00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 240, "Passive-Aggressive Behavior." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright, well hey, there my friends. Welcome to the podcast. So glad to have you with me today. We are going to be jumping into talking about passive-aggressive behavior a little bit today. So this is a term that tends to get used a lot. I know that I use it a lot and I thought it would be a really great thing to clarify what it is and to see how it shows up in our relationships. I know that for a lot of years I was engaging in it and I didn't see it. In fact, honestly, I didn't even know what it was and it was really destructive, not just to my previous marriage but to the relationships with my children and to others around me. So let's start with the definition. So as I looked it up, it says "passive-aggressive behavior is a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them." There's a disconnect between what a person who exhibits passive aggressive behavior says and what he or she does. 

01:21 

Okay, so this is such a fascinating concept to me because I hear so many people express how they hate conflict so they avoid it. In fact, I just heard it on a Come Follow Me podcast just this morning that I was listening to and yet here's the deal...when we avoid conflict, I see that we're kind of setting ourselves up to be unintentionally passive-aggressive, which is pretty normal for humans. If you find that passive-aggressive behavior is a go to for you, guess what? You're in pretty good company. Our primitive brains want to avoid pain. And many of us interpret conflict as painful so our brain starts looking for a workaround, a way for us to get across our message without directly having a conflict. And passive-aggressive behaviors are just the ticket. They allow us to express our displeasure, our discomfort, or our disagreement without having to directly address the problem with the person that we need to. 

02:29 

So first, I would love for us to take a different approach to conflict. What if we were to see conflict as just two people having different opinions? It would go in the C line and it would be entirely neutral. It would go in the circumstance line, right? You like blue and I like red. Really, it's not a problem at all. And unless we think it's a problem because what the other person likes is wrong somehow and we can't let it go. But honestly, it's not the different opinions that is the problem. It's that we think it's a problem. So we start to feel uncomfortable or annoyed or frustrated or angry. And then because we're afraid of the conflict, that shows up in our action line as passive-aggressive behaviors because we're trying not to say anything directly, but we still feel the need to let our feelings be known. So if we stop thinking of conflict meaning two different opinions as a problem, then it's easier to show up with healthier behaviors. 

03:33 

Conflict can lead to two different destinations. One, it can lead to confrontation when we think it's a problem, so we start fighting about it in some way. When we start thinking the other person is wrong, I am right. When we just start standing our ground and we feel defensive. Or two, conflict can lead to connection, where we don't see it as a problem and we work to understand the other person's point of view. We start asking questions, we start seeking to understand. When a conflict, which is just again, two different opinions, is met with the thought of, "oh, that's interesting," then we can feel curious and move into starting to ask questions and discuss and truly understand where the other person is coming from. So guess what, it's been almost four years since I published my first podcast. And if you wanna go back and listen to number three, "Resolving Conflict," it is all about how conflict can lead us into either confrontation or connection. So check that out if you want to look deeper into how conflict can do that. 

04:45 

Alright, so our discomfort with conflict is what will often lead us into passive-aggressive behavior. So as I was doing a little bit of research, I found a list of 18 passive-aggressive signs for us to look at and they come from an article written by Sarah Epstein for Psychology Today. So here's the deal as we talk about these. Super, super easy for you to go, "Oh, so-and-so does this. Oh, so-and-so does that. Oh, so-and-so..." right? It's so easy to see these behaviors of other people. The real challenge is seeing these behaviors in yourself and not only having the courage to do it, but having the mental acuity to be able to see your stuff. This is why a lot of people go to a coach because we just don't see our own stuff. And it helps to have somebody else show us our stuff sometimes. But what I want you to do as we go through this list of 18 passive-aggressive ways that it can show up, I want you to really look at you. And I want you to stand back outside of yourself a little bit and go, "huh, do I do that? How do I do it? When do I do it?" Right? So I want you to be looking for you. Okay. And then realize, of course, that they are going to show up. I don't think anybody really gets immune to any of these at some point. We may get better and more aware that we're doing them and we may be able to head them off earlier. But I think when our primitive, I think, I just think they're going to show up. K? So when your primitive brain is avoiding the pain, the discomfort of addressing these directly, we're not going to want to see them, but we have to look. 

06:31 

So our goal here in coaching isn't to become perfect or to never show up passive-aggressive. It would be nice if we could do that. But more so, it's to increase our awareness of when we are and why and to clean up some of that. And over time, we will engage in it less often. We're not working here to be perfect little robots. It's just not our human experience in any way. But our goal is to increase our awareness around how we're showing up and what we're doing that. So we're not going for guilt or shame here. If you notice some of these, guilt and shame is not an option. This is awareness, right? That space of "oh, wow, I do that. So fascinating. I wonder why." You know, "I wonder how often that shows up. This is the first time I've ever seen it. That's fascinating. I do that." K? This space of compassion for you, for being a human, for engaging in something so normal. K? Compassion. K? We're not going for guilt or shame or beating yourself up. Alright. So here we go. 

07:40 

The first of these common signs of passive-aggressive behavior denies anger while enacting it indirectly. And then she gives a definition. It says, "a passive-aggressive person may deny that they feel angry to avoid a direct confrontation and uncomfortable feelings." Okay, so to me, that sounds like, :it's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine." Or being angry while yelling, "I'm not angry!" Right? Like, these things, we're denying the anger while we are enacting it. K? 

08:16 

So number two: hints instead of stating need or complaint directly. Her definition: "A passive-aggressive person is a master of hinting at their feelings without expressing them directly. They may reference an earlier incident without stating their feelings about it or speak about a similar situation and how they would feel about that incident instead." K? So to me, I would see that as, I mean, there's lots of different ways to see that, but one way is saying something like, "sure would be nice if I didn't have to pick up everyone's dirty socks every day," "If I didn't always have to pick up all the dishes out of the living room," right? We give these little hints rather than saying, "hey, will everyone grab your dishes and take them to the kitchen, please?" Alright. I've had to work a lot on hints. I was a master of hints earlier and I'm getting so much better at it. 

09:12 

Alright. Number three: sulks, sighs, and pouts. Her definition: "a passive-aggressive person will sometimes verbally and visually express their discontent in ways that clearly indicate their unhappiness as with sighing, pouting, or sulking, but fail to actually address it in meaningful ways." You've heard that, like, somebody says something and somebody goes, "oh, okay." Right. Like this. Oh my gosh. Like under their breath. A big sigh. They're being sad, but they're unwilling to talk about it. Alright. They're pouting. Alright. We've seen that behavior before, but when you say, "what's wrong," "nothing's wrong." Right? So I think a lot of these behaviors kind of overlap and they intermingle quite a bit. 

09:57 

Okay. Number four: has a sullen attitude. So sullen means grumpy, disconnected, easily irritated, bad tempered. So here's what she has to say about it: "A passive-aggressive person may act sullenly in place of direct confrontation. This tactic typically co-occurs with denial that anything is wrong." Alright. So they may get really sullen and when somebody asks them, they're just like, "no, nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong here," but you can tell something's wrong. Right? "I'm fine. It's fine. Everything's fine." Right? We go into these things. 

10:36 

Alright. Number five: fails to follow through or uses intentional inefficiency. Okay. So a passive-aggressive person may act sullenly in place of direct confrontation and may express their discontent by procrastinating and failing to follow through with requested tasks as a form of silent resistance against something they feel unhappy about. Again, this is often paired with denial that the behavior is taking place. So with my ex-husband, this was a favorite go-to for me. I would agree to his 

face because it just seemed easier than having the conflict, but then having the discussion. And then I would just do what I  wanted. And sometimes, like the other way that she says this, is that sometimes people will just put it off, put off what they're doing, put it off, and they make it super uncomfortable for the other person. We may do this in callings, or when we've people pleased ourselves into a place where we've agreed to do something that we don't want. Right, so it's a way of, I was working with a client one time and she was talking about her calling, And she was a president of an organization and the secretary just was not doing what she asked, what her responsibilities were. And even though they had discussions about it, she was now refusing to engage and do what she needed to, right? It made it super uncomfortable for the other person. But they fail the follow through on purpose, right? It's their way of saying, "hey, I don't agree. I don't like this," or whatever. But they don't go. They don't go there. 

12:06 

Alright. Number six: complaints. Excuse me, complaints about feeling wronged and underappreciated. So her, she says: a passive-aggressive person, while struggling to address a particular situation directly, may express that they frequently feel wronged, underappreciated and undervalued. When pushed for examples, they will likely turn to other tactics so as not to get into direct confrontation about a particular incident, notice how often these are paired with, with some of these other behaviors." So this would be like, you don't want to say directly what's going on, but you'll constantly say things like, "nobody listens to me anyway," or "nobody appreciates anything I do around here," but then deny or maybe even gaslight when asked to explain more fully, or they'll say it doesn't matter. "It's okay." Right? And we just put it off. But we put those little digs in and, and I've been good at this my whole life. I've been really good at this. Getting so much better. 

13:09 

Alright. Number seven: score keeps silently. A passive-aggressive person may never address their issues, but they will likely tally and keep track of times that they have felt wronged by others. This silent scorekeeping justifies the subtle passive behaviors that they enact. So this would be like constantly collecting evidence to support your thoughts and our brains are so good at that. Our brains love to collect evidence, right? And then we use this evidence to compare and to justify our beliefs and our behaviors. 

13:50 

Alright, number eight: gives backhanded compliments. She says: "a passive-aggressive person may give backhanded compliments as a way to hurt the other person under the guise of maintaining an amicable connection." So the first thing that came to my mind was someone who will say something unkind or kind of a dig, and then they immediately say, "just kidding." Right? And I think we've all, "oh gosh, I've see that." That just seems to be, especially when I taught middle school. That was a great way that middle schoolers would show up. 

14:26 

Number nine: acts out aggression physically. So a passive-aggressive person may slam doors, move things around loudly, or use other physical means of getting their point across without words. Alright, so we've all kind of seen that, but I'm gonna give you a little bit of a different take on that. One of my friends talked about how her husband was checking things on his phone after hosting a party and got distracted there on his phone and rather than asking him to help clean up the dishes, she did the dishes herself. But where a lot of people would slam and bang them and like try to bring attention to it to show that she's mad...she's so sweet, but she did them as silently as possible so that she could justify the story in her head about how selfish and uncaring and unfeeling her spouse was. Right? She was doing, and I've done that too...I've done it quietly because I think then I'm the big martyr, right? I'm the one who has done all the work and he's just the selfish whatever whatever. Right? So the funny thing is when I talked to this friend, she fully admits that had she asked him, he would have been there immediately. He would have been, "oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I just got distracted," and he would have come over and helped. But she had to play this story out in her mind. It was part of her martyr mentality, right, about how she did that. 

15:55 

So here we go, number 10: Uses the silent treatment. A passive-aggressive person may decide to punish another person by shutting down all communication instead of addressing the issue directly. Okay, I know that from my personal experience that sometimes this can go on for days and days. And I know speaking to my clients many of them have partners who do this as well. They just shut down and refuse to talk for days. They may do the very bare minimum, but then they pretty much just ignore the other person. They don't exist and those are...that's tough. I hate that one. People pretending like I don't exist. That's hard for me and it does happen. So here we go. Number 11: was that a passive-aggressive statement? That may have just been a passive-aggressive phrase on my part. Look how easily it comes out. It's just so natural. I'm going to leave that in this podcast so you can see how easy it comes up. 

16:57 

Here we go. Number 11: insist the conflict is resolved without letting it go. So she says: "a passive-aggressive person will struggle to move through conflict maturely because it is never actually addressed. Nevertheless, they may claim that everything is fine while harboring resentment and frustration." So my previous spouse and I really struggled with this, but from a little bit of a different angle, we used to have a confrontation and then ignore it. We would, just like I used to describe it, that we would just wait for the dust to settle and then go on as if nothing had happened. But meanwhile, the resentment and anger was building and building and it seemed like it was always the same issue every single time. But since we never resolved it and never really addressed it in a healthy way, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and so did our emotions. Alright, some of you may really, that may really resonate with you. 

17:54 

Alright, here we go. Number 12: feels they are doing everybody a favor. So some passive-aggressive people see their behavior as a mature approach to conflict resolution. In their eyes, conflict is to be avoided at all costs and they are taking one for the team by avoiding it, even if their discontent emerges in other ways. So me in my first marriage, right? Like, I thought that conflict meant that we would get divorced and so we just didn't have the conflict. But what I didn't realize is that it was showing up in other ways. It was building resentment. And this will often show up with martyr behavior. So if you want to check out the martyr stuff, if this one rings true for you, podcast number 139 is called "Being a Martyr" and podcast number 140, the next week, is called "Still Being a Martyr." So I did the first podcast and then in the course of the week, I was like, "I still have a lot to say about this." So I came back and did "Still Being a Martyr." So if you want to check out those podcasts, number 139 and 140 about being a martyr, check those out. That's some good stuff. 

19:02 

Alright. Number 13: resents those who want to have a direct conversation. So a passive-aggressive person may resent those who want to have a direct conversation when they themselves are willing to let things go. They may have learned growing up that conflict is scary, unpredictable, or immature and that actions are meant to be swallowed. Okay. So they, in this one, they portray themselves as the mature one. "I'm more emotionally capable because I can let it go," when in reality, they're just avoiding having the discussions and they're building that resentment and that anger all the while. 

19:42 

Okay, number 14: sabotages others. So I've got a great example on this one. Here we go. Her definition says: "a passive aggressive person may act out by sabotaging a loved one by doing things like inviting a budget-conscious friend out for an expensive meal or planning an event at a time that is knowingly difficult for the other person." Okay, so this is one of my worst shining moments. So my birthday is the first week of February. Happy birthday to me soon. By the way, I'm going to be 55. And we in my previous marriage, we always celebrated our birthdays on the Sunday closest to it, which meant that my birthday celebration always fell on Super Bowl Sunday. Alright, so having an ex-husband and two boys who loved watching the Super Bowl, this was a perfect opportunity for me to become a martyr. And so in our family, we would always make our favorite meal. And of course I usually did that and dessert, but I decided this year, I mean, they were all watching the football, so I made my own favorite meal, but here's where I just get crazy, right? I was up there just like fuming the whole time that I was having to make my own birthday dinner, and they're all downstairs watching the Super Bowl, and I'm doing all the work, and then this is where the crazy, right? When she gives the example, she says, "they might invite a budget conscious friend out for an expensive meal or planning an event at a time that is knowingly difficult for the other person." I knew that they wanted to watch the Super Bowl, but I felt like it was in competition with me, and I felt like they were choosing the Super Bowl over me, which is ridiculous that I was going there, but I made the dinner and it was ready to eat in the middle of the Super Bowl. Of course it was. This was my passive-aggressive behavior coming out. Of course it was ready right in the middle of the Super Bowl, and then when nobody wanted to come up and eat my birthday dinner, I could become even a greater martyr, because are you kidding? Nobody wants to come eat my birthday dinner and celebrate my life with me? It was horrible, and I didn't even realize that that's what I was doing until years later when I started doing this work, and then I was like, "oh, yeah, that was pretty passive-aggressive." 

22:15 

So here we go, okay, number 15: Insists that others are simply misunderstanding them. So a passive-aggressive person may deflect possible direct conflict by insisting that the other person is simply misunderstanding their words and that that is their responsibility. Alright, so much blame, so little responsibility here. This is where, when we've talked about responsibility in the past, we have to start stepping into responsibility and stop blaming the other person. But this is a way that that passive-aggressiveness shows up. A lot of blame. 

22:52 

Okay. Number 16: distances from the person without saying why. A passive-aggressive person may decide to move away emotionally from a person without ever addressing the underlying reasons that led to their unhappiness. Their silence may baffle or hurt their friend. Attempts to directly repair the relationship may be met with deflection or denial that they are distancing at all. Alright. So I was chatting with a friend just the other night who said that in the first few years of her marriage, this was her go-to. Her poor husband had no idea what was happening and she just wouldn't talk to him. She would emotionally distance, and he had no idea what was going on. But luckily she figured it out and now they found a way to discuss things and to have those difficult conversations and things are a lot better for her, by the way. But distancing without saying why. 

23:50 

Number 17: talks to uninvolved parties about what's wrong. A passive-aggressive person may find comfort in addressing their concerns with a third party whom they can vent to as a means of letting off steam without ever having to address the issue directly. So who hasn't done this at some point? I see that the problem here isn't necessarily that they bounce their story off of someone else, but that they are doing it to complain and be a victim rather than wanting to find a solution. And I think there's a difference. I think we all need to kind of play around with what's going on in our heads sometimes, but what's the reason behind why we're talking to uninvolved parties? Is it so that they can validate our belief, so that we can feel like a victim or are we really looking for solutions and greater understanding? 

24:46 

And the last one, number 18: create an eggshell situation. A passive-aggressive person often makes others feel the need to walk on eggshells around them for fear of setting them off. This fear may be compounded by helplessness to get out of the cycle and resentment toward the passive-aggressive person who is unwilling to speak directly. Okay, I have been around people like this a lot my whole life and I don't, I've probably been this way too, although this hasn't been my big go-to. But when others are afraid to show up around us, it's time to check our passive-aggressive behaviors. If people are avoiding you, check it out, right? 

25:28 

Okay, it is always time to check our passive-aggressive behaviors. They come so naturally to so many of us that we really have to be on guard in order to start catching ourselves engaging in them. The amazing thing to me is that we are so afraid of conflict, of having direct conversation that we would rather do things that are really hurtful to people that we love. We don't intentionally see it that way, but passive-aggressive behaviors are really hurtful and harmful to our relationships, meaning they hurt them in the short term and they harm them in the long term. 

26:05 

Okay, so what did you see in yourself? I really would love for you to work to pay closer attention to how you're showing up, how you are responding to conflicts in your life. Alright, so when something feels tough, when you feel that tightness inside of you around a situation, watch yourself and just watch how you show up with fascination and curiosity, right? Not with a lot of judgment and hate. Right? But just watch yourself. See how you show up. Okay. I know that for me, texting has been a great place to create greater awareness around my passive-aggressive tendencies. I think, because it's a slower process than chatting, that I can catch it more frequently and that, um, and that is transferring over to my real time interactions as because I've been more aware I'll type something out and then I'll go, "Oh, that sounds a little bit passive-aggressive," and I'll go back and I'll change it. But catching it there in my texting has allowed me to start catching it in my real life a little bit more often. Also, when I find myself avoiding having an honest discussion, when I don't want to talk about what's going on, when I am hesitant...I don't have to look too far before I find a passive-aggressive behavior lurking in the shadows, just wanting to come out. If a discussion is difficult, more than likely my brain's looking for a work-around and it's looking for a passive-aggressive behavior. But I'm getting much better at calling myself out and then circling back around and apologizing and engaging in the honest conversation. 

27:43 

I'm not perfect at it. Probably never will be, but my awareness has gone way up and my engagement in these kinds of activities has gone way down and I'm super proud of myself for that. And listen, you've got this, my friend. You can start cleaning up your own passive-aggressive behaviors and watch your relationships start to do so much better. It's amazing 

how we subtly move into these behaviors and they're just destructive. They are not helping us to create the kind of intimate relationships that we want, whether it be with a partner, whether it be with your children, whether it be with friends, these things are keeping us from showing up honestly. So you've got this. Totally know you've got it. If you need some help, you can go to tanyahale.com. You can set up a free consult and we can talk about how to start cleaning all of this up once you notice it and how do you increase your awareness and that kind of stuff. That's going to do it. Thank you, at the end as I 

finish this, thank you for those of you who signed up for the Mastermind. I'm excited for those to start. Also thank you for those of you who are leaving me reviews. It means a lot to me to get a review, to be able to share that with other people and help other people find this content. Love being here with you. Thank you for joining me and I will talk to you next time. Have a great week. See ya. 

29:17 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tonyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!