Passive aggression and relationships
alan...@gmail.com
consists of a deep-seated attitude, almost a need, to erode the
foundations of love and support. Thanks to Deidre's patience,
stubborness, and her own background of emotional issues, she's still
hanging in there with me, providing me with the support I need but
don't always see, and showing me how my attitudes are affecting our
relationship.
It's a struggle, a daily struggle, to remind myself to be a good
person, to be understanding, supportive, and loving; to remember that
I'm not here to fight her, I'm here to love her. I don't often
succeed, and along the way I trigger reactions in her which,
ultimately, tell me she's not going to put up with my crap. I love her
strength - just not when I'm enveloped in the emotions of my passive
aggression.
Being the 'victim', and having been that way for around 30 years, I'm
often struggling with the concept that what's happening is a result of
my own actions. A lifetime of blaming others has left me with an
attitude that denies responsibility. I hate it when I recognise it,
but it often escapes my awareness when it makes an appearance. It's an
instinctive attitude, a response that has been learned and practiced
over the years, and which I find very difficult to prevent. How do you
prevent an instinctive reaction that has taken a lifetime to perfect?
It's not easy, let me tell you.
Deidre's own instinctive reactions to my provocative comments,
resulting from the passive aggression in me, often ends up with us
arguing. Her, from the point of view that I'm being childish,
ignorant, arrogant, irresponsible, and disrespectful. Me, from the
point of view that she's just not listening to me and that her own
issues colour her perspective to one that doesn't allow for an
understanding of my deeper issues. The result is that I end up feeling
unheard, and she ends up feeling abandoned.
I'm still amazed at her persistence, and her love for me. It seems
that the times when I'm not being passive aggressive make it all
worthwhile for her. I'm really happy about that... I'm just not so
happy that I make it so hard for her.
With all the changes that I've been going through this past few months
(eg. career uncertainty that led to redundancy, moving countries and
all the financial and lifestyle upheaval that went with it, and the
search for a job the past couple of months), I've had no real
motivation to continue exploring passive aggression in my life. Sure,
I deal with it daily, but I haven't been writing about it, which is
how I explore it internally. I haven't been active on the passive
aggression mailing list I created last year, which I realised today
(and made amends there as well).
So, after another argument with Deidre today, I decided that I need to
focus on my growth through this passive aggression. I also think that
succeeding in getting a job today helped with that, restoring a sense
of stability to my life in some way, and encouraging me to take the
time to move forward again.
Life with passive aggression isn't easy. Neither is it much fun. Life
being the partner of a passive aggressive person certainly isn't much
fun either. Deidre's love for me only encourages me to work harder at
it, to make it worthwhile for her - and for me.
I've read a lot about this subject over the past few months, and I've
learnt that people who suffer from passive aggression apparently never
get over it. Their entire life is screwed up because of how they were
raised, the experiences they grew up with, and what they learned from
it. Many of them never even become aware that they're the ones with
the problem, and end up taking the denial of self responsibility to
their grave. I can't imagine dying with having had a lifelong belief
that everyone else is to blame for the things that have gone wrong in
my life. How can you grow if you can't accept those things about
yourself which are preventing your growth?
The only way to grow, as far as I can work out, is to look at all
those things in your life which are holding you back, and decide to
change them from barriers that prevent you from growing into
incentives that help you grow. You do it because you're tired of the
hurt you're causing yourself and those you love. You do it because if
you don't, you'll die a lonely, bitter person. You do it because once
you're aware of it, you have to. This is your life, and these people
are the ones you love and who love you. They believe in you, and you
owe it to them to be the best that you can be.
We choose to react to situations in particular ways because it's how
we've always reacted, or it's how we think we're expected to react, or
it's how we think we should react... It doesn't actually matter how we
react, as every reaction is a choice we make, and we have the power to
make different choices. We don't need to follow the same patterns, but
we still do... We don't need to react the same ways, but we still
do... It's time we made different choices, and created relationships
that were more loving and supportive than destructive.
I'm doing that. It's hard, and it's slow, but I'm doing it. I refuse
to accept that passive aggression is something that I'll 'suffer' from
for my entire life. I refuse to accept that my choices are outside of
my control.
A lot of people suffer from passive aggression, and a lot of people
are finding my previous blog posts on that subject through searches
for 'passive aggression' or 'living with passive aggressives', etc. As
a result of all this, I added subsciption options to the mailing list
in all my posts about passive aggression - just like what you see at
the end of this post.
So if you feel you have passive aggression and it's causing you some
grief in your life, or you feel that you live with someone who's
passive aggressive, and you'd like to talk about what you're going
through, get support, or even provide others with support, please feel
free to subscribe to the mailing list and be an active member. We can
deal with this problem together.
Oh, and procrastination is a great part of passive aggression. Avoid
procrastination and change your life today. Do something positive to
move yourself forward. Join the list and improve your relationships!
I'll see you there.