Thursday 13 October 2011

Passive Aggressive is another kind of violence

WordItOut word cloud: Passive Aggressive behaviour

Definition:
"Put simply passive aggressive behaviour is silent aggression. It is where you are angry with someone but do not or cannot tell them. It may involve, shutting off verbally, it may involve angry looks, obvious changes in behaviour, being obstructive, sulky or stonewalling. It is characterized by an indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, evading, pouting, or deliberately creating confusion.
A passive aggressive individual doesn't always exhibit outward anger or appear malicious. At first glance, the behaviour might appears unassuming, gracious and benevolent; underneath there may be manipulation - hence the term "Passive-Aggressive". Counselling Directory

Examples that I have experienced:

            -   “Forgetting” to pass on an invite.
- Saying that you will do something and not doing it.
-          - Not paying on time.
-          - Coming late on a regular basis.
-          - Accepting an invite, and phoning to cancel at the last moment.
-          - No response at all to an invite.
-          - Not prepared at all for guests that have been invited.
-          - Only starting to make food when the guests arrive, and spending the whole time in the kitchen while they are there.
-          - It is always somebody else’s fault!
-          - When confronted about passive aggressive behaviour the person does not own up to it.

It is usually very subtle, and only after a number of occurrences do you actually start to realise that something more is at play!
It is strange that passive aggressives do these things out of a deep sense of unworthiness, but the more they exhibited this kind of behaviour, the more people withdraw from them...
The unfather who died the previous week also paid his maintenance late every month, and his ex-wife had to stress while waiting on him... The final passive aggressive act! The maintenance money was not paid, the school fees and forms for next year was not sorted as he had promised... We hope that his will was sorted before he died! 
What legacy is he leaving behind?


It is violence. Violence against your own family members when you try to leverage relationships by being passive aggressive!

1 comment:

  1. Very insightful...and to a degree it can be called spitefulness.

    ReplyDelete

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