A listener shared with me that someone called her passive-aggressive. She had no clue that that’s what she was doing, but she asked me how to identify it in herself and how and why it comes about. I address this very important subject in this article.
The article below is an addendum to today’s episode. Also, in this episode, I bring up a very difficult situation where someone has a husband who is not only disabled, which can be challenging enough, but also abusive. The wife is stuck and doesn’t know what to do.
I’m Passive Aggressive?
A reader wrote to me asking to understand more about what passive-aggressive behavior is and how it manifests, sharing that both their work supervisor and husband recently pointed out this behavior in them.
This is something I know intimately because I was passive-aggressive most of my life (more articles on passive-aggressive behavior).
My take on passive-aggressive behavior today is that it’s essentially the opposite of being actively assertive. When you’re passive-aggressive, there’s underlying aggression behind your indirect commentary or behavior – you’re sending a message, but not the actual message you want to convey. Instead, it becomes an emotional jab, letting them “get the message” without you directly stating it.
For example, saying, “I see the dishes aren’t done yet,” or “I see the trash hasn’t been taken out yet,” is passive-aggressive because you’re not being direct. Instead of saying, “I thought you were going to take out the trash – I see it’s still there,” which could also carry passive-aggressive undertones but is more direct, you’re hinting at your frustration indirectly.
Even while writing this, I’m reconsidering how I’d approach it. Perhaps simply saying, “Hey, I thought you were going to take out the trash,” would be better – removing that first observational statement entirely. Yes, this might lead to a real conversation or even an argument, but why be passive-aggressive at all?
We often choose passive-aggressive behavior because we’re afraid of confrontation. Instead of being direct, we speak in slightly insulting ways or with emotional jabs, hoping to get our point across without actual confrontation. We might say things vaguely or ambiguously, just enough so the other person feels it and hopefully does what we want.
Passive-aggressive behavior comes with a built-in escape clause – it lets you deliver hurtful commentary or emotional jabs while maintaining plausible deniability. You can always say, “That’s not what I meant” or “I just meant…” when confronted. It’s a convenient way to avoid direct confrontation while still getting your point across.
When someone asks, “Why don’t you just be direct with me? Are you angry with me?” you can quickly backpedal with, “No, no, that’s not what I meant at all!” This creates an escape route from confrontation while allowing you to feel better about delivering your message, albeit indirectly.
Looking at this reader’s situation, it’s telling that both their work supervisor and husband identified this behavior. To tackle passive-aggressive tendencies, I encourage you to ask yourself this crucial question:
What would I do or say if I had absolutely no fear of the consequences?
Think about a specific instance where someone called out your passive-aggressive behavior. What would you have said in that moment if you truly didn’t care about the outcome? If you weren’t worried about maintaining your image, keeping your job, or facing confrontation? I guarantee your honest answer will be quite different from your passive-aggressive response.
This exercise helps highlight the gap between how you show up when being passive-aggressive versus how you might appear when being actively assertive.
But we need to dig deeper – why do you fear confrontation?
What’s the worst that could happen?
Will you be yelled at?
Physically threatened?
Or perhaps nothing serious at all?
Often, our fear of confrontation stems from past experiences or old fears we’ve never properly addressed.
This topic fascinates me because I’ve lived it. I remember being passive-aggressive with a coworker who was equally passive-aggressive. Our conversations went nowhere, and we both walked away thinking the other person was being difficult.
I didn’t like him because he was passive-aggressive, and he probably didn’t like me for the same reason – though I didn’t even know that term back then. I just knew I wanted to avoid confrontation at all costs.
If I were being confrontational as the person I am now, I would have directly addressed the problem I had with him at the time:
“Hey, you don’t answer the phones much and I have to do all the work. Would you mind answering more?”
But back then, I chose what I thought was a “nicer” way to say it – really just an emotional jab designed to make him feel bad and figure it out himself. I wasn’t direct at all.
Later, because I feared confrontation, I even apologized for my passive-aggressive behavior – though I didn’t call it that at the time. I apologized simply because I felt guilty for being mad at him and didn’t want him to not like me (I had people-pleasing behaviors as well).
I wasn’t even validating my own right to be angry. I wasn’t telling myself, “Hey, it’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be irritated. It’s okay to be frustrated.” Whether the other person understands or agrees with these feelings doesn’t matter – they’re valid regardless.
Whatever you feel is valid is valid! And I want you to validate yourself whenever you feel like you shouldn’t think a certain way about someone who may actually deserve that kind of thinking. i.e., “I shouldn’t think that,” can be a self-invalidating statement that causes you to repress your thoughts and feelings (which can build up over time).
This was a crucial step in my own growth – learning to acknowledge that my feelings were legitimate. Even when my inner dialogue would start up: “You shouldn’t be angry with that person. Maybe you should be friends with them. Maybe you should explain that you didn’t mean what you said…”
How about instead, I just start saying, “This is how I feel, and I mean it”?
That’s a tough step. It’s a leap of faith, and I’ve tested it repeatedly. I began speaking my mind to people I perceived as “dangerous” – not physically dangerous, but people I felt had power over me: bosses, friends, romantic partners.
Even with my current partner, I refuse to fear confrontation. If I have a feeling, emotion, or thought, it’s valid, and I’m going to bring it up. No beating around the bush – I’ll say, “Hey, this is on my mind and I want to talk about it.”
It’s straightforward and actively assertive. I’m going to be direct, but in what I call a healthy way – meaning I won’t be a jerk about it. I prefer to stand up for myself while maintaining love for others. To the person who wrote in: you can honor yourself while respecting your supervisor, you can love yourself while loving your husband.
You Matter
Loving yourself means validating and honoring who you are and what you want to do. It means acknowledging that it’s okay to have certain thoughts and feelings, even negative ones, even when you think you don’t deserve to have those feelings.
What you might say, “You made me angry when you said that…”
What you might think after you say it, ‘Oh, but I shouldn’t say that because they bring in the money’ or, ‘they clean the house every day.’
Sometimes, this is exactly what we do – we stuff those feelings down, hold onto them, and then explode about something completely unrelated later. We make sure they don’t know what we’re really angry about because we don’t want confrontation.
But here’s what we need to understand: we shouldn’t hold these feelings in. We need to let them go when we can, bring them out for discussion, put them on the table.
Take this reader who was told by their work supervisor that a client felt they were being passive-aggressive – that’s a learning opportunity.
It reminds me of when people review my work on this website or or my other blog and podcast, Love and Abuse. It’s rare, but sometimes people absolutely hate what I’m saying. They think it’s dangerous or abusive.
While I don’t believe what I’m discussing falls into that category, I do address very sensitive subjects. I always approach these topics with the utmost respect, love, care, and compassion because I want people to feel better. I want them to be in a healthy space and free from toxic behavior.
I do everything I can to approach sensitive subjects in what I believe is the healthiest, most loving, kind, and compassionate way – both toward themselves and others. Sometimes people don’t understand this, or they misinterpret it, or they only hear part of what I’m saying.
Occasionally – and it’s rare – I’ll get comments saying, “You’re abusive” or “You sound narcissistic” or “You are dangerous.” That doesn’t feel good to hear. But I use it as a learning opportunity.
When someone says, “In this article you said this, and that’s abusive,” I’ll go back and review that article to make sure I didn’t mess up. It hurts when I hear these things because it’s so far from who I want to be and what I want to do in this world. I don’t want to hurt anyone – I want to be as helpful as I can.
When these rare situations come up, I’ll review what I wrote. My first thought is always, “Oh my God, what did I say? What did I tell this person to do? Did I say something dangerous?”
So far, I haven’t found any major missteps. But I always address these concerns when they arise and use them as learning experiences. I also understand that people are in their own space when they read what I write about. When they’re looking for something specific and I’m not addressing that particular thing – not because I don’t want to, but because I didn’t understand or misunderstood where they were coming from.
Again, it’s a learning opportunity when someone says, “Hey, you’re doing this.” Whether it’s true or not, it’s important to consider. Just like the person who wrote is doing now – taking this opportunity to send me a message and ask about passive-aggressive behavior, where it comes from, and how it manifests.
How Do I Know When I’m Being Passive Aggressive?
This is what the person who wrote wants to know. She wants to know how to recognize this behavior when it happens?
It really comes down to practice. Practicing identifying the behaviors just after they happen (sorry, most of your learning will be in hindsight at first, but you will learn as you go). You can practice by getting help identifying when you are doing the behaviors then having a conversation about it.
When you can’t see your own passive aggressiveness, it’s helpful to have a trusted third party identify it for you when it happens. Since he has already told you that he sees you do it, he can be a great resource because he can identify it when it happens.
This means you two will need an agreement beforehand that allows him to speak up when you are being that way. The agreement should be that you are willing to hear what he has to say without getting upset. You may still feel hurt or angry, but this is a good learning opportunity.
You can even ask him about past events while you’re waiting for the next time you’ll be that way. For example:
When was I passive-aggressive?
What did I say?
What did I do?
Be open when you hear the answers. Don’t get defensive. And don’t say “That’s not true” – don’t go there. Just hold on and be open, even when what he says might feel hurtful.
When he says, “You said this and it really hurt my feelings. I didn’t say anything back and just moved on,” you might feel the need to respond with, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” or “That’s not what I said at all.” Don’t go there. Just listen. Open your mind, open your heart. Take it in.
His interpretation of what happened is real to him. Even if he got the facts wrong, even if you know you said something else – it doesn’t matter. That’s his interpretation, which makes it his reality. This is important for understanding what you need to work on.
When he says, “When you came in the kitchen that day and said X, Y, Z,” reflect on that and ask yourself that most important question:
What would I have said if I had absolutely no fear of the consequences at that moment?
Even better:
What if I had no fear that my husband would get mad at me, want a divorce, or yell at me? What would I say then?
That’s when your truth will come out. That’s when your inner, deeper, most meaningful truth emerges – it’s usually what you avoided saying in the first place.
In conclusion, we usually avoid saying things for two main reasons – we’re either afraid of the consequences, or we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. There are other reasons too, but these are the primary ones.
I’m not saying you always have to be direct. Saying “Hey honey, you smell like garbage” is too direct and obviously hurtful. However, I wouldn’t avoid addressing something that genuinely bothers you.
Take that example – if someone’s hygiene is affecting your desire to be around them in public, that might be something worth bringing up (unless there’s a medical condition involved – that’s a different situation entirely). Maybe they forgot to wash their clothes or put on deodorant. If it bothers you, you have a choice: swallow that feeling or speak about it. But ask yourself – is it really necessary to bring up?
You don’t always have to speak about what bothers you. Sometimes you need to ask yourself: Can I live with this? Can I be truly okay with it?
If you can be okay with it, then you really can’t complain about it later. Once you’ve chosen to accept something, you’re past it.
Remember, you can’t swallow your bothered feelings only to have them resurface later in an argument about something else. That negative energy builds up. If you’ve chosen to accept something, you have to truly be okay with it.
Using our example – if you’ve decided to accept someone’s hygiene habits, you can’t bring it up later in an argument. That’s just how it works. It might not be the best example, but I think you understand what I mean.
If you’re currently trying to reel in your own passive-aggressiveness, or dealing with someone else’s, I hope this article has been helpful.
