better communication.” They even make appointments with counselors and therapists and priests to get help.

The more they press for communication that includes reference to feelings (husband’s feelings) the more he is in alien terrotory and more and more distraught by the request. Isn’t it enough to bring home the bacon? what else does she want, that he can’t or will not provide by his own will?

Of course, the usual response is more silence, more isolation and more defensive talk about how she is pushing him or forcing him to something that:

• Is not his responsibility.
• It is obviously in her sphere of action (the feelings talk).

So, why is he forced to say things he doesn’t feel/know/care about? Is better to clam up, and wait for the storm to pas! Or, if he is forced, he will promise anything, only to get her off her case. End of story!

Finally, they can be truly bewildered at how frustrated the wife gets with them.
They say ‘yes’ when they mean ‘no’, or ‘Sure! No problem! ‘ to even a benign request so that she moves on thinking it is all good …..but habitually they don’t do what they agreed to. Because they never meant to go through, but wanted to end a demanding conversation, and the only way perceived to end it is agreeing verbally, and forgetting everything about the promise afterwords.

Or perhaps, only perhaps they could be hurt when confronted with the unfulfilled promise, because they were still thinking about getting to do what they promised, but procrastinated so long that they either became irritated about it hanging over their head, becoming angry at you because you requested something, or react to your frustration by eventually making such a useless attempt at it that you wonder why you ask them at all.

If confronted with their intentional non-compliance, and the sad result of their efforts that doesn’t solve the original problem, they will bemoan bitterly that “you’re so demanding or impossible” and that “nothing is ever good enough for you.”

An impossible trap?

Of course it is! when are wives going to learn the lessons and stop requesting cooperation to do some domestic tasks, if they realize that they will get nothing in return? The final point is, let’s be aware that we are looking at a battle in the war for control. The passive aggressive person is fighting a hidden war for “who controls this relationship,” by using his own tactics, of which she is unaware of. Perhaps framing this as a fight for control could help understand such a destructive behavior.

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.

Passive Aggressive Non-Communication Battles is a post from: Passive Aggressive Husband

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