Aspie anger

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My husband is SO passive aggresive and on the spectrum. Does this seem to be a common theme among aspie men?

that sounds familiar to me, yes.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by passive-aggressive. My experience with myself in the past and other autistic people is that we don't always see why we should take part in a routine and not just say whatever we think with no filter because we're being "honest," even if what we think is factually incorrect or at least ambiguous, i.e. it's just our opinion.

pas·sive-ag·gres·sive
adjective
of or denoting a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials.

That's the dictionary definition, but I'm not sure what her husband does that fits the bill. Like, I'm not sure what her specific situation is.

I find aggressive-passive makes more sense in my case. When I get really angry I use up a lot of energy, and then afterwards I'm exhausted and don't do anything because I know what I think and feel makes not one danged bit of difference, anyway.

Both behaviours associated with executive functioning differences. They're only passive-aggressive if you're doing them on purpose (which I can't judge for the person in question). As for pouting; I'm more of a scowler myself!

so i'm wondering now if that means that p/a types tend to be more on the spectrum than outright aggressives?

I do both, though my active anger which manifests in yelling, sometimes at other people, including at times at my therapist and even my friends (sometimes yelling about something/someone else rather than at them) has definitely become less frequent since I started taking Ziprasidone about a year ago. But one of my 2 therapists told me I was acting passive aggressively just last week when I was shaking my head about something she was saying. I'm still early in learning CBT, which should help me to deal w/anger management and passive aggressive behavior. Some of you have mentioned executive functioning issues regarding certain behaviors, but this sort of behavior obviously also involves social and emotional differences between the ASD brain and NT's, at least in how we deal w/those sorts of differences in relating to the NT world. Though plenty of NT's exhibit anger management and passive aggressive behavior too obviously.

If you're the kind of person who finds other people's (or even your own) boundaries, social expectations, emotional state, etc. hard to judge, that would encourage avoidant behaviours, I would think. So I wouldn't be surprised if you were right. I can be equally avoidant at times of asking for help for myself, or even of passing good news onto someone I care about. Avoiding the interaction may not lead to the best outcome, but it's often a more predictable one, and it's always possible to imagine a worse one. Also, if you're a "masking" Aspie, you've had plenty of practice at concealing your true mental state, so bottling it all up and seething comes more naturally - but it's gotta go somewhere in the end if you don't deal with the real source of the problem.

My girlfriend tells me I'm passive-aggressive sometimes because when we're having an argument, I'm also taking things out on her that happened before & some of those were things I said I was OK with or fine with or forgave her for. I think what it is for me is that I hate being mad at her so I try & push it away but it all comes out at 1ce sometimes. Also some of those past times were times when I believed/thought I was OK but I was still upset & didn't realize it till me & Cass were in an argument.

No. My NT mother has it. She makes everyone pity her instead of arguing properly.

Aspies are more honestly aggressive.

But sometimes people think aspies are being passive aggressive because they're not acting NT enough so they're not smiling or being friendly and they need their own space.

I don't know which one I hate worst. Aggressive-aggressive is scary but at least if it's just verbal I can answer back to it whereas passive aggressive 'poor me' behaviour makes me feel like a bully if I answer it back.

The fact that several of us have openly admitted to P/A behaviour in the previous posts would seem to suggest that you may be generalising a little too far!

True maybe.

I'm thinking of stuff like meltdowns though. That's super (too) honest anger.

At least if someone's going on a rant you can rant back!

Which makes me wonder whether P/A behaviour correlates with those of us who shut-down rather than melt-down. Explosive melt-downs have always been very rare for me, whereas shutting-down, sometimes to the point of catatonia, is far more likely when I'm overwhelmed - whether by sensory stimuli or by powerful emotions. Even my melt-downs often involve running away to find a sanctuary rather than on-the-spot raging (when I return to my senses, I can be miles from where I started, and with no idea how I got there.)

Hmm interesting

Only shut down I had made people feel sorry for me and made me look totally disabled. I was moving house and I had had a full night's sleep but I felt absolutely out of it and was walking about like a zombie not taking anything in, sort of the way someone would after no sleep or when they had the flu.

I don't think that would come across as p/a, I think it would just come across as 'poor you'.

Passive aggressive aspie behaviour is often not intentional. Like sulking, wanting alone time, being blunt, using a monotone voice etc.