For all kinds of different reasons, we may end up in the wrong relationship with someone. When things go bad, we try to hold on to those relationships because it's important to us to try and show our commitment by staying with them, trying to work through things, and trying to make the relationship a good one instead of a bad one. Nice sentiments, but not always practical.
If you're with the wrong man, then you might be struggling because you're both trying to put a square peg into a round hole.
One of the things I've come to understand over the years is that passive aggression (something I'm intimately familiar with) exists in all people, but for most of them, it only occurs in isolated instances. People with passive aggressive personality disorder (PAPD) have it most of the time. It affects their life, and their relationships.
And one of the most fascinating aspects of PAPD is that it seems mostly men suffer it. But the very nature of its most predominant symptom of denying their responsibility means they avoid seeking healing because they don't want to believe they're responsible for the issues in their life or relationships.
I also came to understand from my own experiences that when I wasn't around people trying to control me, I wasn't passive aggressive. Part of my own problem in life was that sometimes I was choosing the wrong women to be around, and this is part of the problem with all PAPD sufferers - and their partners too. They choose the wrong people.
Loving connections between people include mutual respect, care, support, communication, and happiness. Having all of those in your relationship means you're with the right person. Maintaining that takes effort, but you should be maintaining a state of happiness and fulfillment. When you're trying to constantly fix something that's just broken, you're in the wrong relationship and you're wasting your time and your life.
Your consistent happiness over time is a sign of whether or not a relationship is right for you.
[Tweet "If you're happy, keep going. If you're unhappy, change course."]
If you're unhappy and struggling in your relationship, get the hell out of it. You don't need to be with someone who abuses you with their behaviour. They're not going to change, because if that was likely, they'd already be trying to change and trying to talk to you about their issues and seeking your help to overcome them.
If they're not doing that, all you can do is look forward to more of their continued abusive behaviour if you stay with them.
And you know what? A big part of the reason your partner abuses you with passive aggression - or other forms of abuse - is because you're still with him, regardless of everything he's done. You've been inadvertently telling him that it's ok to abuse you. If it wasn't ok, you'd leave him. Since you're still with him, it must be ok. That's what he's thinking.
I want you to choose yourself. Choose your own happiness. Choose a good life.
If you're in such a relationship with someone who is passive aggressive or abusive in any other way, I want you to know that I'm here for you, to help you with any questions you have, any advice you need, or any guidance. As long as it's all based on choosing yourself and moving on. You need to move on. You need to leave him behind. You need to get the hell out of this abusive situation you're in, and start building a wonderful, exciting and happy life for yourself.
I know you can do that.
How did I change my own situation, and get treatment? How did I heal my own passive aggressive personality disorder? I realised I was the one at fault. I had to take control of my life, and take ownership of my responsibilities. I had to make important decisions about what was working in my life and what wasn't, and I had to walk away from what wasn't working so that I could work out what did work.
I took some time out for myself, spent three years exploring my life while single, trying to work out exactly what kind of person I wanted or needed to be, and what kind of person I needed to be with. I needed to know myself in order to know who I was best suited to be with in a relationship.
I worked out that I had been choosing women who were dominant like me. We were two bulls butting horns, all the time, and that's why I was passive aggressive in those relationships. There were relationships I'd had with women where I wasn't passive aggressive.
Once I knew what was going on, and why my passive aggression was being triggered, I knew what kind of woman I needed to be with. From that moment, I very quickly found my ideal woman for me and thankfully, I happened to be the ideal man for her. We've been together for almost 3 years, and got married about 6 months ago. She's perfect for me because she doesn't trigger my passive aggression at all.
If you like being in control in your relationships, for whatever reasons, then don't be with someone that hates being controlled. Trying to control someone that doesn't want to be controlled is a 'trigger' for their passive aggression, especially if they feel it's unsafe for them to express themselves.
If you're a dominant personality and experiencing passive aggressive reactions from your partner who is also dominant, then you might need to be with a submissive personality in order for your relationship to work. And if that's your choice, such a relationship is perfectly ok. Whatever makes two people happy is absolutely perfect. It doesn't matter what other people think; it's not their life you're living.
In order to heal, you need to avoid whatever it is that's been hurting you, so that you can have the space and the time to heal your wounds.
If you're here reading this because you're at a point in your life and your relationship that you're considering choosing yourself instead of your abuser, I know it's not an easy journey you're considering. I wish you all the strength in the world.
Showing posts with label Passive Aggression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Passive Aggression. Show all posts
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Be a better man
Discovering you have passive aggressive behaviours and responses to the point that it's become a personality disorder (PAPD, or Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder) can be something of a shock. When I discovered this about myself it left me depressed for a few months before I came out the other side.
For me, I realised that all the things that had gone wrong in my life were my fault, and not anyone else's as I had thought it was. Things could have been different if I had been different.
Even though I couldn't change the past, I could change my future by making sure I avoided doing the things that I'd been doing before. I could learn from my mistakes to try and do things differently so that the experiences of my life would be different.
It was pretty amazing how much of a change that created in my life. My career and my income moved forward in leaps and bounds. I left my fiancee (not the same fiancee I'm married to now!) when I realised that we were wrong for each other, and that the biggest reason for my passive aggression was because I was trying to be a good partner to an angry woman, and what I did just inspired more anger from her, which resulted in more defensive passive aggression from me.
Instead of making each other happy, all we were doing was making each other angry. We spent three years trying to find a way to overcome our communication and emotional challenges, but eventually it was just ridiculous. We weren't suited for each other, and we needed to accept that and move on. So I did.
Healing my passive aggression meant that I had to avoid people that made me angry and frustrated, and find people that made me calm and happy.
That's pretty much the secret to finding success in relationships. Find someone who makes you calm and happy, and do whatever the hell you can to keep them calm and happy too.
Whether it's a happy wife or a happy girlfriend - if they're happy, then you're happy too. Finding that woman can be a challenge though, but you owe it to yourself to find a way.
If you're with someone that you can't make it work, no matter how much you try, then you're probably with the wrong person, and fighting to make it work just results in you fighting.
Sometimes you have to cut your losses and get out while you still can. Sort your shit out, and take careful stock of the kind of partner that works best with you in a relationship.
Understand who you are, and what you need in a partner, and then look for that person. Treasure them when you find them, because they're exactly that - treasure.
Finding someone that matches who you are, and loves you and supports you without constantly getting angry with you, is one of the most difficult things in the world to find.
But for them to love you, you also have to be worth their love. For them to avoid getting angry with you, you have to avoid doing things that cause anger.
You have to be a better man than what you are today. You have to be. There's no other choice, and you have to look at it that way.
It's a challenging road to be on, and it can take many years to feel like you're getting somewhere. But hold on to the vision in your mind of who you want to be, and who you want to be with, and you'll get there eventually.
For me, I realised that all the things that had gone wrong in my life were my fault, and not anyone else's as I had thought it was. Things could have been different if I had been different.
Even though I couldn't change the past, I could change my future by making sure I avoided doing the things that I'd been doing before. I could learn from my mistakes to try and do things differently so that the experiences of my life would be different.
It was pretty amazing how much of a change that created in my life. My career and my income moved forward in leaps and bounds. I left my fiancee (not the same fiancee I'm married to now!) when I realised that we were wrong for each other, and that the biggest reason for my passive aggression was because I was trying to be a good partner to an angry woman, and what I did just inspired more anger from her, which resulted in more defensive passive aggression from me.
Instead of making each other happy, all we were doing was making each other angry. We spent three years trying to find a way to overcome our communication and emotional challenges, but eventually it was just ridiculous. We weren't suited for each other, and we needed to accept that and move on. So I did.
Healing my passive aggression meant that I had to avoid people that made me angry and frustrated, and find people that made me calm and happy.
That's pretty much the secret to finding success in relationships. Find someone who makes you calm and happy, and do whatever the hell you can to keep them calm and happy too.
Whether it's a happy wife or a happy girlfriend - if they're happy, then you're happy too. Finding that woman can be a challenge though, but you owe it to yourself to find a way.
If you're with someone that you can't make it work, no matter how much you try, then you're probably with the wrong person, and fighting to make it work just results in you fighting.
Sometimes you have to cut your losses and get out while you still can. Sort your shit out, and take careful stock of the kind of partner that works best with you in a relationship.
Understand who you are, and what you need in a partner, and then look for that person. Treasure them when you find them, because they're exactly that - treasure.
Finding someone that matches who you are, and loves you and supports you without constantly getting angry with you, is one of the most difficult things in the world to find.
But for them to love you, you also have to be worth their love. For them to avoid getting angry with you, you have to avoid doing things that cause anger.
You have to be a better man than what you are today. You have to be. There's no other choice, and you have to look at it that way.
It's a challenging road to be on, and it can take many years to feel like you're getting somewhere. But hold on to the vision in your mind of who you want to be, and who you want to be with, and you'll get there eventually.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Train Wreck (guest post)
About 7 months ago, one of my wonderful readers took the opportunity to submit a great guest post about her experiences with a passive aggressive partner. You can read it here: Starting Over.
Here's the second part to that post, telling more of her story about her relationship with a passive aggressive man.
Living with a passive aggressive man that refuses to take responsibility for his attitudes, actions, or problems is like being in a train wreck in slow motion. You feel helpless. You see the train slowly chugging along, and then you notice the conductor falling asleep. You try to wake him, but he falls asleep again. The train picks up speed, and as the train gains momentum it goes around a sharp corner. You yell and scream to no avail. Since the conductor is asleep, the train derails and wrecks. Our train derailed many years ago, the train has wrecked, the carnage is lying on the ground. Some can be rescued, some can't. People look on in horror. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to help.
How did I discover I was living with a passive aggressive man? How did it affect me? When did it start?
It started in the beginning of our relationship, but I didn’t realize it. I pursued him more than he pursued me. I was very much attracted to him. I was anxious to get married. I was in an abusive marriage 6 years previously, and I ended up picking the opposite end of the pendulum. As I felt the biological time clock ticking, I look back and realize I probably “persuaded” him to marry me. How do I know this? As our marriage became more emotionally distant and we argued more, he often asked “why did you marry me?” I always answered “because I loved you…” When I asked “Why did you marry me?” he could never give me an answer. He just shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t know…” Once he told me he married me out of guilt. I felt devastated.
Back to the train leaving the station. Six weeks after we married, I became pregnant with our first child. I was elated. I always wanted a large family. The train chugged along, the babies kept coming, one after another. They kept me busy, working. The babies adored me. They needed me. My husband worked long hours, I took care of the children and the house.
After a few years, I started longing for the affection and companionship that was missing. I started longing for more than cooing with the babies. I wanted dark, snuggly nights. I wanted romance. I wanted companionship. I wanted someone I could share my dreams and aspirations with. I wanted to work with him together. I wanted him to want me.
At first his excuses were “my gosh, we have so many children, they need us. We don’t have the money. I’m tired.” I would get discouraged, but I accepted his excuses. I allowed the excuses. Sometimes I cried and would get mad. I begged, I pleaded, and I wrote lists. His response was “Isn’t this why you wanted so many children? To keep you company?” The words stung. I blamed it all on myself. I had already been in an abusive relationship before and figured I didn’t deserve to be treated with respect.
Wanting a large family, I always dreamed of happy times with husband and wife playing in the park with their large brood of children. The large family happened, but the happy times never existed. Then the children started getting bigger, expressing their opinions, becoming harder to deal with. There was much controversy in disciplining the children. I became angrier as the years passed. I felt “stuck” in a dead marriage, but I felt helpless because you can’t make another person change. I felt helpless because I didn’t have the means of making it on my own with so many young children. I didn’t want to make it on my own. I wanted a loving relationship with mutual respect and adoration.
Many times I felt like I was the crazy one because why couldn’t I just be happy by myself? Why couldn’t I be happy without companionship? What was my problem? I even prayed fervently for God to take those desires out of my heart. He was happy being by himself, looking off aimlessly into the distance. He enjoyed my “physical presence of being around” but he did not want to interact with me. Oh, trivial talk about cars, weather, work schedules, etc. were easy. But don’t dare talk about emotions or needs I would get complete shut down and silence.
If things didn’t go as expected, there was much anger, and I would always try to calm him down. Again, I blamed it on myself. If only I had trained the children better, if only I had the energy to make his favorite meals every night. If only, if only, if only…. Maybe he wouldn’t get so angry. The interesting observation is that if he got angry, I remained calm and tried to subdue his anger. I tried to help him figure out why he was so angry. If I got angry, he got angry back at me, and then I felt even worse.
We tried marriage counseling again. We talked to the Pastor and wife at church. We talked to other couples. I bought books. I bought teaching tapes. We went to seminars. I kept trying and trying to figure out how to make our relationship work. I would end up crying, and he would say “yes, I know I should do…..” He would do it for a day and then revert back to his normal habits. I would get my hopes up with the tiny bit of faith, and then my hopes were dashed into the ground. There was no accountability.
I switched my affections to work, friends, and trying to socialize by myself. Deep inside I was slowly dying. I found I had nothing to look forward to and tried to create “things” that would excite me, impassion me, and spur me on. We moved to a bigger house, I bought farm animals, my business increased, I worked more. I slowly started distancing myself from being hurt. We were two good buddies living in the same house. Many times I felt like he was the 10th child. I had to be responsible for it all. He even referred to “babysitting the children.” Does a father babysit his own children?
I started to try and find “me”. The train began to derail. It was headed for an inevitable crash.
Here's the second part to that post, telling more of her story about her relationship with a passive aggressive man.
Train Wreck by 'girlFriday'
Living with a passive aggressive man that refuses to take responsibility for his attitudes, actions, or problems is like being in a train wreck in slow motion. You feel helpless. You see the train slowly chugging along, and then you notice the conductor falling asleep. You try to wake him, but he falls asleep again. The train picks up speed, and as the train gains momentum it goes around a sharp corner. You yell and scream to no avail. Since the conductor is asleep, the train derails and wrecks. Our train derailed many years ago, the train has wrecked, the carnage is lying on the ground. Some can be rescued, some can't. People look on in horror. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to help.
How did I discover I was living with a passive aggressive man? How did it affect me? When did it start?
It started in the beginning of our relationship, but I didn’t realize it. I pursued him more than he pursued me. I was very much attracted to him. I was anxious to get married. I was in an abusive marriage 6 years previously, and I ended up picking the opposite end of the pendulum. As I felt the biological time clock ticking, I look back and realize I probably “persuaded” him to marry me. How do I know this? As our marriage became more emotionally distant and we argued more, he often asked “why did you marry me?” I always answered “because I loved you…” When I asked “Why did you marry me?” he could never give me an answer. He just shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t know…” Once he told me he married me out of guilt. I felt devastated.
Back to the train leaving the station. Six weeks after we married, I became pregnant with our first child. I was elated. I always wanted a large family. The train chugged along, the babies kept coming, one after another. They kept me busy, working. The babies adored me. They needed me. My husband worked long hours, I took care of the children and the house.
After a few years, I started longing for the affection and companionship that was missing. I started longing for more than cooing with the babies. I wanted dark, snuggly nights. I wanted romance. I wanted companionship. I wanted someone I could share my dreams and aspirations with. I wanted to work with him together. I wanted him to want me.
At first his excuses were “my gosh, we have so many children, they need us. We don’t have the money. I’m tired.” I would get discouraged, but I accepted his excuses. I allowed the excuses. Sometimes I cried and would get mad. I begged, I pleaded, and I wrote lists. His response was “Isn’t this why you wanted so many children? To keep you company?” The words stung. I blamed it all on myself. I had already been in an abusive relationship before and figured I didn’t deserve to be treated with respect.
Wanting a large family, I always dreamed of happy times with husband and wife playing in the park with their large brood of children. The large family happened, but the happy times never existed. Then the children started getting bigger, expressing their opinions, becoming harder to deal with. There was much controversy in disciplining the children. I became angrier as the years passed. I felt “stuck” in a dead marriage, but I felt helpless because you can’t make another person change. I felt helpless because I didn’t have the means of making it on my own with so many young children. I didn’t want to make it on my own. I wanted a loving relationship with mutual respect and adoration.
Many times I felt like I was the crazy one because why couldn’t I just be happy by myself? Why couldn’t I be happy without companionship? What was my problem? I even prayed fervently for God to take those desires out of my heart. He was happy being by himself, looking off aimlessly into the distance. He enjoyed my “physical presence of being around” but he did not want to interact with me. Oh, trivial talk about cars, weather, work schedules, etc. were easy. But don’t dare talk about emotions or needs I would get complete shut down and silence.
If things didn’t go as expected, there was much anger, and I would always try to calm him down. Again, I blamed it on myself. If only I had trained the children better, if only I had the energy to make his favorite meals every night. If only, if only, if only…. Maybe he wouldn’t get so angry. The interesting observation is that if he got angry, I remained calm and tried to subdue his anger. I tried to help him figure out why he was so angry. If I got angry, he got angry back at me, and then I felt even worse.
We tried marriage counseling again. We talked to the Pastor and wife at church. We talked to other couples. I bought books. I bought teaching tapes. We went to seminars. I kept trying and trying to figure out how to make our relationship work. I would end up crying, and he would say “yes, I know I should do…..” He would do it for a day and then revert back to his normal habits. I would get my hopes up with the tiny bit of faith, and then my hopes were dashed into the ground. There was no accountability.
I switched my affections to work, friends, and trying to socialize by myself. Deep inside I was slowly dying. I found I had nothing to look forward to and tried to create “things” that would excite me, impassion me, and spur me on. We moved to a bigger house, I bought farm animals, my business increased, I worked more. I slowly started distancing myself from being hurt. We were two good buddies living in the same house. Many times I felt like he was the 10th child. I had to be responsible for it all. He even referred to “babysitting the children.” Does a father babysit his own children?
I started to try and find “me”. The train began to derail. It was headed for an inevitable crash.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Starting Over (guest post)
I've been a passive aggressive man in my past relationships, so my writing has been about my experiences and my growth from my perpective. But there's also the perspective of someone who has had to live with a passive aggressive man, and it's that perspective that I've never been able to write about.
One of my regular visitors has been affected by a passive aggression partner. We've had a number of discussions over the past year or so, and she's finally decided that she would love to write a guest post in my blog, on the topic of passive aggression. I'm very happy for her to be a guest writer here, writing about something important to her, from the perspective of being the partner of a passive aggressive man! I'm grateful and appreciative that she wants to share her feelings with us on this blog.
Without further ado, it's my honour to present her first post.
One of my regular visitors has been affected by a passive aggression partner. We've had a number of discussions over the past year or so, and she's finally decided that she would love to write a guest post in my blog, on the topic of passive aggression. I'm very happy for her to be a guest writer here, writing about something important to her, from the perspective of being the partner of a passive aggressive man! I'm grateful and appreciative that she wants to share her feelings with us on this blog.
Without further ado, it's my honour to present her first post.
Starting Over
When interacting with a passive/aggressive man, the man may choose not to change, or he may be lazy in changing, not realizing you are serious about ending the relationship. This forces the person tired of the passive/aggressive man to end the relationship in order in order to survive physically, emotionally, and for the well-being of the children.
How do you start over? First you have to start with the divorce. Are you sure you want to divorce? Is there any shred of hope left? I don’t believe there is any hope left. I have tried for 20 years to no avail. I have asked him to support me (emotionally) which he doesn’t know how nor does he want to learn how. I have given him lists on what I feel I need emotionally, and the lists have been ignored. I have asked him to help me train the children, and he said he doesn’t know how. So I gave him books, and the books were ignored.
So what do I do? Move on. Despite the pain, separation, and devastation to the children, I have to move on to preserve the remnant that is left. I am lonely, and I can’t imagine being lonely for another 20 years. Not only that, the children need a parent in charge. Division of authority leads to confusion and rebellion. This leaves many hopes and dreams shattered and dissolved, but at the same time those hopes and dreams never came to fruition.
Once you find a lawyer, you will want to be civil about the matter. No sense in fighting with the person and wasting a lot of money. I will have to give up a lot, but at the same time, I don’t believe I have any choice. You will also want to be civil and kind with the children. It is hard to refrain from talking bad about the spouse, but the children still need a dad. One that they can admire, think highly of, and spend loving time with him regardless of the failed relationship between us. Maybe he will do better with the children once the separation/divorce is in place. So far he hasn’t, and it might be a hard reality check with the children also. It has been two weeks since he has moved out, and he has not had any physical visitation with the children. They blame it on me, but I try to comfort them and I do (right now), try to justify it until the divorce is final. After the divorce is final, I will let the cards fall where they fall.
Reality is starting to hit hard. I cry many days. Many days I feel relieved. My heart aches. But I have to be strong.
My journey begins.
- Girl Friday
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Passive aggression and masculinity
Over the recent years I've discovered that I've become something of an 'expert' on passive aggression. After having experienced it for most of my life, realised it, understood it, and overcome it, I have a unique perspective on what it is, how it affects your life, and how you can change it.
Everyone has passive aggressive traits in them, some more than others. However, when those traits become your predominant behaviour pattern, it becomes a 'personality disorder'. Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD) is something I've had most of my life, and I certainly know the effects of it, but in the past few years I've been able to eliminate most of it.
Healing passive aggression
All the books I've read about it say that healing PAPD is rare, if not impossible, because denying that you are responsible for breakups in relationships and social connections is one of the prominent traits. If you believe you're not responsible for the situations going on around you and in your life, then you also believe there's nothing you need to do for yourself. You're not the one with the problem, so there's nothing you need to heal. And so the behaviour and screwed up life continues.
When I realised I had PAPD and I read about how sufferers rarely heal because they don't believe they're responsible, I immediately saw all the times in my life when I blamed everyone else but myself for all the things that went wrong. And I knew that if I wanted to heal from this disorder, then I needed to start taking responsibility.
With many decades of programmed behaviour resulting in my attitudes and behaviors at that time, I knew that changing it would not happen overnight. But I also knew that if I did want to change it, I had to do something radical.
So I decided to accept responsibility for everything that went wrong, even if I 'knew' that I wasn't responsible. If the problem revolved around an inability to take responsibility, then surely finding a solution to this problem revolved around taking responsibility for everything.
It was my logical mind thinking, but it also worked.
Over a few years, taking responsibility and apologising for every emotional breakdown in my relationships helped me to manage those relationships more successfully, as well as understand exactly what I was doing to cause those breakdowns.
Overcoming passive aggression
Once I knew what I was doing that contributed to emotional breakdowns in my relationships, I could begin changing my behaviour so that the consequences were different.
Instead of engaging in behaviour designed to sabotage or upset my partners because I was inwardly angry but unable to express it, I engaged in behaviour that would take responsibility for my actions and my future, without needing to sabotage or upset my partners with passive aggression. I prevented passive aggressive behaviour occurring by choosing actions that made me responsible, instead of actions that tried to make someone else responsible.
It turned out to be quite amazing how things changed for me. Not only was I able to change the quality of my relationships by engaging in more responsible and loving behaviour, but I was also able to change the quality of my career because of how much extra responsibility I was willing to accept.
As a result, I've been able to improve my life quite considerably, by accepting responsibility for my behaviour and for the effects I have on other people. I've been able to heal my disorder so that it's no longer a disorder.
Sure, I still have my episodes of passive aggression, just like everyone does, but when I realise it's inappropriate, I apologise for it and work on changing it.
Developing better relationships
I also quickly learned at the beginning of my healing process that I was choosing the wrong women to partner with. I was choosing women that were the very opposite of the kind of woman I actually matched with. The results of being with these women caused anger and resentment in me because I was trying to make something work with someone that I should never have been with in the first place, and ended up sabotaging it instead.
Don't get me wrong. I really did need to be with them in a holistic way of thinking. It's because of them that I was able to understand my personal issues and grow from them, so I'm thankful and grateful for what they brought into my life and my personal growth.
Healing my behavioural issues also helped me understand what kind of woman I really needed to be with, that I would match with, and that was an important understanding for my own peace of mind and happiness.
Some people don't need to make it so difficult to understand, and they just choose the pleasure. But nooo, I had to be different. I had to go through decades of pain in order to understand I really wanted and needed someone that would bring me lots of pleasure.
Maybe I'm a masochist or something, I don't know. But I do know I'm very much happier now than I ever used to be.
Passive aggression and powerlessness
Passive aggression is a result of feeling powerless with the circumstances of your life, but not feeling able to safely express your feelings about it. Those with PAPD have grown up as a child, often punished for the expression of their feelings, and they've been powerless to prevent it.
That feeling of powerlessness continues on into adulthood, but it becomes a familiar pattern, a familiar way of life. So when they go out and date others, they're subconsciously attracted to potential partners that they feel would allow them to continue the same old familiar patterns. And so passive aggressive behaviour is often a continual part of their relationships with partners that they feel powerless to express themselves with.
For men, it's usually their mother who punished them as a child for expressing 'undesired' emotions like anger. If something made them angry and they expressed it, they were punished for it, so they learnt that anger was best expressed in subtle, passive ways.
It's because they had no power to take control, and this powerlessness becomes a pervasive belief that creates a life where they continue to have no control.
As these men grow up, the familiar pattern that gives them comfort is to be with women that are similar to their mother, who will emotionally punish them for the same behaviour that their mother did. They will continue to feel powerless in their relationships, and continue to engage in passive aggressive behaviour as a result.
Many women who are with passive aggressive men often find themselves to be similar to the man's mother. It's not a coincidence.
This is also applicable with careers. Any passive aggressive man will resent authority, being told what to do, being expected to be a particular way, and if they don't conform, they're punished for it. So he goes through his working life angry and resentful, sabotaging his own work as well as the expectations of his employers, but in ways that he can deny responsibility.
He's a liability to himself and to anyone that he works for.
Passive aggression and masculinity
For myself, growing up with PAPD, I had my own personal issues with understanding masculinity. I doubted my own masculinity because I felt powerless to take control.
The energy of the masculine is 'active', while the energy of the feminine is 'passive'.
If you're being active in any way - whether you're a man or a woman, it doesn't matter - then you're engaging in a masculine trait. Building, creating, changing, destroying or competing - these are all masculine traits.
If you're being passive in any way, then you're engaging in a feminine trait. Maintaining things, tending or nurturing, being caring and compassionate, avoiding change, even being resentful of masculine expectations - these are all feminine traits.
Being passive aggressive is being feminine.
The masculine thing to do is to take control, to know what you want and to go for it, and to accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
So passive aggressive men are being very feminine by avoiding and even resenting masculine responsibilities and expectations. It's a confusing state for them to be in! I should know, I lived it.
One of the things that has become clear to me recently is that overcoming passive aggression is a pathway towards becoming masculine. But when you've had so many years of avoiding masculinity, it can create some confusion about what masculinity actually is.
Understanding and teaching what it means to be a man
The journey to overcoming passive aggression for men is also the journey to understand and become more masculine. In this world where passive aggressive men resent the controls and expectations placed upon them by demanding women and authority figures, finding comfort in their masculine skin feels like an incredibly difficult thing to do.
It's also my own journey, and one which I feel I'm achieving in my own way.
Because of my own healing of severe passive aggression, and my own journey towards understanding what it means to be a man, I feel a strong calling to help other passive aggressive men through the same journey.
It's not enough to heal passive aggression. It also has to be approached with understanding what it means to be a man, because 'real men' aren't 'whiny bitches' engaging in passive aggressive behaviour.
I'll be exploring and writing about this a lot more as I move through this journey, learning for myself and teaching others what I've learned.
If you feel you can relate to anything in this post, please leave a comment below and share it with me.
Everyone has passive aggressive traits in them, some more than others. However, when those traits become your predominant behaviour pattern, it becomes a 'personality disorder'. Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD) is something I've had most of my life, and I certainly know the effects of it, but in the past few years I've been able to eliminate most of it.
Healing passive aggression
All the books I've read about it say that healing PAPD is rare, if not impossible, because denying that you are responsible for breakups in relationships and social connections is one of the prominent traits. If you believe you're not responsible for the situations going on around you and in your life, then you also believe there's nothing you need to do for yourself. You're not the one with the problem, so there's nothing you need to heal. And so the behaviour and screwed up life continues.
When I realised I had PAPD and I read about how sufferers rarely heal because they don't believe they're responsible, I immediately saw all the times in my life when I blamed everyone else but myself for all the things that went wrong. And I knew that if I wanted to heal from this disorder, then I needed to start taking responsibility.
With many decades of programmed behaviour resulting in my attitudes and behaviors at that time, I knew that changing it would not happen overnight. But I also knew that if I did want to change it, I had to do something radical.
So I decided to accept responsibility for everything that went wrong, even if I 'knew' that I wasn't responsible. If the problem revolved around an inability to take responsibility, then surely finding a solution to this problem revolved around taking responsibility for everything.
It was my logical mind thinking, but it also worked.
Over a few years, taking responsibility and apologising for every emotional breakdown in my relationships helped me to manage those relationships more successfully, as well as understand exactly what I was doing to cause those breakdowns.
Overcoming passive aggression
Once I knew what I was doing that contributed to emotional breakdowns in my relationships, I could begin changing my behaviour so that the consequences were different.
Instead of engaging in behaviour designed to sabotage or upset my partners because I was inwardly angry but unable to express it, I engaged in behaviour that would take responsibility for my actions and my future, without needing to sabotage or upset my partners with passive aggression. I prevented passive aggressive behaviour occurring by choosing actions that made me responsible, instead of actions that tried to make someone else responsible.
It turned out to be quite amazing how things changed for me. Not only was I able to change the quality of my relationships by engaging in more responsible and loving behaviour, but I was also able to change the quality of my career because of how much extra responsibility I was willing to accept.
As a result, I've been able to improve my life quite considerably, by accepting responsibility for my behaviour and for the effects I have on other people. I've been able to heal my disorder so that it's no longer a disorder.
Sure, I still have my episodes of passive aggression, just like everyone does, but when I realise it's inappropriate, I apologise for it and work on changing it.
Developing better relationships
I also quickly learned at the beginning of my healing process that I was choosing the wrong women to partner with. I was choosing women that were the very opposite of the kind of woman I actually matched with. The results of being with these women caused anger and resentment in me because I was trying to make something work with someone that I should never have been with in the first place, and ended up sabotaging it instead.
Don't get me wrong. I really did need to be with them in a holistic way of thinking. It's because of them that I was able to understand my personal issues and grow from them, so I'm thankful and grateful for what they brought into my life and my personal growth.
Healing my behavioural issues also helped me understand what kind of woman I really needed to be with, that I would match with, and that was an important understanding for my own peace of mind and happiness.
It's only from seeing and understanding what brings us pain that we can understand and explore what will bring us pleasure.
Some people don't need to make it so difficult to understand, and they just choose the pleasure. But nooo, I had to be different. I had to go through decades of pain in order to understand I really wanted and needed someone that would bring me lots of pleasure.
Maybe I'm a masochist or something, I don't know. But I do know I'm very much happier now than I ever used to be.
Passive aggression and powerlessness
Passive aggression is a result of feeling powerless with the circumstances of your life, but not feeling able to safely express your feelings about it. Those with PAPD have grown up as a child, often punished for the expression of their feelings, and they've been powerless to prevent it.
That feeling of powerlessness continues on into adulthood, but it becomes a familiar pattern, a familiar way of life. So when they go out and date others, they're subconsciously attracted to potential partners that they feel would allow them to continue the same old familiar patterns. And so passive aggressive behaviour is often a continual part of their relationships with partners that they feel powerless to express themselves with.
For men, it's usually their mother who punished them as a child for expressing 'undesired' emotions like anger. If something made them angry and they expressed it, they were punished for it, so they learnt that anger was best expressed in subtle, passive ways.
It's because they had no power to take control, and this powerlessness becomes a pervasive belief that creates a life where they continue to have no control.
As these men grow up, the familiar pattern that gives them comfort is to be with women that are similar to their mother, who will emotionally punish them for the same behaviour that their mother did. They will continue to feel powerless in their relationships, and continue to engage in passive aggressive behaviour as a result.
Many women who are with passive aggressive men often find themselves to be similar to the man's mother. It's not a coincidence.
This is also applicable with careers. Any passive aggressive man will resent authority, being told what to do, being expected to be a particular way, and if they don't conform, they're punished for it. So he goes through his working life angry and resentful, sabotaging his own work as well as the expectations of his employers, but in ways that he can deny responsibility.
He's a liability to himself and to anyone that he works for.
Passive aggression and masculinity
For myself, growing up with PAPD, I had my own personal issues with understanding masculinity. I doubted my own masculinity because I felt powerless to take control.
The energy of the masculine is 'active', while the energy of the feminine is 'passive'.
If you're being active in any way - whether you're a man or a woman, it doesn't matter - then you're engaging in a masculine trait. Building, creating, changing, destroying or competing - these are all masculine traits.
If you're being passive in any way, then you're engaging in a feminine trait. Maintaining things, tending or nurturing, being caring and compassionate, avoiding change, even being resentful of masculine expectations - these are all feminine traits.
Being passive aggressive is being feminine.
The masculine thing to do is to take control, to know what you want and to go for it, and to accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
So passive aggressive men are being very feminine by avoiding and even resenting masculine responsibilities and expectations. It's a confusing state for them to be in! I should know, I lived it.
One of the things that has become clear to me recently is that overcoming passive aggression is a pathway towards becoming masculine. But when you've had so many years of avoiding masculinity, it can create some confusion about what masculinity actually is.
Understanding and teaching what it means to be a man
The journey to overcoming passive aggression for men is also the journey to understand and become more masculine. In this world where passive aggressive men resent the controls and expectations placed upon them by demanding women and authority figures, finding comfort in their masculine skin feels like an incredibly difficult thing to do.
It's also my own journey, and one which I feel I'm achieving in my own way.
Because of my own healing of severe passive aggression, and my own journey towards understanding what it means to be a man, I feel a strong calling to help other passive aggressive men through the same journey.
It's not enough to heal passive aggression. It also has to be approached with understanding what it means to be a man, because 'real men' aren't 'whiny bitches' engaging in passive aggressive behaviour.
I'll be exploring and writing about this a lot more as I move through this journey, learning for myself and teaching others what I've learned.
If you feel you can relate to anything in this post, please leave a comment below and share it with me.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Be responsible for your passive aggression
Men with debilitating passive aggression in their relationships usually find it's because of their inability to accept responsibility. This makes healing that much more difficult. You can't heal it if you think you're not responsible for it.
The best thing I did to help me 'get over' my PA behaviour was to make a conscious decision to accept responsibility for every emotional incident I was involved in, even if it seemed obvious that I wasn't and couldn't be responsible for it. I had to accept that I WAS responsible for it, even if I didn't know how.
You see, the most common trait of a PA is that they refuse to accept responsibility, always denying their responsibility and finding blame in everything but themselves.
It's usually true that if someone gets angry at you, then something you've done has contributed to them getting angry.
People don't just spontaneously get angry without cause, but those with passive aggression often think they do, because they can't accept their own responsibility towards it. They don't want to be responsible for someone else's anger because that responsibility is what they were punished for when they were a child.
So they unconsciously do what they can to avoid responsibility, which makes the other person angry (girlfriend, wife, workmate, boss, etc). The anger they're confronted with then creates more passive aggressive behaviour as gestures of resentment and revenge.
So I figured the best way to get past all of that was to accept responsibility and do whatever I could to 'fix' whatever failure I was responsible for.
It worked pretty well! Applying this to my relationship and to my career saw some significantly positive changes.
But it also meant that taking responsibility for myself meant that I had to own what was wrong in my relationship. After some serious consideration I ended up leaving my partner back in 2008, after we'd been together for three years.
The relationship wasn't a good one for either of us. We were wrong for each other, but my passive aggressive nature meant that I was unable to take control of my life and was instead always resentful of the control she had of my life.
PAs (Passive Aggressives) often maintain a victim attitude, and they'll stay in a toxic relationship because they don't know how to take positive control of their life. I decided it was time to stop being a victim.
So I left her, spent three years alone, sorting out my crap, and then started looking for someone else again to be with. I was pretty confident by this time that I knew what I really wanted and needed in a partner.
Passive aggression is something everyone experiences, sometimes often. However, Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD) is something a lot more insidious.
PAPD sufferers are often men, and they're often with women that are somehow the same as their mother. In the process of resenting their mother's controlling influence on their life, they end up being with women who somehow control them as well. Which is what inspires the PA behaviour in return.
Now, if you want to heal a burn on your hand, would you put your hand back in the fire? No, of course not.
So if you want to heal the issues resulting from controlling women in your life, why would you continue to be with women that try to control you? You wouldn't, would you. If you were sensible about it.
So I realised I needed to be with a woman who was easy going, relaxed, calm, and whose personality was not a controlling or dominant one. I realised that my perfect match was someone completely different to the kinds of women I'd been choosing throughout my life.
But I also realised I needed to be in control of the relationship, in a dominant but loving and secure manner, so that my partner never felt the need to control me.
Women feel the need to control their partners because their partners have no concept of responsibility, or deny their responsibility, and the relationship is a mess that the woman tries to fix. But she's angry that it's a mess, and she knows her PA partner is responsible, but she's angry at him because he refuses to accept his responsibility for the mess. And her anger at him just makes him more passive aggressive.
Notice how it comes back to responsibility?
If you want a great relationship with a woman that trusts you to do your part in the relationship, you HAVE to take responsibility for your part in the relationship. You HAVE to give her reason to trust you.
You have to man up and be a man, not some passive aggressive 'teenager' who resents being told what to do because they're not doing it. If you did it (whatever it is) when you know it needs to be done (commonly called 'taking responsibility'), then your partner doesn't need to bitch and moan about how you don't take responsibility, or you're not doing what she expects of you in the relationship.
Taking ownership and responsibility for your life and your relationship just makes a lot of sense. But it requires you to be actively engaging in taking responsibility. And it requires communication with your partner.
You need to be open and honest with her about EVERYTHING! Tell her your feelings, your fears, your anger, your past, your sadness, and your pain. She's in this relationship with you - stop isolating her.
Invite her in. Ask her to help you. Point out to her that you need a safe environment and a safe relationship to help you move past your issues, and if she can work with you on this, you'll be able to give her the love and responsibility that she needs from you.
Let her read the same stuff you're reading, and talk to her about the problems you've had in your past that have helped you feel passive aggression was your solution.
Passive aggression is a defensive mechanism that served you well during those years when you were punished. But you don't have to hold on to it any more.
If your partner can't help you, or is unwilling to help you, then you might have to make some very, very tough decisions. You can't heal your PA behaviour (which is the result of controlling behaviour from your partner) if she's not doing her part to help heal the relationship as well.
She also needs to take ownership of her own controlling behaviour that's contributing to you feeling unsafe and resentful. You bounce off of each other.
She tries to control you because you don't take responsibility. You don't take responsibility because you're resentful that she's trying to control you.
Stop the cycle.
Start taking responsibility first, without waiting for her to stop trying to control you. Expect that she'll still be pressing your emotional triggers, but do your very best to understand she loves you and only wants the best for you and from you. Not because she's selfish or demanding, but because she knows you're better than this.
The less you react with passive aggression and the more you take responsibility for your shit, the less she'll be doing to press your buttons that result in your passive aggression. But you have to be consistent - not just for a week or two, but for the rest of your life.
You're both going to have to heal your individual and unique emotional issues that result in the conflict between the two of you. You're going to need to come up with loving and effective strategies that will help you love each other more, while healing your emotional issues that result in you sabotaging the relationship.
And if one or both of you can't do this, then the relationship is unlikely to continue. There will just be too much pain and anger and unhappiness for it to continue.
Healing starts with a decision. You can make that decision today, or you can say "No, I'm not responsible for that!" and let things continue as normal.
But normal, in this case, is full of so much pain and anger and hopelessness. I know from my own personal experiences. Do you really want that to continue for you?
When you decide to heal, it will involve communicating your needs and desires to your partner. She's the one who can help you - if she can overcome her own anger at your years of negative behaviour.
If she can't - or is unwilling - to help you, then you're going to have to help yourself, and that will require you to make some tough decisions about your role in the relationship and where it's going. Can you find the healing within yourself, alone? If you can, that's fantastic!
But if you can't, because it's impossible to heal the burn while you're still in the fire, then I sympathise with you. But sometimes the best decision you can make for yourself is to move on from a relationship that isn't working for you.
Even if there's kids involved, they're going to have a father who is able to love them the way they need to be loved, without there being anger and passive aggressive behaviour in the household. It's not a good thing for them as they're growing up, and it's certainly not a good thing for you.
I wish you the best! It's a tough road you're on. I'm here for you to ask questions or get some feedback about whatever you might have on your mind.
The best thing I did to help me 'get over' my PA behaviour was to make a conscious decision to accept responsibility for every emotional incident I was involved in, even if it seemed obvious that I wasn't and couldn't be responsible for it. I had to accept that I WAS responsible for it, even if I didn't know how.
You see, the most common trait of a PA is that they refuse to accept responsibility, always denying their responsibility and finding blame in everything but themselves.
It's usually true that if someone gets angry at you, then something you've done has contributed to them getting angry.
People don't just spontaneously get angry without cause, but those with passive aggression often think they do, because they can't accept their own responsibility towards it. They don't want to be responsible for someone else's anger because that responsibility is what they were punished for when they were a child.
So they unconsciously do what they can to avoid responsibility, which makes the other person angry (girlfriend, wife, workmate, boss, etc). The anger they're confronted with then creates more passive aggressive behaviour as gestures of resentment and revenge.
So I figured the best way to get past all of that was to accept responsibility and do whatever I could to 'fix' whatever failure I was responsible for.
It worked pretty well! Applying this to my relationship and to my career saw some significantly positive changes.
But it also meant that taking responsibility for myself meant that I had to own what was wrong in my relationship. After some serious consideration I ended up leaving my partner back in 2008, after we'd been together for three years.
The relationship wasn't a good one for either of us. We were wrong for each other, but my passive aggressive nature meant that I was unable to take control of my life and was instead always resentful of the control she had of my life.
PAs (Passive Aggressives) often maintain a victim attitude, and they'll stay in a toxic relationship because they don't know how to take positive control of their life. I decided it was time to stop being a victim.
So I left her, spent three years alone, sorting out my crap, and then started looking for someone else again to be with. I was pretty confident by this time that I knew what I really wanted and needed in a partner.
Passive aggression is something everyone experiences, sometimes often. However, Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD) is something a lot more insidious.
To be diagnosed with this disorder, individuals must meet the general criteria of a personality disorder and at least five of the following: procrastination and delay in completing essential tasks -- particularly those that others seek to have completed; unjustified protests that others make unreasonable demands; sulkiness, irritability or argumentativeness when asked to do something that the individual does not want to do; unreasonable criticism or scorn for authority figures; deliberately slow or poor work on unwanted tasks; obstruction of the efforts of others even as these individuals fail to do their share of the work; and avoidance of obligations by claiming to have forgotten them. - The Passive-Aggressive (Negativistic) Personality Disorder (PAPD)
PAPD sufferers are often men, and they're often with women that are somehow the same as their mother. In the process of resenting their mother's controlling influence on their life, they end up being with women who somehow control them as well. Which is what inspires the PA behaviour in return.
Now, if you want to heal a burn on your hand, would you put your hand back in the fire? No, of course not.
So if you want to heal the issues resulting from controlling women in your life, why would you continue to be with women that try to control you? You wouldn't, would you. If you were sensible about it.
So I realised I needed to be with a woman who was easy going, relaxed, calm, and whose personality was not a controlling or dominant one. I realised that my perfect match was someone completely different to the kinds of women I'd been choosing throughout my life.
But I also realised I needed to be in control of the relationship, in a dominant but loving and secure manner, so that my partner never felt the need to control me.
Women feel the need to control their partners because their partners have no concept of responsibility, or deny their responsibility, and the relationship is a mess that the woman tries to fix. But she's angry that it's a mess, and she knows her PA partner is responsible, but she's angry at him because he refuses to accept his responsibility for the mess. And her anger at him just makes him more passive aggressive.
Notice how it comes back to responsibility?
If you want a great relationship with a woman that trusts you to do your part in the relationship, you HAVE to take responsibility for your part in the relationship. You HAVE to give her reason to trust you.
You have to man up and be a man, not some passive aggressive 'teenager' who resents being told what to do because they're not doing it. If you did it (whatever it is) when you know it needs to be done (commonly called 'taking responsibility'), then your partner doesn't need to bitch and moan about how you don't take responsibility, or you're not doing what she expects of you in the relationship.
Taking ownership and responsibility for your life and your relationship just makes a lot of sense. But it requires you to be actively engaging in taking responsibility. And it requires communication with your partner.
You need to be open and honest with her about EVERYTHING! Tell her your feelings, your fears, your anger, your past, your sadness, and your pain. She's in this relationship with you - stop isolating her.
Invite her in. Ask her to help you. Point out to her that you need a safe environment and a safe relationship to help you move past your issues, and if she can work with you on this, you'll be able to give her the love and responsibility that she needs from you.
Let her read the same stuff you're reading, and talk to her about the problems you've had in your past that have helped you feel passive aggression was your solution.
Passive aggression is a defensive mechanism that served you well during those years when you were punished. But you don't have to hold on to it any more.
If your partner can't help you, or is unwilling to help you, then you might have to make some very, very tough decisions. You can't heal your PA behaviour (which is the result of controlling behaviour from your partner) if she's not doing her part to help heal the relationship as well.
She also needs to take ownership of her own controlling behaviour that's contributing to you feeling unsafe and resentful. You bounce off of each other.
She tries to control you because you don't take responsibility. You don't take responsibility because you're resentful that she's trying to control you.
Stop the cycle.
Start taking responsibility first, without waiting for her to stop trying to control you. Expect that she'll still be pressing your emotional triggers, but do your very best to understand she loves you and only wants the best for you and from you. Not because she's selfish or demanding, but because she knows you're better than this.
The less you react with passive aggression and the more you take responsibility for your shit, the less she'll be doing to press your buttons that result in your passive aggression. But you have to be consistent - not just for a week or two, but for the rest of your life.
You're both going to have to heal your individual and unique emotional issues that result in the conflict between the two of you. You're going to need to come up with loving and effective strategies that will help you love each other more, while healing your emotional issues that result in you sabotaging the relationship.
And if one or both of you can't do this, then the relationship is unlikely to continue. There will just be too much pain and anger and unhappiness for it to continue.
Healing starts with a decision. You can make that decision today, or you can say "No, I'm not responsible for that!" and let things continue as normal.
But normal, in this case, is full of so much pain and anger and hopelessness. I know from my own personal experiences. Do you really want that to continue for you?
When you decide to heal, it will involve communicating your needs and desires to your partner. She's the one who can help you - if she can overcome her own anger at your years of negative behaviour.
If she can't - or is unwilling - to help you, then you're going to have to help yourself, and that will require you to make some tough decisions about your role in the relationship and where it's going. Can you find the healing within yourself, alone? If you can, that's fantastic!
But if you can't, because it's impossible to heal the burn while you're still in the fire, then I sympathise with you. But sometimes the best decision you can make for yourself is to move on from a relationship that isn't working for you.
Even if there's kids involved, they're going to have a father who is able to love them the way they need to be loved, without there being anger and passive aggressive behaviour in the household. It's not a good thing for them as they're growing up, and it's certainly not a good thing for you.
I wish you the best! It's a tough road you're on. I'm here for you to ask questions or get some feedback about whatever you might have on your mind.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Growing out of passive aggression
One of the most popular posts of my old blog is about how I was trying to grow out of passive aggression, and surprisingly succeeding! It's still getting people comment on it today.
The post was written only two years after I discovered I had Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD). That was five years ago, or seven years since I found out I have PAPD. I've come a long way since then.
The description for it today (on Wikipedia) is:
One of the things I wrote back then, which is still true today, is this:
It was all about accepting responsibility for the things that were happening in my life. Not trying to find someone else to blame, but making sure I did whatever needed to be done to fix whatever issue I was involved in. Even if I thought I wasn't responsible, I acted as if I was.
I finished my post back then with the following:
Now, five years later, I feel like I HAVE succeeded. My career has moved ahead leaps and bounds, and I'm with a woman who I love very much and who loves me for who I am, warts and all. Being loved and accepted by someone for who I am has been greatly rewarding, not only for the healing it's helped me with, but also for being with someone who really completes me. I can't imagine being without her in my life.
Don't get me wrong. It's still a struggle to continue avoiding the 'personality disorder' part of my old behaviour. I still experience episodes of passive aggression, but they're nowhere near as bad as they used to be.
It's easy these days for me to accept responsibility for any passive aggressive things I say or do - or don't say or do - and work on fixing them as soon as I can. It's easy for me to take ownership of things that aren't my responsibility at work, and make them my responsibility.
Everything's just so much easier these days.
But it's not that life is easier. That's still highly challenging at times, as it is for all of us. But I'm no longer afraid to take responsibility, and accept the consequences for it.
It's a great feeling.
The post was written only two years after I discovered I had Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD). That was five years ago, or seven years since I found out I have PAPD. I've come a long way since then.
The description for it today (on Wikipedia) is:
A pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
- passively resists fulfilling routine social and occupational tasks
- complains of being misunderstood and unappreciated by others
- is sullen and argumentative
- unreasonably criticizes and scorns authority
- expresses envy and resentment toward those apparently more fortunate
- voices exaggerated and persistent complaints of personal misfortune
- alternates between hostile defiance and contrition
One of the things I wrote back then, which is still true today, is this:
What helped me was the realisation that my passive aggression was only hurting ME, and preventing ME from realising my true potential or finding my true happiness. I realised that it's not up to someone else to help me cure it, or to understand and accept me for who I am. It was up to me to refuse to accept my own intolerable behaviour. I was responsible for what I was doing, no one else. Sure, I could blame my parents all I wanted… But they're not in control of my life any more. I am. It was up to me to take control and stop blaming others for my own behaviour.
It was all about accepting responsibility for the things that were happening in my life. Not trying to find someone else to blame, but making sure I did whatever needed to be done to fix whatever issue I was involved in. Even if I thought I wasn't responsible, I acted as if I was.
I finished my post back then with the following:
Basically, us passive aggressives have to stop accepting our own excuses and make some serious changes to get ourselves out of the stupid rut we're in. Take charge of our lives and actually do something proactive. We are responsible for everything we do and feel, and even the reactions people have to our behaviour. BE responsible, and make some changes. It's nice to feel like I'm succeeding.
Now, five years later, I feel like I HAVE succeeded. My career has moved ahead leaps and bounds, and I'm with a woman who I love very much and who loves me for who I am, warts and all. Being loved and accepted by someone for who I am has been greatly rewarding, not only for the healing it's helped me with, but also for being with someone who really completes me. I can't imagine being without her in my life.
Don't get me wrong. It's still a struggle to continue avoiding the 'personality disorder' part of my old behaviour. I still experience episodes of passive aggression, but they're nowhere near as bad as they used to be.
It's easy these days for me to accept responsibility for any passive aggressive things I say or do - or don't say or do - and work on fixing them as soon as I can. It's easy for me to take ownership of things that aren't my responsibility at work, and make them my responsibility.
Everything's just so much easier these days.
But it's not that life is easier. That's still highly challenging at times, as it is for all of us. But I'm no longer afraid to take responsibility, and accept the consequences for it.
It's a great feeling.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Passive Aggression and Relationships
I grew up with Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD) into my adult years, and had it affect my life and quite a few of my relationships over the years. I just never knew, and thought it was always other people with the problem, not me.
I only discovered in 2005 that I had it, at the age of 39. I took it seriously, because what I read about it completely explained a lot of my own behaviour and feelings. When I found out that most PAPD sufferers just don't heal because they can't accept responsibility for their actions, I knew that I had to accept responsibility for everything, even if I 'knew' I wasn't responsible.
The results were spectacular. By accepting responsibility for my behaviour and my choices, I was able to 'clean up' my life, building a rewarding career and finding a woman that completely matched my values and helped me heal because she never 'pushed my buttons' that resulted in passive aggressive responses.
Based on my own experiences with PAPD and significantly healing myself from 30 years of negatively trained behaviour, I feel very strongly that I can help others with PAPD, or at least their partners. It's not surprising to me that most of the people approaching me, after reading my articles on the subject, have been lonely and distraught partners who don't know how to deal with their partner after years of passive aggressive behaviour.
It saddens me that so many men refuse to treat their partners with love and care, but I completely understand why they're unable to. I can only hope that what I write will at least:
What is Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder ?
PAPD is a result of being emotionally suppressed and punished as a child by their parents. I think that it’s more common for mothers (or parents) to suppress the emotions of boys and punish them for it, than it is girls to have their emotions suppressed and punished.
I think there’s been an expectation by parents (particularly of the generation around 30-50 years ago - that's been my personal experience, of course) that boys shouldn’t be emotional, but girls should, so boys get punished when they’re emotional. However, I haven’t looked for any evidence to support that, it’s just my perception.
Passive agression is common amongst most people, but it becomes a personality disorder when it negatively and significantly affects most aspects of your life, and becomes your primary behaviour.
Growing into adulthood, the PAPD sufferer is unable to express themselves emotionally. They usually don’t feel safe to express themselves, because they’ve been taught as a child that any expression of emotions will be punished, so they hold onto this understanding as they grow into adults. This will be exacerbated by choosing women who 'punish them' (perceived by them as nagging, complaining, etc) for the expression of their feelings.
Ironically, they often find themselves attracted to women who have similar qualities to their own mother’s attitudes and behaviours. This is because it’s somehow familiar and attractive to them, but the resulting problem is that they also end up being resentful of their partner’s attitude and behaviour.
How does this affect their relationships?
They maintain a ‘rebellious teenager’ kind of attitude, where they’ll agree to doing something but then never get around to doing it, and then when confronted about it, they’ll find all manner of justifications as to why they didn’t do it, but also find blame for their partner's nagging and controlling behaviour.
Since they’re afraid of being punished for expressing their feelings, they’ll often keep their feelings to themselves. Add this fear of expression to their anger about their past, and also about how they feel they’re being treated in the present by their partner, and passive aggression is a result.
This can include subdued and subtle expressions of anger (usually, but it can also become over expressions of anger and violence), as well as self-sabotage as well as relationship-sabogate, simply because they don’t know how to deal with their feelings. They ‘lash out’ in ways that they’ve learned over the years protects them from being punished, makes them feel justified in their actions, and that it’s never their fault.
Avoiding personal responsibility is a common theme with PAPD sufferers, because they feel they can’t be reasonably punished if they’re not responsible. Therefore any 'punishment' they receive is not reasonable, as far as they're concerned.
How to heal
What I’ve learned from my own research into this is that most PAPD sufferers are unable to find healing, because ‘they’re not responsible’. How can they heal a problem if they think they’re not the ones with the problem?
Unless the PAPD sufferer is aware of his problem, acknowledges and actively tries to find a way to heal himself, then any attempt by his partner to change him or help him heal will only be met by resentment and continued passive aggressive behaviour from him.
He'll resent her for trying to change him, want to be accepted for who he is, and will continue to believe that he doesn’t have a problem, and that it’s her and everyone else in his life that has a problem.
If he can’t work towards his own healing of his own free will, without her ‘forcing’ him to, then he will continue resenting her behaviour and attitude and will continue to think it’s her with the problem, not him.
If she really wants to help him heal, then she has to find the strength within herself to let go of her expectations about him. Completely cease trying to tell him what to do, and completely cease ‘punishing him’ with her own complaints about his behaviour.
She effectively has to let him go, to do his own thing, and to make herself emotionally vulnerable. If he thinks she's in control, or that she wants to control him, he’ll be resentful of her. If he thinks that she's letting him take control, and she ceases trying to control him, then he’ll find a sense of happiness and reward within himself.
Her emotional vulnerability will allow his own emotional strength to be asserted, in a manner that is safe and rewarding for him.
Subconsciously, what he’s tried to do in his life is find someone who is like his mother, but isn’t his mother. He wants to be in control, without being controlled. He wants safety to express himself, without being punished for it.
If he can’t get that, he’ll continue being PAPD.
If his partner can’t give him what he needs because she's got too much anger in her, or she can’t get past her expectations of how he should behave as your partner, then she's not going to be able to help him find healing.
Most PAPD sufferers leave a trail of broken relationships in their wake because they’re unable to accept responsibility for their behaviour. But it’s also because their partner is unwilling to be what they need in order to help them avoid resentment and anger, and provide them with safety to explore their feelings and find their own path to healing.
If giving up her expectations and letting him be in control (so that he can be in a different state of mind to where he currently is) is something that she's just unable to do, the problem will remain, and the most likely result will be the ending of their relationship.
It takes both members of a realationship to create a conflict, but it also takes both of them to resolve the conflict.
Good luck.
What if it's not working?
If you're in this situation and you find that you’re doing everything you can to let him feel safe, allow him to express his feelings, to have a sense of control in the relationship, and you’re still unhappy with the result, then it might be worth considering that it’s time to move on.
You’ve given it your best shot, and if the relationship continues to be unworkable and unfulfilling, you have a responsibility to yourself to look after your own best interests. Find the courage to do what’s right for you.
If children are going to be involved, it might get messy, but if you approach this with care and love for everyone concerned, you can arrange an amicable separation. Don't give him anything to react aggressively to, and he won't.
Again, good luck.
Contact the author
Please don't hesitate to email me if you have any specific questions, concerns or scenarios that you'd like my feedback with. I'd be happy to help out.
I only discovered in 2005 that I had it, at the age of 39. I took it seriously, because what I read about it completely explained a lot of my own behaviour and feelings. When I found out that most PAPD sufferers just don't heal because they can't accept responsibility for their actions, I knew that I had to accept responsibility for everything, even if I 'knew' I wasn't responsible.
The results were spectacular. By accepting responsibility for my behaviour and my choices, I was able to 'clean up' my life, building a rewarding career and finding a woman that completely matched my values and helped me heal because she never 'pushed my buttons' that resulted in passive aggressive responses.
Based on my own experiences with PAPD and significantly healing myself from 30 years of negatively trained behaviour, I feel very strongly that I can help others with PAPD, or at least their partners. It's not surprising to me that most of the people approaching me, after reading my articles on the subject, have been lonely and distraught partners who don't know how to deal with their partner after years of passive aggressive behaviour.
It saddens me that so many men refuse to treat their partners with love and care, but I completely understand why they're unable to. I can only hope that what I write will at least:
- allow some of these men to find it and reach their own realisations that lead to their healing, or
- help their partners find ways of dealing with it that can result in the healing of their passive aggressive husband, or
- give them the courage to move on.
What is Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder ?
PAPD is a result of being emotionally suppressed and punished as a child by their parents. I think that it’s more common for mothers (or parents) to suppress the emotions of boys and punish them for it, than it is girls to have their emotions suppressed and punished.
I think there’s been an expectation by parents (particularly of the generation around 30-50 years ago - that's been my personal experience, of course) that boys shouldn’t be emotional, but girls should, so boys get punished when they’re emotional. However, I haven’t looked for any evidence to support that, it’s just my perception.
Passive agression is common amongst most people, but it becomes a personality disorder when it negatively and significantly affects most aspects of your life, and becomes your primary behaviour.
Growing into adulthood, the PAPD sufferer is unable to express themselves emotionally. They usually don’t feel safe to express themselves, because they’ve been taught as a child that any expression of emotions will be punished, so they hold onto this understanding as they grow into adults. This will be exacerbated by choosing women who 'punish them' (perceived by them as nagging, complaining, etc) for the expression of their feelings.
Ironically, they often find themselves attracted to women who have similar qualities to their own mother’s attitudes and behaviours. This is because it’s somehow familiar and attractive to them, but the resulting problem is that they also end up being resentful of their partner’s attitude and behaviour.
How does this affect their relationships?
They maintain a ‘rebellious teenager’ kind of attitude, where they’ll agree to doing something but then never get around to doing it, and then when confronted about it, they’ll find all manner of justifications as to why they didn’t do it, but also find blame for their partner's nagging and controlling behaviour.
Since they’re afraid of being punished for expressing their feelings, they’ll often keep their feelings to themselves. Add this fear of expression to their anger about their past, and also about how they feel they’re being treated in the present by their partner, and passive aggression is a result.
This can include subdued and subtle expressions of anger (usually, but it can also become over expressions of anger and violence), as well as self-sabotage as well as relationship-sabogate, simply because they don’t know how to deal with their feelings. They ‘lash out’ in ways that they’ve learned over the years protects them from being punished, makes them feel justified in their actions, and that it’s never their fault.
Avoiding personal responsibility is a common theme with PAPD sufferers, because they feel they can’t be reasonably punished if they’re not responsible. Therefore any 'punishment' they receive is not reasonable, as far as they're concerned.
How to heal
What I’ve learned from my own research into this is that most PAPD sufferers are unable to find healing, because ‘they’re not responsible’. How can they heal a problem if they think they’re not the ones with the problem?
Unless the PAPD sufferer is aware of his problem, acknowledges and actively tries to find a way to heal himself, then any attempt by his partner to change him or help him heal will only be met by resentment and continued passive aggressive behaviour from him.
He'll resent her for trying to change him, want to be accepted for who he is, and will continue to believe that he doesn’t have a problem, and that it’s her and everyone else in his life that has a problem.
If he can’t work towards his own healing of his own free will, without her ‘forcing’ him to, then he will continue resenting her behaviour and attitude and will continue to think it’s her with the problem, not him.
If she really wants to help him heal, then she has to find the strength within herself to let go of her expectations about him. Completely cease trying to tell him what to do, and completely cease ‘punishing him’ with her own complaints about his behaviour.
She effectively has to let him go, to do his own thing, and to make herself emotionally vulnerable. If he thinks she's in control, or that she wants to control him, he’ll be resentful of her. If he thinks that she's letting him take control, and she ceases trying to control him, then he’ll find a sense of happiness and reward within himself.
Her emotional vulnerability will allow his own emotional strength to be asserted, in a manner that is safe and rewarding for him.
Subconsciously, what he’s tried to do in his life is find someone who is like his mother, but isn’t his mother. He wants to be in control, without being controlled. He wants safety to express himself, without being punished for it.
If he can’t get that, he’ll continue being PAPD.
If his partner can’t give him what he needs because she's got too much anger in her, or she can’t get past her expectations of how he should behave as your partner, then she's not going to be able to help him find healing.
Most PAPD sufferers leave a trail of broken relationships in their wake because they’re unable to accept responsibility for their behaviour. But it’s also because their partner is unwilling to be what they need in order to help them avoid resentment and anger, and provide them with safety to explore their feelings and find their own path to healing.
If giving up her expectations and letting him be in control (so that he can be in a different state of mind to where he currently is) is something that she's just unable to do, the problem will remain, and the most likely result will be the ending of their relationship.
It takes both members of a realationship to create a conflict, but it also takes both of them to resolve the conflict.
Good luck.
What if it's not working?
If you're in this situation and you find that you’re doing everything you can to let him feel safe, allow him to express his feelings, to have a sense of control in the relationship, and you’re still unhappy with the result, then it might be worth considering that it’s time to move on.
You’ve given it your best shot, and if the relationship continues to be unworkable and unfulfilling, you have a responsibility to yourself to look after your own best interests. Find the courage to do what’s right for you.
If children are going to be involved, it might get messy, but if you approach this with care and love for everyone concerned, you can arrange an amicable separation. Don't give him anything to react aggressively to, and he won't.
Again, good luck.
Contact the author
Please don't hesitate to email me if you have any specific questions, concerns or scenarios that you'd like my feedback with. I'd be happy to help out.
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