Happy Mother’s Day! How Does Your Passive Aggressive Handle It?

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day Ladies. I’ll be curious as to what today brings. Considering a good portion of the men that are passive aggressive come from mother’s that were either neglectful, non-nurturing, or overly controlling, not allowing for any self-expression, it’ll be interesting to see the different ways different passive aggressives handle Mother’s Day.

This morning I’m going to church with my middle daughter. I had told my passive aggressive boyfriend I was planning this, and then she and I would be going to breakfast afterward. Last night I discovered he thawed out a roll of breakfast sausage. I have no idea what that is for, but it would be typical for him to use the “I forgot” excuse, and then making me feel guilty about going out. That is typical passive aggressive behavior.

I must say that I remind him every Mother’s Day that I am not his mother, that it’s not up to him to worry about me, but he always does something special such as flowers, or fixing my favorite dinner. His mother is deceased, so there isn’t the dragging him to the phone fight we used to have every year on Mother’s Day and her birthday.

How did Mother’s Day go for you? Did he cave into his mother’s demands? Did he spoil you a little? or was it just another passive aggressive against the rest of us kind of day?

Love to hear your feedback.

Latest And Greatest In Passive Aggressive Behavior

My passive aggressive boyfriend has taken a new approach to trying to make me second guess myself, so I thought I would share his latest and greatest passive aggressive behavior.

Any of us involved with a passive aggressive knows how good they are at making us doubt ourselves, second guess ourselves. Somehow everything we thought we knew, we wonder under the passive aggressive’s constant scrutiny, if we ever really knew anything at all.

My passive aggressive boyfriend and I have been together for 13 yrs. now. He is a total sports fanatic, and I’m sure that’s one of the ways I got him (lucky me) was that I knew quite a bit from betting on football, etc.  When we first got together I was very willing to also learn hockey, was already a NASCAR fan, and “got it” when it came to baseball.

Over 13 yrs. I have managed to surprise the passive aggressive  on several occasions that I actually get the strategy of the games, etc. I don’t know if his latest passive aggressive behavior is meant to make me feel stupid, make him feel needed, or just to make him feel like he still has an edge, but I find it utterly ridiculous.

His newest passive aggressive behavior is to use a very uncommon term, (one he hasn’t used in 13 yrs.) for a very common thing, be it a penalty, a point after goal, or what ever.  Of course I’m using the common phrase, and then figuring I missed something, ask him what it is he’s talking about. Then we go round and round and it turns out to be the very thing I said it was to start with.

The latest has been with NASCAR  season starting, we get to talking about the beginning qualifying races that set the field for the Daytona 500. I mention about the first race being the “Bud Shootout”. He says no, the first race is a qualifier and I must have it confused with the “shootout” in hockey. I just knew I was right, and this is something this man has followed like the bible for most of his life.

I went right in to the computer and looked it up. Sure enough, the first race is the Bud ShootOut, then the Gatorade Duals to set the track for Daytona. Until this year, of course. LOL. Now it’s called the “Sprint Unlimited” and the “Bud Duals”. That’s ok. Doesn’t matter. The passive aggressive didn’t know about all the changes yet, so it just goes to show he was just screwing with me to begin with.

I don’t know if after all these years he’s feeling threatened in the one part of the world he was always the expert in or what. I don’t know, maybe he’s afraid he’s losing it. (Have I done that good a job on turning the tables?) Whatever it is, this is the latest and greatest passive aggressive behavior from my PA. Yours trying to play any new tricks on you since you confront him on the others?

 

 

Valentine Or Sitting Duck?

Which will you be this year? Will you be the passive aggressive’s Valentine or a sitting duck? To me, this has got to be the passive aggressive’s favorite holiday, right up there with Christmas when it comes to disappointment.

If you and the passive aggressive are on the outs, or you’ve called him/her out on his/her behavior, this is the perfect time for him/her to sweep you back in. If the passive aggressive is malicious enough, he/she knows how much this day means to you and will use it to hurt you yet one more time.

They say it’s worse to be with someone and still be lonely, than it is to just be alone. I would say that would be the case with most that are married or involved with a passive aggressive. I’ve noticed this year there seems to be a lot of clubs, etc. advertising parties for people who are not someone’s valentine. There’s nothing saying we can’t partake in something like that, celebrating the fact that we’re just alive and full of love ourselves, with or without anyone else.

If you are one in a position that whenever it comes to something special, your passive aggressive lets you down, now is as good a time as any to change that!

First, don’t expect anything special. This way if he/she screws up it won’t hurt as bad because you weren’t expecting anything special anyhow. If he/she does do something or remembers Valentine’s Day, it will just be icing on the cake, not something you’re depending on.

Second- There’s no law says we can’t do for ourselves what we would have liked someone else to do for us. Pamper yourself. Put everyone on notice you are doing things on this day to love yourself. I know if you have little kids or schedules, there are still things you have to work around, but there’s nothing saying you can’t pick yourself up a bottle of wine, some roses for the bath water, and anything else you want to spoil yourself. Then when you have the time, enjoy it. Remember how much you used to love yourself and how you are so worth it!

Third- You must have single friends or relatives. They probably aren’t loving this day either. See if you can get together for lunch or to do something fun so that you enjoy at least part of your day. It will help going into the evening.

And- If you’re really ambitious, you could bake some cookies and take them to a homeless shelter, or old folks home. Or grab a big bunch of cheap balloons and do the same. To see the light on the faces will fill your heart with so much love, nothing could take that away.

It’s up to you to take the mindset that you need to love yourself. That you are worth loving yourself and being loved by others.  Certainly we can do that for ourselves at least once a year. We have to be pro-active when it comes to the passive aggressive. Otherwise, you’ll just keep drowning.

So, are you going to be a Valentine or a sitting duck?

Children And Passive Aggressive Behavior

What do you do with children that obviously have passive aggressive behavior?

If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know that my first advice if someone has children and they are married to a passive aggressive spouse, is to get out and save the children. All too often the children have a tendency to pick up the passive aggressive spouse’s behaviors.

Children also have the ability to take on these behaviors all by themselves when they start resenting the responsibilities put upon them by their parents.  In a way it’s no wonder children will behave passive aggressively, as they feel they have no other choice. In my house I was definitely not allowed to talk back or squack about what I was told to do. As a result, I had to take my little sister (6 yrs. younger) with me every where I went from the time she could walk.

As I was doing some research today, I came across an article by Signe Witson on Psychology Today who talks about a mother who asks her oldest daughter to take the 2 younger daughters to the bathroom while they are having a meal in a restaurant. While the oldest acts obediently, she travels at such a pace, she loses both her siblings on the way. When Mother is upset, the oldest daughter acts in complete surprise and blames her siblings for not keeping up.

This is such a familiar story to me. I can remember behaving in such a manner when I was a kid, and I can remember my oldest daughter on occasion behaving the same way regarding her siblings. Evidently now there is a book to help parents deal with these kind of situations called “The Reality Rub”.

The Reality Rub is recommended for use with kids who manipulate reality to test limits. The goal of the Reality Rub is to help kids re-organize their thinking and clarify reality by discussing their blurred, distorted, or self-serving perceptions of an incident.

This sounds like it may be a perfect place to start if you have kids that are always testing your limits, or who are developing their own passive aggressive behavior habits that would serve them better if they used that energy in more constructive ways.

 

13 Yrs. With The Passive Aggressive And Counting

Flowers, candy, prime rib

I celebrated 13 yrs. with the Passive Aggressiveboyfriend a couple of months ago. When I started this blog many, many, posts and comments ago, I would read comments from women who had gone through misery being with a passive aggressive for 20, 30, and more years. I wondered how they stood it. Now I know. Time just keeps on ticking and before you know it, you’re looking at more time behind you than in front of you!

I have taken a break over the last few months trying to get my life in order, clean up lose ends, and see if my not complaining to you here would make any difference in how I looked at things. Maybe I would be more positive, etc. Instead, I have found myself closer to violence than I’ve ever been. LOL. I told you in the beginning the only way to survive being with a passive aggressive was with a sense of humor. In the turmoil of the last couple of years, I think I lost some of that.

The Passive Aggressive must have been getting it that I was close to the end as he has become extremely helpful with my mother, although acts like he’s put out at the slightest deviation from routine.

The PA boyfriend doesn’t really ever say anything when he’s annoyed, but he has this habit of lifting his neck way up and turning his head around, almost like a chicken. I’ve been calling him on this and the way he looks at me at times when I say something, typical passive aggressive behavior, and he claims not to know what I’m talking about. “What look? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This weekend my middle daughter got married. The PA boyfriend pulled that “neck thing” on me a couple of times before we ever left the house, the typical passive aggressive behavior. I guess I probably should have warned him how that was getting to me, but I didn’t. I thought once we got to the wedding I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I can hear you out there saying “Wrong!” You’re right. He did it again at the wedding when I had asked him to do something, or told him something we needed to do, he pulled that neck thing, and if I had been close enough I would have knocked his head clean off! LOL. And he knew it!

So here I am my friends, back sharing opinions and hopefully giving helpful suggestions, and finding another way to let go of my anger in a way that won’t send me to jail. LOL

Passive Aggressive Quest For Freedom!

OMGosh! Time has flown by so fast and I have been so involved (in myself I’m sorry to say) that I cannot believe how long it’s been since I put up a new post. I will confess that I have been very focused on getting things squared away here, so I have been neglectful in other areas. I am almost caught up, plus a friend of mine is hell bent on putting together a schedule for himself, and including me and a schedule for myself, so…

In the meantime…I am living in 110-115 degree weather and trying to keep my indoor-outdoor cat in the house because he could have a “kitty stroke”. So what does the passive aggressive boyfriend do? Talk to me through the sliding glass door when I’m outside, and act totally surprised when he lets the cat out. He is smart enough to know that if the cat dies, he’s next. LOL. So much for that passive aggressive tendency.

I have found a new church home down here. It took awhile, but I think I’m ready to plug in and get going on something outside of cyberspace that’s outside of me. Of course the passive aggressive boyfriend won’t be part of it, but I don’t care. He says he doesn’t believe and after all these years I’m still not sure if that’s a bunch of BS or he really doesn’t believe, but that’s his problem. In the meantime I’m finally starting to make new friends which will definitely help with a new life.

The passive aggressive boyfriend has been a little friendly lately. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve had any “intimacy” (sex) so I think he’s finally getting a little tired of “amusing” himself. I don’t think he realizes that this passive aggressive “used to be” victim isn’t the same female he got together with years ago. Oh well. I’m just wondering now when to have “the talk”. I think it’s time he understood exactly where we stand.

Now, the real shocker, what I’ve been thinking about lately as I prepare my life to have no crap. I’m thinking I’m 57 yrs. old with a 64 yr. old passive aggressive. I’m thinking I still have a whole life ahead of me, BUT, right now the last man I was married to was a Canadian. I cannot collect Social Security here. I am actually considering marrying the passive aggressive because 1) if anything happens to him medically, I’m the only one that knows anything about him and his sons are going to be asking me anyway 2)I can collect his social security if any thing happens to him. I think after being involved with the passive aggressive for the last 12 yrs., I’ve earned it. LOL. Haven’t really decided either way yet.

What would you say? If I really believe there is life after the passive aggressive, then do I really need to go there?

How To Tell If A Passive Aggressive Is Lying…

I have come to the conclusion if you want to know if a passive aggressive is lying, you just have to see their lips are moving. (Judge Judy says the same about teenage children. LOL)

I thought my passive aggressive boyfriend (roommate) had pretty much done the worst he could do when he hadn’t told me after being together for 11 yrs. that he was still married, but with a passive aggressive the “hits just keep on coming”.

Any of you who have been with me for any length of time know we just moved down to SoCal recently. When we got down here the PA’s employer decided they didn’t have any work for him down here, so I told him to file for unemployment. Of course that took some time, and some nagging, but he finally did it. While we’re trying to get some work going down here, and he’s supposedly looking for work, we’ve been living on my mother’s social security. As you can imagine, it’s not much for 3 people with bad habits. LOL. Any money from unemployment would be a plus.

They say in California it takes about 10 days to start drawing benefits. OK. I’m resourceful. We can live until then. So, after 10 days I am checking the mailbox, getting on the passive aggressive to call the benefits office to find out where his check is. Every day he tells me he can’t get through, not on the recorder number and not on the main number. He actually has me listen because I can’t believe that you can’t get through on a recorded number that is supposed to give information 24/7.

Finally, the passive aggressive gets up one morning, bright and early and drives to an office in another town a short ways from us. He comes back and tells me they’ve docked him 5 weeks because they are saying he’s the one that terminated employment. I ask him if he explained circumstances, etc. He says he did but they didn’t care.

When the second person I told about this mentioned an appeal process, I decided to look into it myself. I pull up the info on how to appeal and it says you have 20 days from the “Determination Letter” you receive from them. So I start asking the PA if he ever got this letter. He’s hem-hawing around, and finally asks me why. I explain I’m working on an appeal, and he finally breaks forth with the truth.

All this time while I’m checking the mailbox and on his butt to call the unemployment office, he had received a determination letter that said they were docking him 5 weeks because he got overpaid in April 2010. It had absolutely nothing to do with his employer. He had already appealed, without me knowing it, and he didn’t want to tell me because he “didn’t want to complicate things any further”.

I came unglued!! Complicate things any further? So it’s easier letting me think there’s a check coming that isn’t, and lying to me every day about not knowing why it’s not here? Instead of telling me it’s not coming and letting me figure something else out, just let me keep hoping every single day it was in the mail?

I must have called him everything in the book, language I haven’t used in a long time came spilling out of my mouth. (Going to church today to ask for forgiveness. LOL). I told him it was obvious he had absolutely no integrity, which I should have known after the “wife” incident, but I never guessed that he was still lying straight to my face, about our every day life!

I told him to go home to his eldest son’s. Of course I know that won’t happen right now, and I really don’t want it to right now until I have a little more income on my end coming in, but this definitely did it. We are through! From now on it will be my total concentration to figure how to make extra cash, where I can pull money from to put in savings, all building to a life without him. I’ll get there.

Therapist Advice And Passive Aggressive Relationships

The other day when I posted the video at “Seeing The Passive Aggressive Through Sweet Eyes” I asked for some feedback. Actually, your reaction was much better than I thought it would be. When I first saw it, it just got me angry.

The first thing I thought was it was obvious this woman had never been deeply involved with a passive aggressive spouse or passive aggressive boyfriend for any length of time. For those of you just starting out in a relationship with a passive aggressive, you might try following her advice. Maybe you’ll be one of the ones it works for. As one comment said something along the lines of ‘he has to be willing to follow the same rules’.

My second thought was, if this is the kind of advice you’re getting from your therapist, it’s time to find a new therapist. I can sit down with my passive aggressive boyfriend, but get him to talk for 10 minutes, no way! Now, he will let me rant and rave for as long as I like, but for him to actually converse is another story. I can’t repeat back to him what he’s saying because nothing gets said.

She also doesn’t address the fact that many passive aggressive spouses do nothing but “accuse”. I guess that would be the time you use one of her ‘stock statements’ “I’m sorry you feel that way”.

I do realize many of you have spouses that are more aggressive than passive, so maybe, if you haven’t tried this already, which I have a feeling most of you probably have, you might try it now. If nothing else, when you start repeating back to him “So you think I _______”, you may at least temporarily throw him/her off his/her game.

For me, knowing what real passive aggressive relationships are like, I have to admit, I just thought it was a load of phooey. LOL.

Seeing the Passive Aggressive Through “Sweet” Eyes

I found this this morning, and I thought I would post just in case there is someone out there it may help. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and then I will spill mine.

Passive Aggressive- Whatever works!

Hope is where you can find it. Tonite I was doing something on the internet (can’t even remember what) and I came upon another article by Therese Borchard called “7 Prayers for the Depressed“. Therese is great, and has been through her own share of problems being a ‘borderline’ personality herself. She writes for Beyond Blue and has so much great advice for picking yourself up and wiping off the dust. If you read my article on the “Self Esteem File” you may remember me mentioning her there.

I don’t know how many of you are “religious” or believe in God, and it’s really none of my business either way, but I believe big time. I often think if I didn’t have God to talk to and rely on, I probably wouldn’t be here (on earth). Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all “preachy” on you here, just sayin’.

So many of us go through terrible bouts of depression due to the situations we’re living in with a passive aggressive person, be it a parent, a spouse, what ever, that sometimes we have to lift our head up before we drown. Below is a link to the site I found tonite where Therese has 7 Prayers for the Depressed. I hope it helps.