There was a great line in Nora Ephron’s book Heartburn. The husband, a thinly-veiled fictionalized Carl Bernstein played beautifully by Jack Nicholson in the film, examines the toast on his plate and says, “Gee, do you think butter would go good on this toast?”
The subtext is, wifey, do your job and don’t serve unbuttered toast!
If you’re wondering, outside of this Heartburn example, what exactly is “passive-aggressive behavior?” It’s a term that is used loosely and often misused. According to the Mayo Clinic:
Passive-aggressive behavior is a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them. There’s a disconnect between what a passive-aggressive person says and what he or she does.
For example, a passive-aggressive person might appear to agree — perhaps even enthusiastically — with another person’s request. Rather than complying with the request, however, he or she might express anger or resentment by failing to follow through or missing deadlines.
When you take vows with someone, he is supposed to feel like an equal partner. But when someone intentionally expresses hostility in a way that is designed to hurt and confuse the target (you), the power balance starts to shift.
If your marriage feels like a toxic environment because your partner is expressing negativity indirectly, it’s time to face the situation.
These are five signs you are the victim of passive-aggressive behavior at home and three suggestions of what to do about that.
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You feel depressed
Passive aggression is a form of abuse. And when it continues for months, years, even decades, there is a heavy cumulative effect on your psyche.
When you’re married to a man with passive-aggressive behavior you feel like you’re always doing something wrong. You find yourself, especially in your husband’s company, shrinking back, retreating inward. The negativity you are receiving from him is sinking in and affecting your mental state.
You look at photo albums and you miss your old self
Do you look at old photos of yourself and wince audibly, wondering where that woman has gone?
No, I’m not talking about your waistline, your flawless complexion, or your asymmetric hairstyle. I mean your mojo — your joie de vivre.
Has something inside you died in this marriage? Because these are not healthy things. Yes, marriages involve compromise, but when your passion, ambition, and self-confidence are all compromised, it’s time you take the temperature of your marriage. It may have a malignant virus.
You feel about as sexy as the lunch lady at your kids’ school with the tent dress and hairnet
“It’s hard to experience desire when you’re weighted down by concern.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic
Feeling sexy is all about feeling alive in your own skin. It’s about feeling self-confident, desirable, wanted.
Conversely, if there’s a power imbalance and a lot of negativity in your relationship, it’s not a sexy vibe. Not only are you weighted down by concern but you’re so out of touch with flirting and feeling desired that you can feel your libido leaving the building along with your self-esteem.
Additionally, when you’re in a passive-aggressive relationship, your husband may compliment you but the compliments are backhanded.
I remember once shopping with my husband in my favorite store during the holidays. I was trying on a sweater I liked and I thought I looked pretty good. When I came out to show my husband, he had an odd look on his face — hard to read. He said the sweater looked great. And then the zinger — “it covers up all the areas you want to cover up!”
I folded up the sweater and put it back on the shelf. It remains, in my recollection, one of the shittiest things anyone has ever said to me.
You forgot about yourself
Because of the oppressive environment of your marriage, you expend more energy on him than you do on yourself. And if you’re a parent, it’s quite possible any leftover energy is spent on your kids. It may be easier to focus on the positive things in your life while you subconsciously look away from the roots of discomfort and tension growing underneath your feet at home.
Whatever happened to those classes you were going to take, that business you were going to start, that career passion you were going to reignite? Have you put yourself on the back burner for so long you forgot you were even simmering?
You’re walking on eggshells
Did you forget to do something he asked you to do? How can you talk about/avoid talking about that work project he gets so triggered about?
Do you worry about how he is going to feel about something even before you consider how you even feel about it? Do you feel like he’s got a mental scorecard that he started checking off a decade ago?
As for me, my ex hated his family. Every Thanksgiving when our families were coming over he would be completely unavailable to help in any way, shape, or form. If I dared to ask him to do something, he did it begrudgingly, slamming stuff around, doing a crappy job to ensure that next time I would not bother even asking.
All of these situations consume your energy. They are mentally and physically draining. If any or all of these things apply to you, there’s a good chance you’re feeling lost.
So, is it time to wash that man right out of your hair?
I am not trying to sound trite here. I have been through this. It is a painful and traumatic time. Many people stay frozen in inaction. I know I was stuck in that place for a long time. Big life changes are scary. Few of us are immune to the “status quo bias.”
We, as humans, prefer the way things are over the frightening unknown. This bias means that any big life decision you have coming up may well be colored by your preference towards the familiar and the safe.
So when you consult your gut about whether to seek a divorce, the answer you receive will be biased toward inertia.
How can you shake yourself out of this crippling inertia?
Do some visualization
I remember daydreaming as I drove our Honda Pilot around Los Angeles in between dropping kids off at school, shopping at Pavillions, and picking kids up from playdates. It was a time of quiet reflection for me.
I knew that somewhere off in the not-too-distant future the kids would go off on their independent adventure, leaving my husband and me alone together. What would be left, I wondered? Though I hadn’t consciously come to the realization that we needed to break up, it was near impossible for me to imagine a future with him.
We were like a Jenga tower. If you took the kids out, we would collapse in a heap of splintered wood.
Can you identify when you started feeling lost? Can you see yourself growing old with this man with a smile on your face? Is there a scenario where you get your groove back with him, or do you picture getting your groove back on your own? This is information you need to take note of.
Hold him accountable for his behavior
When dealing with a passive-aggressive person, hold him accountable for his bad behavior. You should not be apologizing when you have done nothing wrong. You need to start putting your own needs first. Bring up specific instances that upset you, or act in the moment when you feel he is being hostile and express your feelings.
Couples therapy
Yes, this is usually the death knell of any relationship. The beginning of the end. But it can be an excellent tool for these reasons:
Meeting in a neutral space takes you out of the charged atmosphere of your home. Get out of that space where nothing is working and into a space where you will have forward motion of one kind or another.
A neutral third party (the therapist) can help give you the courage to have the difficult, painful conversations that need to happen.
His behavior is now out of the closet. If there is passive aggression, or more overt emotional abuse happening at home, you now have an arena where he either puts on a different personality or he behaves badly in front of the therapist. It will help you identify his behavior as toxic if you now have a witness.
Most people who resort to passive-aggressive behavior are masking a deep unhappiness or sadness. But remember that couples therapy should not be all about him, it needs to be focused on the two of you. If he is bogarting the sessions, suggest he get a therapist of his own and insist that he respect that this space and this time is meant to be couples therapy.
If ending the marriage is something you’re considering and you have no idea how to initiate this, doing it with the therapist present can provide you with the support you need.
At the end of the day, the foundation of any good relationship starts with good, open communication. If you’re unhappy living with someone who you feel is unwilling or unable to learn how to communicate in a direct, respectful way, consider getting out before you invest any more time in a toxic marriage.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com
