Silent violence: the passive-aggressive

One of the main difficulties with passive-aggressive behaviors is that they are designed to be difficult to detect. However, this type of behavior is very common. Most people have encountered those who act like this or have themselves been the protagonists of this type of behavior.

Passive-aggressives win with heads, but also with stamps. Their greatest specialty is playing dumb or pretending that things don’t suit them. What allows them to get their way on most occasions is precisely this ambiguity : they attack without attackingthey violate, but they erase or try to erase, the evidence of what they do.

This is very harmful behavior in relationships with others.. It occurs among co-workers, in a relationship, among friends, in the family and everywhere. Passive-aggressive people hurt others, but also themselves. They prevent a conflict from being raised openly and, therefore, from being resolved.

Passive-aggressives and silence

One of the characteristic features of passive-aggressive people is the deliberate use of silence as a manipulation tool.. In the most obvious cases, it is a direct silence: you speak to them and they do not answer, they pretend that they did not hear or that they have nothing to say. But they did listen and they would have something to respond to. His thing, in any case, is to leave others with concern.

Sometimes those aggressive silences are a little more subtle or indirect. For example, show a gesture similar to the one they would show if they had a toothache.but if you ask them if they feel bad, they say no. Or they systematically fail to keep appointments, but always end up giving some reason to justify them.

In short, they are masters at avoiding what happens. An example of this is coworkers who are asked for a document and agree to deliver it, but never do so. Or those couples who agree to go to a family gathering, but always arrive when it’s almost over. Or the son who always forgets to take out the trash, even though that’s the only thing he has to remember when he’s home.

The trick

Taking the examples, we can see that what passive-aggressive people do is display ambiguous behavior that represents a trap. .

The colleague who never delivers the document requested will never accept that he did this consciously. Finally, he said that he would hand it over and could even show a cooperative spirit, but in practice he did not do so.

The affected person is left without weapons. He cannot accuse him of wrongdoing, because intentions rarely leave a mark. He also cannot trust that it was simply an oversight or forgetfulness, because he senses that it was not like that. And if he asks directly they will answer no, everything is very good. The game is called: do not face a conflict.

The same thing happens with the couple who sabotages some activity that is important to their spouse or with the child who always disobeys. None of them say: I’m mad at you, period.

Their strategy is to camouflage that resistance and not recognizing the other – or oneself – that there is a problem and that, to solve it, it is necessary to put it on the table.

What’s wrong with them? What’s happening to us?

Passive-aggressive people are characterized by this strategy of not confronting, even if there is an obvious conflict.. That is why they look at their mobile phone while someone is talking to them or end a conversation by leaving it in the air, even if it is not over; or he avoids expressing what he feels when someone confronts him, saying that “he doesn’t like problems.”

Passive-aggressive people are angry and express their annoyance with those behaviors that are difficult for others to interpret, the result of which, in any case, is harm to the other. These are people who feel that others are to blame for their dissatisfaction or discomfort. They like crying lies more than singing truths.

Deep down, they are people who They are very afraid of abandonment and have not developed the ability to express what they feel.. If someone engages in behavior like this, it is best to let the situation pass and then, slowly, and in a relaxed moment, express your feelings about it. This can encourage her and help her say what is bothering her.

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