7 Signs You're Dealing With a Passive-Aggressive Person

[rangerrebew]

7 Signs You're Dealing With a Passive-Aggressive Person

And the best ways to respond to them.

Jeffrey Kluger
August 31, 2017
 

Human aggression doesn’t have much going for it. Every war, bar brawl or playground smackdown ever fought has resulted from our habit of lashing out first and talking it through only later. But if aggression has one virtue, it’s that it’s unambiguous. It’s hard to misunderstand the meaning of a missile launch or a punch in the nose.

http://www.health.com/syndication/passive-aggressive-definition-meaning

[ConstitutionRose]

This is soooooo my MIL.  Who lives with us and who is aged and suffering from many physical ailments (almost all of which are due to her lifestyle choices).  She has lived with us for 12 years.  She moved in with us when hubby and I first married.  I had just been through the sequential final illness and death of my parents, first my father than my mother.  I tried very had to make Nancy comfortable and happy. I pretty much jumped through rings for her.  I thought I was being respectful and dutiful.

Now these many years later, my husband is ill, I am trying to keep our business going and I am myself several years past retirement age and have not the energy and health I had a decade ago. 

When I quit jumping through rings our relationship changed radically and I started noticing all the passive aggressive and infuriating manipulation.

I ignore her a good bit.  Just pretend I didn't hear.  Sometimes I just plain tell her I don't have time and that she should ask one of her other sons or DILS for help.  Which results in huffing and pouting and other displays.  She'll be back at me in about 24 hours with another angle on the same subject.  Sometimes when she really gets my goat I simply quit performing that task for her for some period of time.  She never apologizes but she gets very sweet and pitiful and makes me feel guilty.

None of my strategies work very well.  I was hoping this article would have helpful suggestions.

[Sanguine]

This is soooooo my MIL.  Who lives with us and who is aged and suffering from many physical ailments (almost all of which are due to her lifestyle choices).  She has lived with us for 12 years.  She moved in with us when hubby and I first married.  I had just been through the sequential final illness and death of my parents, first my father than my mother.  I tried very had to make Nancy comfortable and happy. I pretty much jumped through rings for her.  I thought I was being respectful and dutiful.

Now these many years later, my husband is ill, I am trying to keep our business going and I am myself several years past retirement age and have not the energy and health I had a decade ago. 

When I quit jumping through rings our relationship changed radically and I started noticing all the passive aggressive and infuriating manipulation.

I ignore her a good bit.  Just pretend I didn't hear.  Sometimes I just plain tell her I don't have time and that she should ask one of her other sons or DILS for help.  Which results in huffing and pouting and other displays.  She'll be back at me in about 24 hours with another angle on the same subject.  Sometimes when she really gets my goat I simply quit performing that task for her for some period of time.  She never apologizes but she gets very sweet and pitiful and makes me feel guilty.

None of my strategies work very well.  I was hoping this article would have helpful suggestions.

It's a tough one.  The tactics are so insidious - and they work.  That's why they use them.  She's been doing this a lot longer than you've been trying to live with the behaviors, so she's much better at the behavior than you could ever be at curbing them.  Don't beat yourself up and try to spend the minimum amount of energy on her.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

8. His name is Jim Robinson.

[LateForLunch]

8. His name is Jim Robinson.

That was cruel, but not particularly unusual. 

[bolobaby]

They fire high-ranking officials on Twitter instead of face-to-face?

[Sanguine]

They fire high-ranking officials on Twitter instead of face-to-face?

No, that's a whole different animal.

[Polly Ticks]

This is soooooo my MIL.  Who lives with us and who is aged and suffering from many physical ailments (almost all of which are due to her lifestyle choices).  She has lived with us for 12 years.  She moved in with us when hubby and I first married.  I had just been through the sequential final illness and death of my parents, first my father than my mother.  I tried very had to make Nancy comfortable and happy. I pretty much jumped through rings for her.  I thought I was being respectful and dutiful.

Now these many years later, my husband is ill, I am trying to keep our business going and I am myself several years past retirement age and have not the energy and health I had a decade ago. 

When I quit jumping through rings our relationship changed radically and I started noticing all the passive aggressive and infuriating manipulation.

I ignore her a good bit.  Just pretend I didn't hear.  Sometimes I just plain tell her I don't have time and that she should ask one of her other sons or DILS for help.  Which results in huffing and pouting and other displays.  She'll be back at me in about 24 hours with another angle on the same subject.  Sometimes when she really gets my goat I simply quit performing that task for her for some period of time.  She never apologizes but she gets very sweet and pitiful and makes me feel guilty.

None of my strategies work very well.  I was hoping this article would have helpful suggestions.

@ConstitutionRose
Have you read this book?:


    Amazon -- Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No by Cloud & Townsend

The MIL-factor certainly compounds things, though.  That's a very tough dynamic.

[Applewood]

@ConstitutionRose

You mentioned other sons and DILs.  Where are they?  Can they take in your MIL?  What can they do to help.