Life with Passive aggressive Personality Disorder

The Passive Aggressive

There are many childhood set ups for this way of coping but most often there is a domineering mother and a father who is ineffectual. There are power struggles in the marriage with one parent backing off and withdrawing. The boy feels trapped between choosing loyalties at home. He is afraid to compete with his father who is absent either physically or emotionally or perceived as being inadequate. In the typical mother dominant-father passive relationship, the boy learns that the job of being a man in relationship is to escape the woman's needs and subsequent demands.

The young boy is not allowed to express his feelings and develop a sense of self. He wants his mother's attention and care yet he resents her continual intrusion. His anger grows but he cannot express it so it becomes submerged and is expressed in an unconscious ‘You can't tell me what to do.' He is not allowed to get his way by direct confrontation and competition so he learns to displace his anger through resistance. He learns to use charm, stubbornness, resistance and withdrawal to protect himself in power struggles. He rebels by becoming moody, being an underachiever or developing behavior problems. His self protectiveness and duplicity from the squelched anger and hostility becomes a habit that he plays out with other women he meets. He desperately seeks a woman to meet his needs of being accepted for who he is, but puts her off with small, continual acts of rebellion. He replays the distancing drama of his original family in the relationship.

The man with passive aggressive behavior needs someone to be the object of his hidden hostility. He needs an adversary whose expectations and demands he can resist as he plays out the dance he learned from his parents. He chooses a woman who will agree to be on the receiving end of his disowned anger. He resists her in small ways setting up a pattern of frustration so that she gets to express the anger that he cannot.

The biggest irritant in being with a passive aggressive man is that he doesn't follow through on his agreements and promises. He dodges responsibility while insisting he's pulling his weight. He often ignores reality as to his irresponsibility and withdrawal. He denies evidence, distorts minimalizes or lies to make his version of reality seem logical.

He uses vague language to sandbag the partner. Inconsistency and ambiguity are his tools of choice. He withholds information and has a hidden agenda. He can't take criticism and makes excuses to get himself off the hook. He sulks and uses silence when confronted about his inability to live up to his promises, obligations or responsibilities. When he doesn't follow through, he puts the blame on his partner so he doesn't have to take it and accuses her of having the problem.

The man with this type of pattern shows little consideration of the time, feelings, standards or needs of others. He obstructs and block progress to others getting what they want and then ignores or minimalizes their dissatisfactions and anger. He is silent when confronted as he has never learned to compromise. He may be a workaholic, a womanizer, hooked on TV, caught in addictions or self-involved hobbies.

He may have multiple relationships with women as a way of keeping distant from one fully committed relationship. He is confused about which woman he wants and stays caught between the two women in his life not being able to commit fully to either. He is confused and can't understand why the women get so angry with him. He feels others demand too much of him so resists in overt and subtle ways and feels deprived if he must give in to others. The man who copes with conflict by not being there has strong conflict over dependency. He desperately wants attention but fears being swallowed up by the partner. He can't be alone and live without a woman in his life, but can't be with a partner emotionally. He's caught in a Catch 22--wanting affection but avoiding it because he fears it as his destruction. He resents feeling dependent on the woman so must keep her off guard. He makes his partner feel like a nothing through his neglect or irritability but he keeps her around because he needs her. His script is ‘Be here for me, but don't come too close and don't burden me with your needs or expectations.'

He has such strong fears of intimacy deep in his unconscious mind so he must set barriers up to prevent a deep emotional connection. He is clever at derailing intimacy when it comes up by tuning out his partner and changing the subject. He must withhold part of himself to feel safe and may withdraw sexually. Closeness and intimacy during sex may make him feel vulnerable and panicked bringing forth his deepest fears of dependency upon a woman. The passive aggressive man lives an internal loneliness; he wants to be with the woman but stays confused whether she is the right partner for him or not. He is scared and insecure causing him to seek contact with a partner but scared and insecure to fully commit.

Due to the wounding from childhood, he is unable to trust that he is safe within the relationship. He fears revealing himself and can't share feelings. His refusal to express feelings keeps him from experiencing his sense of insecurity and vulnerability. He often denies feelings like love that might trap him into true connection with another human being. He feels rejected and hurt when things don't go his way but can't distinguish between feeling rejected and being rejected. He pushes people away first so he won't be rejected. He is often irritable and uses low-level hostility to create distance at home. The relationship becomes based on keeping the partner at bay. He often sets up experiences to get others to reject or deprive him. He is noncommittal and retreats, feeling put upon and burdened by partner's requests for more closeness. He becomes a cave dweller to feel safe.

The man with passive aggressive actions is a master in getting his partner to doubt herself and feel guilty for questioning or confronting him. He encourages her to fall for his apologies, accept his excuses and focus on his charm rather than deal with the issue directly. He blames her for creating the problem and keeps her focused on her anger rather than his own ineptitude. When backed into a corner, he may explode and switch to aggressiveaggressive behavior then switch back to passivity. He keeps his partner held hostage by the hope that he will change. He may appease her and clean up his act after a blow up for several weeks, then it's back to business as usual.

The passive aggressive man is the classic underachiever with a fear of competition in the work place. He cannot take constructive feedback from others. His fear of criticism, not following through and his inability to see his part in any conflict keeps him from advancing on the job.

You are not seen as a person with feelings and needs. They care for you the way they care for a favorite pair of slippers or an old easy-chair. You are there for their comfort and pleasure and are of use as long as you fill their needs. The sad thing is, they can sweet talk you, know all the right things to say, to make you believe that you are loved and adored by a someone who is completely unable to form an emotional connection with anyone.

If forced to deal with the problems you’re having due to their behavior, they will completely withdraw from the relationship and you. They will almost never admit that they were wrong no matter how much evidence you show. They have their own version of reality and will work at making your view distorted.

While most men are having sex with their partner in order to connect more deeply with her, the passive aggressive man withholds sex from his partner in order to keep himself safe and to show her who the boss is. Sex is a weapon to be used, not a way of connecting more emotionally.

These people are usually unaware that the difficulties they encounter in their life are the result of their own behavior. They do not connect their passive resistant behavior to the hostility or resentment other people feel towards them. Dealing with passive aggressive people can be crazymaking. You feel dismissed, shut down, ignored… but in a subtle enough way that you don’t know how to react. At some point, you explode.



He Hurts Everyone in His Path, Including Himself

They're the men who seem so nice, and trustworthy. They don't hurt you out in the open, but in a very subtle way, you may not even be aware of. Just the same, they can hurt the people they say they care about the most.

A passive-aggressive man usually grows up in a household which may have a parent who is either passive-aggressive, or overbearing and controlling. If he really has bad luck, he may grow up with both. When the boy decides to be weak, unassuming, and afraid to stand up for himself. Ergo, he asserts himself in passive aggressive ways. This ends up hurting allot of the people he truly cares for.

The passive aggressive man is very often seen as the nice guy that would do anything for anybody. He never says "NO", at least not out loud, to any request anyone makes of him. He is often everybody's token doormat. What most people don't know is there's a volcano ready to erupt inside this man. He is too afraid to speak up and tell you what he thinks. Therefore, he goes about his life sneaking around doing things he doesn't want anybody to know about, getting back at people in ways that have nothing much to do with why he's really mad, and not standing up to the person, or persons, he needs too. He then ends up hurting those he cares about.

Passive aggressive behavior stems from an inability to express anger in a healthy way. A person's feelings may be so repressed that they don't even realize they are angry or feeling resentment. A passive aggressive can drive people around him/her crazy and seem sincerely dismayed when confronted with their behavior. Due to their own lack of insight into their feelings the passive aggressive often feels that others misunderstand them or, are holding them to unreasonable standards if they are confronted about their behavior.

Common Passive Aggressive Behaviors:

They rarely mean what they say or say what they mean. The best judge of how a passive aggressive feels about an issue is how they act. Normally they don't act until after they've caused some kind of stress by their ambiguous way of communicating.

The passive aggressive avoids responsibility by "forgetting." How convenient is that? There is no easier way to punish someone than forgetting that lunch date or your birthday or, better yet, an anniversary.

He may never express anger. There are some who are happy with whatever you want. On the outside anyway! The passive aggressive may have been taught, as a child, that anger is unacceptable. Hence they go through life stuffing their anger, being accommodating and then sticking it to you in an under-handed way.

The passive aggressive often can't trust. Because of this, they guard themselves against becoming intimately attached to someone. A passive aggressive will have sex with you but they rarely make love to you. If they feel themselves becoming attached, they may punish you by withholding sex.

Do you want something from your passive aggressive spouse? If so, get ready to wait for it or maybe even never get it. It is important to him/her that you don't get your way. He/she will act as if giving you what you want is important to them but, rarely will he/she follow through with giving it. It is very confusing to have someone appear to want to give to you but never follow through. You can begin to feel as if you are asking too much which is exactly what he/she wants to you to feel.

The Passive Aggressive and You:

The passive aggressive needs to have a relationship with someone who can be the object of his or her hostility. They need someone whose expectations and demands he/she can resist.

The biggest frustration in being with a passive aggressive is that they never follow through on agreements and promises. He/she will dodge responsibility for anything in the relationship while at the same time making it look as if he/she is pulling his/her own weight and is a very loving partner. The sad thing is, you can be made to believe that you are loved and adored by a person who is completely unable to form an emotional connection with anyone.

The passive aggressive ignores problems in the relationship, sees things through their own skewed sense of reality and if forced to deal with the problems will completely withdraw from the relationship and you. They will deny evidence of wrong doing, distort what you know to be real to fit their own agenda, minimize or lie so that their version of what is real seems more logical.

The passive aggressive will say one thing, do another, and then deny ever saying the first thing. The passive aggressive withholds information about how he/she feels, their ego is fragile and can't take the slightest criticism so why let you know what they are thinking or feeling? God forbid they disclose that information and you criticize them.

Inside the Passive Aggressive:

The passive aggressive has a real desire to connect emotionally but their fear of such a connection causes them to be obstructive and engage in self-destructive habits. He will be covert in his actions and it will only move him further from his desired relationship with you.

The passive aggressive never looks internally and examines their role in a problem. They have to externalize it and blame others for having shortcomings. To accept that he has flaws would be tantamount to emotional self-destruction. They live in denial of their self-destructive behaviors, the consequences of those behaviors and the choices they make that cause others so much pain.

The passive aggressive objectifies the object of their desire. You are to be used as a means to an end. Your only value is to feed his own emotional needs. You are not seen as a person with feelings and needs but as an extension of him. You are there for their comfort and pleasure and are of use as long as you fill their needs.

The passive aggressive wants the attention and attachment that comes with loving someone but fears losing his independence and sense of self to his spouse. They want love and attention but avoid it out of fear of it destroying them. You have to be kept at arms length and if there is an emotional attachment it is tenuous at best.

I’m about to fill you in on a little secret. Anger plays a role in passive aggressive behavior. Yep, that passive aggressive spouse that is driving you insane is angry as hell and full of grief. The passive aggressive deals with anger in one of two ways. Either they have no control over their anger or they have problems expressing their anger.

Adults who have no control over their anger and those who have no idea how to express their anger are grieving. They are grieving the loss of something that was rightfully theirs. Their right to entertain themselves regardless of societies or their parent’s beliefs of what was right or wrong. The right to be heard and cared for regardless of how addicted a parent was to alcohol or drugs. They are grieving the right to express love or negative feelings or a desire for parental attention without fear of punishment.

It is about loss, the loss of normal things any child should expect from a parent. Instead of grieving that loss in a normal way, they internalize it and compensate by being overly aggressive or overly passive. The grief shows itself in behaviors that are destructive to themselves and anyone who engages in a relationship with them.

A man who abuses his wife is often motivated by feelings of loss and grief. Feelings that are expressed through rage. Women who emotionally manipulate their husband by withholding affection are motivated by the same feelings of loss and grief.

The aggression or passivity hides their fear of rejection and helplessness when it comes to getting what they need from their spouse. The spouse is left reeling and wondering what he/she did to deserve a slap across the face or the withholding of normal loving affection.

The spouse feels responsible in some way. That is the sneaky thing about living with a passive aggressive individual. They don’t know how to properly express anger but they are geniuses when it comes to shifting the blame and projecting their own bad behavior off onto their spouse.

Next time you are trying to make sense of some nonsensical behavior by your spouse remember you are dealing with a wounded, damaged child. Don’t make excuses for him/her. Don’t take responsibility for their inability to properly express their grief and anger. Understanding why someone acts the way they do does not mean excusing their hurtful actions.

Knowledge is power.

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Passive Aggressive Traits

"FEAR OF INTIMACY - Guarded & mistrusful, he is reluctant to show his emotional fragility. He's often out of touch with his feelings, instinctually denying feelings he thinks will "trap" or reveal him, like love. He picks fights to create distance."

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OBSTRUCTIONISM - tell him what you want, no matter how small, and he may promise to get it for you but he won't say when, and he"ll do it deliberately slow just to frustrate you, and maybe he won't do it at all. He blocks any real progress he sees to your getting your way.

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FEELING VICTIMIZED - protests that others unfairly accuse him rather than owning up to his own misdeeds. To remain above reproach, sets himself up as the apparently hapless, innocent victim of your excessive demands and tirades.

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MAKING EXCUSES & LYING - makes unlimited excuses for not fulfilling promises. As a way of withholding information, affirmation or love - to have power over you, may make up a story rather than give a straight answer. Lies when unnecessary.

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CHRONIC LATENESS & FORGETFULNESS - One of the most infuriating & inconsiderate. By keeping you waiting, he sets the ground rules of the relationship. Selective forgetting - used only when he wants to avoid an obligation.

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AMBIGUITY - a master of mixed messages and sitting on fences. When he tells you something, you may still walk away wondering if he actually said yes or no.

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FEAR OF DEPENDENCY - Unsure of his autonomy & afraid of being alone, he fights his dependency needs, usually by trying to control you.

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SULKING - feels put upon when unable to live up to his promises or obligations, he retreats and sulks, pouts and withdraws.

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PROCRASTINATION - an odd sense of time - believes deadlines don't exist for him.

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"Don't worry; he didn't pick you because you are weak or an easy target. He picked you because you have all the qualities he wants and can never have."

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Arwenn said:

A note to mods- how do I edit my post or title for spelling changes? I wanted to change the title of my initial post, and I wasn't sure how to do so.

Thanks

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obyvatel said:

Arwenn said:

A note to mods- how do I edit my post or title for spelling changes? I wanted to change the title of my initial post, and I wasn't sure how to do so.

Thanks

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Hi Arwenn,
Unfortunately you cannot edit your posts until you reach a post count of 50. What would you like to change the title of this topic to?

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Laura said:

My ex was diagnosed with PAPD so I know exactly what you are talking about. I thought there was a thread about it, but I guess not.

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Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where the abuser manipulates situations repeatedly to trick the victim into distrusting his or her own memory and perceptions. Gaslighting is an insidious form of abuse. It makes victims question the very instincts that they have counted on their whole lives, making them unsure of anything.

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Gaslighting makes it very likely that victims will believe whatever their abusers tell them regardless as to their own experience of the situation. Gaslighting often precedes other types of emotional and physical abuse because the victim of gaslighting is more likely to remain in other abusive situations as well.

The term "gaslighting" comes from the 1938 British play "Gas Light" wherein a husband attempts to drive his wife crazy using a variety of tricks causing her to question her own perceptions and sanity. Gas Light was made into a movie both in 1940 and 1944.

Gaslighting Techniques and Examples
There are numerous gaslighting techniques which can make gaslighting more difficult to identify. Gaslighting techniques are used to hide truths that the abuser doesn't want the victim to realize. Gaslighting abuse can be perpetrated by either women or men.

"Withholding" is one gaslighting technique where the abuser feigns a lack of understanding, refuses to listen and declines sharing his emotions. Gaslighting examples of this would be:
"I'm not listening to that crap again tonight."
"You're just trying to confuse me."

Another gaslighting technique is "countering," where an abuser will vehemently call into question a victim's memory in spite of the victim having remembered things correctly.
"Think about when you didn't remember things correctly last time."
"You thought that last time and you were wrong."
These techniques throw the victim off the intended subject matter and make them question their own motivations and perceptions rather than the issue at hand.

It is then that the abuser will start to question the experiences, thoughts and opinions more globally through statements said in anger like:
"You see everything in the most negative way."
"Well you obviously never believed in me then."
"You have an overactive imagination."

"Blocking" and "diverting" are gaslighting techniques whereby the abuser again changes the conversation from the subject matter to questioning the victim's thoughts and controlling the conversation. Gaslighting examples of this include:
"I'm not going through that again."
"Where did you get a crazy idea like that?"
"Quit bitching."
"You're hurting me on purpose."

"Trivializing" is another way of gaslighting. It involves making the victim believe his or her thoughts or needs aren't important, such as:
"You're going to let something like that come between us?"

Abusive "forgetting" and "denial" can also be forms of gaslighting. In this technique, the abuser pretends to forget things that have really occurred; the abuser may also deny things like promises that have been made that are important to the victim. An abuser might say,
"What are you talking about?"
"I don't have to take this."
"You're making that up."
Some gaslighters will then mock the victim for their "wrongdoings" and "misperceptions."

Gaslighting Psychology
The gaslighting techniques are used in conjunction to try to make the victim doubt their own thoughts, memories and actions. Soon the victim is scared to bring up any topic at all for fear they are "wrong" about it or don't remember the situation correctly.

The worst gaslighters will even create situations that allow for the usage of gaslighting techniques. An example of this is taking the victim's keys from the place where they are always left, making the victim think she has misplaced them. Then "helping" the victim with her "bad memory" find the keys.

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So, the movie "Gaslight" is about a psychopath who marries a woman in order to take over her estate. He does all kinds of things to make her believe she’s going insane. He dims the gaslights in the house, and when she senses that the lights have dimmed, she’s told it’s all in her imagination and that the lights have not changed at all. He hides little items of hers and then accuses her of “always losing things,” tells her that her memory is going. He convinces her that she’s “unwell” and keeps her totally isolated from all her friends. He even convinces one of the housemaids (played by a 17-year-old Angela Lansbury) that his wife is crazy (and herein lies a great example of “abuse by proxy,” as the young housemaid starts to hate the wife and believe she’s crazy).

The N/P husband also does things like openly flirt with the housemaid, and when the wife becomes upset about it, he tells her she’s overreacting, that he’s “just being friendly” with the help. He uses just about every tactic in the book, and from the perspective of a woman who’s been raked over the coals by an N/P.

I found it therapeutic to watch as the wife is broken down little by little, and then see later on how she slowly regains her true memory of events, how she realizes red flags she missed, and how she becomes empowered by the final scene. I watched in familiar horror as the N/P husband went from charming, loving, affectionate dream man to cold, calculating, black-hearted, sadistic demon. It is a PERFECT portrayal of how a relationship with an N/P begins, how it develops, and how the victim of the N/P is left devastated, confused and in pieces.

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Arwenn said:

Being able to diagnose him, and know, viscerally, that I really did do by best, that I have no reason to feel shame or guilt, has lifted a huge burden from my heart.
I hope this post helps someone, and if you have been through a relationship like mine, the read the quote below-it's so true!


"Don't worry; he didn't pick you because you are weak or an easy target. He picked you because you have all the qualities he wants and can never have."

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LQB said:

Arwenn said:

Being able to diagnose him, and know, viscerally, that I really did do by best, that I have no reason to feel shame or guilt, has lifted a huge burden from my heart.
I hope this post helps someone, and if you have been through a relationship like mine, the read the quote below-it's so true!


"Don't worry; he didn't pick you because you are weak or an easy target. He picked you because you have all the qualities he wants and can never have."

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Very true - and the truth really does set you free. I can feel your relief. I went through similar reading Simon's description of the Covert Aggressive in his book "In Sheep's Clothing" (you might want to give it a read if you haven't).

Added: tried to fix quotes

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Megan said:

You can find a few comments about Gaslight on the movie board.

George Simon makes some interesting observations about passive aggressiveness in his book Character Disturbance. I can't summarize what he said from memory, but the book is one of our "narcissism big 5" and highly recommended.

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Jeremy F Kreuz said:

Arwenn,

you might want to check the thread ´disturbing family weekend´ where I wrote about my own tendencies to be passive agressive. the thread also mentions some books on the topic that might be of interest to you.

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skycsil said:

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is helping me enormously to understand not only my ex, but also my reaction to him. Basically, I tried many times to make him angry because thought it would help him release all his bitterness inside. What a waste of energy!
99% of what you quote about this disorder would describe him perfectly.
Thanks again. Such a relief to know this! :)

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