I wonder if anybody can clarify for me whether or not my behaviour is passive aggressive. As a long term yoga practitioner, I've worked very hard on myself for the past thirty years, mind, body and soul. I have made a point of never raising my voice (never shouted at my kids who are now both adults and with whom I enjoy really good relationships). When things aren't going my way, I try to find happiness and joy in the small stuff (flowers, the colour of the sky, a song, etc) rather than get depressed. When faced with an argument that escalates to shouting and name calling, I will walk away, stating that I will only be willing to discuss matters if we are both calm and rational about it.
My marriage of nearly three years is falling apart as I write - there are many reasons for this (most of which you can read about in the threads I've started in the Sex section here on TAM).
Every time I've approached my H, saying I'm not happy and that I want us to talk about it and find ways of addressing the situation, the talk has degenerated into an argument in which he shouts, swears, calls me names, calls my family names and (on occasion) threatened to harm my family. The threats to harm were during one of the very first times I brought up the subject that our marriage was sexless and I wasn't happy with that situation - he threatened to slice up my sister and nephew's faces with a stanley knife. He was yelling and swearing at me and, rather than yell back to make myself heard, I just took it and waited for his rage to pass. Since then, I've learned that when he is in a rage of this type, there really is no getting through to him so I avoid him whenever he's angry in this way. I stay in another room, go out for a walk or (if I can't get away), just refrain from replying as I've never been sure what sort of reply will make his rage worse. After one of the arguments, I've been left depressed and withdrawn and I cannot just act like a normal loving wife for a while - he claims this is passive aggressive behaviour.
To be honest, I really don't like aggression, I've worked hard on myself to make sure I don't get aggressive when things aren't going my way. Responding to aggression with more aggression is, in my opinion, just going to make the situation worse, more dangerous and the original problem gets lost in the middle of the argument and no progress is ever made. During our marriage, I've become more and more reluctant to put it on the line and complain about anything due to the way in which we have to argue - I really don't believe we will sort out our differences unless we can both take a calm approach and decide on a way of making progress that we can collaborate on. I had always thought that this was a sensible, loving and adult approach, not a passive aggressive approach.
My H has recently told a load of our friends that my passive aggressive behaviour makes me difficult to live with and makes it difficult to sort out our problems.. However, from my point of view, when he's in a rage (even if it hasn't been set off by anything I've done - he gets into a rage quite often), I get frightened of him and it's got to a point that I cannot even stick up for myself out of fear - I'm under 5ft tall and weigh about 90 lbs - if the s**t hit the fan I would have to rely on outrunning him rather than fighting back.
Yesterday I went to a friend's house to help her carry some stuff home and to go up a ladder and do a few jobs that she's not strong enough to do herself. Afterwards, we sat on her balcony for an hour just chatting and having coffee. When I arrived home, my husband cited the fact that I hadn't just dropped her stuff and walked straight home as an example of passive aggressive behaviour. I really wasn't aware that it was. A few weeks ago he went down to a local cafe as a friend of ours was there and he wanted to discuss an upcoming job with him - he said he would be straight back. He arrived home 5 hours later and drunk - I didn't say anything about it (despite the fact that his dad had just arrived to stay with us and I was left to entertain him for five hours) - I just think, if he goes out, he's out and he doesn't have to answer to me on his whereabouts in minute detail. I'm not possessive, I'm easy going and I can understand that (despite his reassurance that he woul d be straight back) that he got talking, one beer led to another, etc - as long as he had a good time with his mate, that's fine by me. I didn't see his behaviour as passive aggressive - I saw it for what it was - he went out, got caught up in having a good time and conversation and came back when he was ready.
As our marriage is now ending, I'm really searching my soul to make sure I've done everything possible to try to work things out and his assurance that my passive aggressive behaviour is to blame for our marriage ending is causing me to question and doubt myself. Does anybody have any input on this please? I really thought that by insisting on calm discussions I was doing the fairest thing for both of us, but it seems that he doesn't see it that way. I'm hurting because my marriage is ending (despite the fact that it's me that's insisting on ending it as I cannot go on like this, I've been desperately unhappy for the past two years of a three year marriage) but I'm also tearing myself apart at the thought that it's my fault that things have gone so wrong.
My marriage of nearly three years is falling apart as I write - there are many reasons for this (most of which you can read about in the threads I've started in the Sex section here on TAM).
Every time I've approached my H, saying I'm not happy and that I want us to talk about it and find ways of addressing the situation, the talk has degenerated into an argument in which he shouts, swears, calls me names, calls my family names and (on occasion) threatened to harm my family. The threats to harm were during one of the very first times I brought up the subject that our marriage was sexless and I wasn't happy with that situation - he threatened to slice up my sister and nephew's faces with a stanley knife. He was yelling and swearing at me and, rather than yell back to make myself heard, I just took it and waited for his rage to pass. Since then, I've learned that when he is in a rage of this type, there really is no getting through to him so I avoid him whenever he's angry in this way. I stay in another room, go out for a walk or (if I can't get away), just refrain from replying as I've never been sure what sort of reply will make his rage worse. After one of the arguments, I've been left depressed and withdrawn and I cannot just act like a normal loving wife for a while - he claims this is passive aggressive behaviour.
To be honest, I really don't like aggression, I've worked hard on myself to make sure I don't get aggressive when things aren't going my way. Responding to aggression with more aggression is, in my opinion, just going to make the situation worse, more dangerous and the original problem gets lost in the middle of the argument and no progress is ever made. During our marriage, I've become more and more reluctant to put it on the line and complain about anything due to the way in which we have to argue - I really don't believe we will sort out our differences unless we can both take a calm approach and decide on a way of making progress that we can collaborate on. I had always thought that this was a sensible, loving and adult approach, not a passive aggressive approach.
My H has recently told a load of our friends that my passive aggressive behaviour makes me difficult to live with and makes it difficult to sort out our problems.. However, from my point of view, when he's in a rage (even if it hasn't been set off by anything I've done - he gets into a rage quite often), I get frightened of him and it's got to a point that I cannot even stick up for myself out of fear - I'm under 5ft tall and weigh about 90 lbs - if the s**t hit the fan I would have to rely on outrunning him rather than fighting back.
Yesterday I went to a friend's house to help her carry some stuff home and to go up a ladder and do a few jobs that she's not strong enough to do herself. Afterwards, we sat on her balcony for an hour just chatting and having coffee. When I arrived home, my husband cited the fact that I hadn't just dropped her stuff and walked straight home as an example of passive aggressive behaviour. I really wasn't aware that it was. A few weeks ago he went down to a local cafe as a friend of ours was there and he wanted to discuss an upcoming job with him - he said he would be straight back. He arrived home 5 hours later and drunk - I didn't say anything about it (despite the fact that his dad had just arrived to stay with us and I was left to entertain him for five hours) - I just think, if he goes out, he's out and he doesn't have to answer to me on his whereabouts in minute detail. I'm not possessive, I'm easy going and I can understand that (despite his reassurance that he woul d be straight back) that he got talking, one beer led to another, etc - as long as he had a good time with his mate, that's fine by me. I didn't see his behaviour as passive aggressive - I saw it for what it was - he went out, got caught up in having a good time and conversation and came back when he was ready.
As our marriage is now ending, I'm really searching my soul to make sure I've done everything possible to try to work things out and his assurance that my passive aggressive behaviour is to blame for our marriage ending is causing me to question and doubt myself. Does anybody have any input on this please? I really thought that by insisting on calm discussions I was doing the fairest thing for both of us, but it seems that he doesn't see it that way. I'm hurting because my marriage is ending (despite the fact that it's me that's insisting on ending it as I cannot go on like this, I've been desperately unhappy for the past two years of a three year marriage) but I'm also tearing myself apart at the thought that it's my fault that things have gone so wrong.
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