Passive aggression, anyone?

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ok, if you don't BS around about your agression, then you are not passive agressive.

if you hide your agression, say, just 'forget' to pick up the groceries for your mom because she was so unfair to your sister the other day, that is hiding your agression to your mom and just using BS to pretend you 'forgot'.

so you are passive (i.e. don't blow up at her) agressive (get back at her by not being someone she can count on, but she can't BLAME you for it, cause you just 'forgot') in other words. . . a WEASLE!

Enough people have told me that I'm passive aggressive .

Passive aggressive people do things such as promise to meet you at a particular time and then either not show up or arrive really late or they promise to do something for year and then find endless excuses not to do it. By the time they get around to it, it's really too late.

I understand.

Passive-aggressiveness is an EXTREMELY cowardly approach to problem-solving.

It's certainly not an "aspie" trait - we have more innate integrity. I've had my emotional state completely trashed by passive-aggressive NTs for my entire life prior to my diagnosis, and I'm just beginning to pick up the pieces. My counselor is helping me work on the anger, and she tells me that passive-aggressive behaviour is largely sub-conscious and usually not intentionally malicious. But I've having a hard time buying that theory. To me, passive-aggressive is just a fancy term for chickenshit.

For me, one of the most frustrating aspects of our marriage has been the impossibility of discussion of any issue that may be at all emotive. Typically, problems would arise when I wanted to raise a point over something that Chris had done or not done.

The first time this happened was only three months after we had moved in together. Chris was supposed to pick me up in the afternoon from hospital after a minor operation for which I had had a general anaesthetic. He didn’t arrive. Not only was I upset, but I grew increasingly embarrassed, as the nurse kept returning to see if I had at last been picked up. Taking a taxi was not an alternative, because the hospital was insistent that I be accompanied on the journey home by a friend or relative.

Eventually I rang Chris at work, and to my astonishment he was still there long after I should have been collected. He had been unable to bring himself to explain to his manager that he would like to leave to pick me up, and had been hoping to slip out without being noticed. I was very upset and pretty angry. Surely I was more important than a temporary embarrasment. Chris arrived, and I hoped for an apology and some concern for how I felt physically and emotionally, but far from it. He seemed cross and I became more and more cross myself. We drove home in silence, and Chris remained silent even after we arrived home. I saw to the supper for all of us, which made me even more unhappy and resentful. (There is nothing like self-pity and a sense of injustice to bring out the worst in me!)

Finally, six hours later, after some more “probing” on my part, he said angrily that there was nothing he could say, and he was angry at himself for letting me down. But until then he had said nothing. His obvious regret was more than enough to make me feel better, and I was just sad that both of us had gone through six hours of misery. He has subsequently said that saying sorry in such a situation is hopelessly inadequate, when of course saying nothing is so much worse. And I know that, for me, a genuine “Sorry” and gesture of affection goes a very long way.

Chris seems to think that I resurrect this incident because I’m still angry about it, but he is very wrong. I look back at it and remember it as one of those times that he ultimately let me realise how much I matter to him.