Dealing with Passive-Aggressive behavior in the aftermath of affair or at anytime is unpleasant. Passive-aggressive behaviors frequently leave you off-balance since the person being passive aggressive goes from one behavior extreme to the other.
They act like they’re being compliant, when they’re taking digs at you. It is as if they feign cooperation, yet everything that they do contains a ‘poison pill’.
Many of these actions are ways of avoiding dealing with the issues directly. There are many reasons why they don’t address issues with you in a direct, straight forward manner.
In some cases, they’ve developed a style of avoiding conflicts or confrontations. If you have been married less than five years, they probably brought it into the marriage. If you have been married five or more years, there’s something in the way you and your spouse interact that contributes to the passive-aggressive exchange.
Besides being a pattern of going from one extreme to the other, ‘Passive-Aggressive’ behavior also includes taking subtle digs. There are many double-messages, and hidden aggression.
They act compliant, yet find a way of striking back in a manner they can excuse as ‘accidental’ or an oversight. The aggressive gesture may be subtle or downright mean.
These may be anything from ‘slips of the tongue’ to ‘joking’ about you. When the slips and jokes start taking place, rather than defend yourself or attack back, you want to wake up to what is actually taking place. Something is wrong and needs your attention. sparing with them only tends to make matters worse.
They may also be passive with their outward behavior in order to ease their conscience, yet inwardly have anger and rage. This is similar to a child who may be sitting in the corner on the outside, yet is standing on the inside.
Just because the cheater outwardly complies with your wishes, it doesn’t mean that their heart is with you. Having the split between the inner and outer compliance often creates conditions ripe for passive-aggressive behavior to flourish.
This is why I frequently emphasize the need to the cheater to make changes in behavior and thinking. When you look at only one of these, you’re vulnerable to being played with their passive-aggressive behaviors.
For more on ways of dealing with relationship games, you’ll want the Affair Recovery Workshop, which includes ways of identifying and removing the communication games.
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
This behavior was hard to identify . It is true that with a compliant, forgiving and ongoing attempt of the unaware spouse to act according to biblical standards believed to be necessity in marriage, give and take, compassion, and little awareness of this kind of characteristic in the spouse it takes a lot to realize this .
In the case of our relationship, I began to notice the tactic of fleeing when any kind of discussion was broached that most relationships might need to grow and become a unit.
I had no knowledge of such things as red flags concerning infidelity or any kind of personality disorder nor did I look for them because I had trusted the person that I married to be healthy in every way …He was young, sincere, well educated, well ‘socialized’ and involved in fellowship and growing in most every way I knew of .
As time went by there were issues that would come up in any marriage yet still I did not have any expectation of him becoming less open and less honest. It seems that those who marry someone who does this kind of thing may not be aware of such behavior because they are not looking for it.
It was after the D DAY that I began to read about the signs of infidelity and was saddened to realize there had been many! My husband is such a nice guy ,treated everyone with such integrity that looking back the very seldom red flags of odd behaviors out of character for what I thought was the man I married were difficult to recognize as signs of a much larger deceit.
This is a very sad and difficult reality to come to realize. Now he is a shadow of the person I knew .Since the discovery he has become less and less energetic….less hopeful …this was once a very optimistic and dynamically positive man …now he is as he said ‘dead inside’ .
Zaza,
Although the signs are often there, you want to think and hope for the best. It is common to make excuses and dismiss many of the signs of an affair, since you do not want to even consider that option. All of these things are parts of the denial process. That denial process often means that you will probably be sucked into passive-aggresssive patterns before you are even aware of them. Getting sucked in does not mean that one is not smart. Since they are using emotional ‘games’, most people get sucked into them.