transformyself

I"m one of those codies that is NOT passive aggressive, but rather a screaming maniac when not in recover. So I attract PA guys. At least I attracted my AH -oh, sorry forgot I chased him down. There's my own denial again. Good old friend that she is.

I've let my boundaries slip with him again, my choice, and am re-establishing them. When I figured out AH was PA (before I found this site) it changed my life, because it identified the crazy making stuff and offered tons of tricks and ways of dealing with them.

That was SO instremental in helping me leave him. I found PAGES of instruction as to how to deal with PA men, how to help them understand their behavior and help them bla bla bla.

I"m in full blown angry mode again so all I want to do is help that guy kiss my angry butt.

Look at this
He may have multiple relationships with women as a way of keeping distant from one fully committed relationship. He is confused about which woman he wants and stays caught between the two women in his life not being able to commit fully to either. He is confused and can't understand why the women get so angry with him. He feels others demand too much of him so resists in overt and subtle ways and feels deprived if must give in to others. The man who copes with conflict by not being there has strong conflict over dependency. He desperately wants attention but fears being swallowed up by the partner. He can't be alone and live without a woman in his life, but can't be with partner emotionally. He's caught in a Catch 22--wanting affection but avoiding it because he fears it as his destruction. He resents feeling dependent on the woman so must keep her off guard. He makes his partner feel like a nothing through his neglect or irritability but he keeps her around because he needs her. His script is ‘Be here for me, but don't come too close and don't burden me with your needs or expectations.'
He has such strong fears of intimacy deep in his unconscious mind so he must set barriers up to prevent a deep emotional connection. He is clever at derailing intimacy when it comes up by tuning out his partner and changing the subject. He must withhold part of himself to feel safe and may withdraw sexually. Closeness and intimacy during sex may make him feel vulnerable and panicked bringing forth his deepest fears of dependency upon a woman. The passive aggressive man lives an internal loneliness; he wants to be with the woman but stays confused whether she is the right partner for him or not. He is scared and insecure causing him to seek contact with a partner but scared and insecure to fully commit.

Due to the wounding from childhood, he is unable to trust that he is safe within the relationship. He fears revealing himself and can't share feelings. His refusal to express feelings keeps him from experiencing his sense of insecurity and vulnerability. He often denies feelings like love that might trap him into true connection with another human being. He feels rejected and hurt when things don't go his way but can't distinguish between feeling rejected and being rejected. He pushes people away first so he won't be rejected. He is often irritable and uses low-level hostility to create distance at home. The relationship becomes based on keeping the partner at bay. He often sets up experiences to get others to reject or deprive him. He is noncommittal and retreats, feeling put upon and burdened by partner's requests for more closeness. He becomes a cave dweller to feel safe.

The man with passive aggressive actions is a master in getting his partner to doubt herself and feel guilty for questioning or confronting him. He encourages her to fall for his apologies, accept his excuses and focus on his charm rather than deal with the issue directly. He blames her for creating the problem and keeps her focused on her anger rather than his own ineptitude. When backed into a corner, he may explode and switch to aggressive aggressive behavior then switch back to passivity. He keeps his partner held hostage by the hope that he will change. He may appease her and clean up his act after a blow up for several weeks, then it's back to business as usual.


So I don't know about you but this makes me want to vomit. I don't want to figure him out, I don't want to take care of him, I don't want to work on these things, convince him of how happy we can be together--all of that is in the past.

I just want him to shut the hell up and go away. NC it is for me again, as much as I can with sharing one car and kid duty.

HealingWillCome

Can't help someone who doesn't want to face the issues, right? But you know this, and you're strong, and you're venting here instead of unleashing it on him...because you know better. That's your growth, and...good for you!

I'm sorry you have to share one car. Ugh. Keep up the NC. Keep taking care of yourself.

Thanks for sharing the PA info. It has a huge wow factor for me. Fits my XABF, but I had never thought of it as PA, just as his way of dealing with abandonment issues from childhood. It's all related, no doubt...thanks for the eye opener, Transform.

wicked

Yes, denial. Oh, we know each other so well. There are times that I actively have to push it back to get to reality.
With my last PA guy, I knew that if I figured it alllll out, everything would be fine. Well, the closer I got to the truth, the angrier he got.
He would ask for my "help" then resent every move I made in that direction as controlling.
I only have this self awareness now after spending years figuring out what my problem was.
The only person I can fix is myself. Yep.
denial still eddies around my ankles like a little creek, but unless i keep an eye on it, it can turn into a flash flood and I have lost all sight.

Beth

PieRat

So TM tell us how you really feel!

Good to vent here and put denial back where it belongs!!! In Egypt!

(crickets.....crickets......)

LOL

sandrawg

OMG, thanks so much for posting this!!! I never realized how PA my x is. I have checked off the various criteria:



Yup, yup, my x kept his ex in the background even tho I asked him to tell her to take a hike because she clearly wanted him back and violated our boundaries again and again. He ended up hooking up w/her right away after we broke up. Didn't get rid of her when we got back together until I pitched a screaming fit and ended up breaking a picture frame in anger. (and yes I am ashamed I acted like that)

Quote:

He is confused and can't understand why the women get so angry with him. He feels others demand too much of him so resists in overt and subtle ways and feels deprived if must give in to others.

yesyesyesy my x always seemed confused about why I was mad at him. I thought maybe he was dropped on his head as a baby. I mean, who WOULDN'T be mad when you had to just keep your bf out of jail by negotiating w/ a police officer because he was throwing chairs off tables at an outdoor patio of a restaurant on new yrs eve???

Quote:

The man who copes with conflict by not being there has strong conflict over dependency. He desperately wants attention but fears being swallowed up by the partner. He can't be alone and live without a woman in his life, but can't be with partner emotionally. He's caught in a Catch 22--wanting affection but avoiding it because he fears it as his destruction. He resents feeling dependent on the woman so must keep her off guard. He makes his partner feel like a nothing through his neglect or irritability but he keeps her around because he needs her. His script is ‘Be here for me, but don't come too close and don't burden me with your needs or expectations.'

Ah so that's why my x was always saying to me, when I was enforcing my boundaries, "I don't need another mother!"

Quote:

He has such strong fears of intimacy deep in his unconscious mind so he must set barriers up to prevent a deep emotional connection. He is clever at derailing intimacy when it comes up by tuning out his partner and changing the subject. He must withhold part of himself to feel safe and may withdraw sexually. Closeness and intimacy during sex may make him feel vulnerable and panicked bringing forth his deepest fears of dependency upon a woman. The passive aggressive man lives an internal loneliness; he wants to be with the woman but stays confused whether she is the right partner for him or not. He is scared and insecure causing him to seek contact with a partner but scared and insecure to fully commit.

My x's mother is/was overprotective. Now I'm starting to see where some of this came from.

Quote:

Due to the wounding from childhood, he is unable to trust that he is safe within the relationship. He fears revealing himself and can't share feelings. His refusal to express feelings keeps him from experiencing his sense of insecurity and vulnerability.

yup yup, after our breakup I found out he was harboring all these resentments against me for things I did that he didn't like. Did he ever TELL me he didnt' like these things? Of course not. If he had, I would've made efforts to change.

Quote:

He often denies feelings like love that might trap him into true connection with another human being. He feels rejected and hurt when things don't go his way but can't distinguish between feeling rejected and being rejected. He pushes people away first so he won't be rejected. He is often irritable and uses low-level hostility to create distance at home. The relationship becomes based on keeping the partner at bay. He often sets up experiences to get others to reject or deprive him. He is noncommittal and retreats, feeling put upon and burdened by partner's requests for more closeness. He becomes a cave dweller to feel safe.

Ah so this is why he was usually grumpy when he came home from work...

Quote:

The man with passive aggressive actions is a master in getting his partner to doubt herself and feel guilty for questioning or confronting him. He encourages her to fall for his apologies, accept his excuses and focus on his charm rather than deal with the issue directly. He blames her for creating the problem and keeps her focused on her anger rather than his own ineptitude. When backed into a corner, he may explode and switch to aggressive aggressive behavior then switch back to passivity. He keeps his partner held hostage by the hope that he will change. He may appease her and clean up his act after a blow up for several weeks, then it's back to business as usual.

BINGO!!! Nailed it. When I found out my x was talking to his ex behind my back, he tried to turn it around on me. You should see the IM conversation. It's ASTOUNDING. This happened quite a lot.

Yup, my x is textbook.

Thanks again for posting.


So I don't know about you but this makes me want to vomit. I don't want to figure him out, I don't want to take care of him, I don't want to work on these things, convince him of how happy we can be together--all of that is in the past.

I just want him to shut the hell up and go away. NC it is for me again, as much as I can with sharing one car and kid duty.[/QUOTE]

sandrawg

LOL! "Shut the hell up and go away!" AMEN. I think I even said that in one of my last emails to my x.

"I wish you would just shut up!"

I finally put an email filter on him and blocked my number.

Thumper

Makes me want to vomit for a different reason. My xah and I are both a little, or a lot, passive aggressive - in different ways. Just like we are both a little, or a lot, co-dependent yet the characteristics we have are different.

It seemed like an easy fit when we first met but oh my did we cause each other untold anguish in the end. Yet I can list the number of actual arguments we had in our 16 years together on one hand.

We are both a mess - but he's an alcoholic. That makes it impossible for him to see it, deal with it, or change it. There is no moving forward until he addresses the alcoholism but I can't ignore the misery I must have also caused him.

sandrawg

I had an insight-sometimes I became passive aggressive because i felt like he didn't listen to me.

So many times, I raised concerns about his drinking only to get the "yes dear" glazed eyes, then same old, same old. Going to the bar every night.

When you don't feel listened to, or valued, or that your boundaries matter, you can easily start internalizing the anger and frustration that comes with that, because hey, he doesn't care if you're angry or frustrated, does he?

Then the anger comes out in passive aggressive ways. "Well, if he won't give me what I want, then why should he get what HE wants....if he doesn't care about MY boundaries, why should I care about his?" etc.

Before you know it, you're both caught up in this cycle of pain and frustration. Really, the answer, I think, is to GET OUT. If someone is that disrespectful to your boundaries and not listening to you or paying any attention to your needs and wants, GET OUT. It's that simple. ( I am sure I will probably get an argument on that one. "What about people with kids, or no money to get out" etc. Well, kids don't need to be around that type of relationship, for many reasons. There are always solutions to getting out.)

Thumper

Yes it is. Finally I saw that.

Reminds me of this quote:

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

Dr. Seuss

Me loves some Dr. Seuss. I'm off to change my siggy

transformyself

This is what's got me furious right now. Yet, I know and see that I'm responsible for allowing these things to go on.

The thing is, in our relationship, I act out the angry aspect. It's easy for him. This stuff doesn't occur in a vacuum, he needs someone to be angry for him so we can keep the focus on ME and how angry I am. I'm disgusted with him and myself for letting it get this way again. When I'm taking care of myself I don't slip into this role and he's left with himself.

LaTeeDa

I mentioned before that I have been doing shadow work. While I don't totally believe in the maxim "if you spot it, you got it," I do believe there is some truth to the idea that the things that make us most furious in others are sometimes denied aspects of ourselves.

And, I'm here to tell you that is some really uncomfortable stuff to deal with. I was reading last night about how the shadow sometimes plays out in relationships. For example, the partner who is uncomfortable showing anger will provoke anger in the other partner in order to have an outlet for their own unexpressed and denied anger. Then, quite often, they will shame and ridicule the angry person as a means of denying that aspect of themselves. It's really fascinating, and did I mention uncomfortable?

After reading that, I noticed that I sometimes get annoyed at the current guy in my life because he can be so pessimistic and I prefer to look on the bright side. But, I now realize that the naysayer part of me wants to be heard and I stuff it down with my 'positive outlook.' So, his pessimism is irritating to me because it's a part of me I don't want to acknowledge............

Not quite sure why this thread triggered me to write all that, lol. But, I do know that often when something is causing me anxiety, it's not really about what it appears to be.

L

transformyself

Yep, my job now is to work to alleviate this level of anger (my default mode if I'm not taking care of myself) and sort out why this makes me so angry. So I can fix it. Because to me the final end goal is to not have to remove myself from a situation I find unbearable, but learn how to make it bearable and remove its power. Then my issues will no longer run my life, limiting me.

I know that prior to AH affair, I was leaving him because of this very behavior. Oughta there. It's a real number to do to someone else, especially the part where he would not only deflect my expressions of what my needs where (ie: please stop getting so drunk around the kids, why do you pay more attention to other women than to me? etc) but derailing intimacy, low level aggression and hostility.

After the affair, my mode of survival switched to being terrified he would go back to her. Thank goodness that is slowly being removed also. Go back, I say. Go the hell back to her and torture someone else.

I am today less of a "fighter" than I've ever been, but because I suffer from PTSD, I have a very strong fight or flight mechanism. So his PA behavior fed right into that. Example: one of the things I've learned that I do because of the PTSD is constantly "scan" for danger. Scan a room when I enter it (seriously, and plan out an exit map almost instantly in new environments that was one terrifying moment when my therapist asked me if I do that and I realized the answer is yes) scan a relationship for potential threats, etc. I have visions that are as vivid as this room I"m sitting in of my children being run over by cars while on thier bikes, or choking on food and dying at the kitchen table. Think Vietnam Vet hearing a car backfire and hitting the pavement, taking everyone down with them.

So, AH's subtle PA behavior was instantly picked up by my radar. I had a, "what the hell do you mean by that?" or "oh you want to fight do you?" attitude, challenging his every PA move, which fed beautifully the whole dynamic. He could sit back and say, "I"m really tired of you being angry, can't you control that?" or "Well, look whose angry again."

Now that I am getting treatment for and understanding my PTSD better, this dynamic makes me sick and oh, guess what? Furious.

But the only way out, which I have done so many times before, is NC until I am healthy again. fix myself, fix myself, fix myself.

transformyself

PieRat
Denial belongs in Egypt?

wicked

De Nile is a river in Egypt.

an AA saying. from the rooms.

beth

tjp613

DH and I have been married 9 years ...and for 9 years it's been a struggle with intimacy, isolation, sweeping problems under the rug, .... oh, I can't even type it all out right now. That article has got me shook up bad. And yes, I just want to vomit now.

I have been tossing around the idea of leaving for about a year. I've come very close a couple of times but he promises to change...then never does. I'm still on the fence, but because he is otherwise a "good man" (doesn't drink or abuse me in any way) I felt like I "should" stay.... I made a vow and all that. So I've just been patient with the situation, thinking the answer will come, the answer will come.

Then I read this:

I really want to get out.

He's been holed up in his study for 4 days. He's not talking to me for some reason. I have no idea why, really. That's just the way he deals with things (or NOT)....and I swear I can't take it anymore.

I don't want to go back to the days of poor single motherhood (I have a teenager at home), but there's no hope this will ever be fixed.

I really want out.

I think I've decided.

MusicIslove82

TRANS!!

THANK YOU FOR THE POST!!! That perfectly describes the man I have been "involved" with. He's decided he wants to "get to know" this other woman now.(He nows lives next door to her,nice right?) Only months ago he was head over heels in love with me,and,like the post,I suppose I got TOO CLOSE. Oh,and plus he lived in a crap-hole appartment. Now I guess he figures he has his dream house,and wants this "dream" girl.

He has not called,nor messaged me in weeks. I just now messaged him and DEMANDED my stuff back. I'm sick of him. He plays mister nice guy to her,but would turn around and belittle me,or blame my health problems on why he cant be with me. I'm sure if she falls for his crap,she will eventually tire of him. Or she will turn him down,and he'll come running back.

If he does,I have a nice size 8 boot for his a$$

transformyself

I'm right there with you tjp, only we're already seperated. I agreed to try to reconcile about a month ago, and things really went well until I needed him. Needed him to do something he didn't want to do.

Suddenly he retreated and started doing crazy ****. Like, we have one car right now and I would offer to let him have it for work, he would say "no thanks I'll figure it out myself. Then tuck it away for later, to accuse me of "having the car all of the time."

Also accusing me of not "having his back" which in A PA speak means I didn't read his mind.

Instead of beating myself up right now, I'm feeling the same way you are-recognizing the pattern. Being honest with myself.

Another great resource is here
Get Your ANGRIES Out
but the list of how to deal with these guys, after telling us
is exhausting just reading it. They may SAY you're not his therapist, but just sorting out wtf is going on with these people and how to best deal with it is way more work than I'm willing to do. I mean, look at this
and this literally is about one tenth of the list.

SCREW THIS. This isn't a relationship, it's a nightmare.

I've gone NC and announced it loud and clear. Told him, "don't try anything until you've had a year of intensive therapy and sobriety."

LaTeeDa

Yikes! I guess you would have to really, really want to be with someone to do all that. I haven't found anyone yet I need so badly in my life that I would go through all that crap. I'm guessing this 'list' is not intended for dealing with alcoholics.

L

transformyself

Not specifically, but I think a ton of A's are also passive aggressive. Maybe there's some brain changing transformation that creates these dynamics.

Whatever the cause, I've got the cure--NC

LaTeeDa

Yeah, and selfish and immature and irresponsible and controlling and the list goes on. But none of those things can be dealt with while the addiction is active. It's like taking cough syrup when you have a bacterial infection. You can temporarily help the cough, but until you cure the underlying cause, it won't go away.

L