How Can A Wife Become The Victim Of Her Husband’s Passive Aggression?
How Many Ways Can Your Passive Aggressive Husband Show His Need For You?
A most frustrating aspect in living with a passive aggressive man is that he doesn’t follow through on his agreements and promises. He has difficulty finishing big projects he gets engaged in, and later he doesn’t let others help tackling them. He is constantly ignoring what he needs to do, and frustrates his wife.
Does He Ever See Her Frustration?
Not any longer. He needs to ignore the evidence she presents, while distorts and lies to make his version of reality seem logical. Now, the question is…why is he doing all this theatre? What for is he dedicated to confuse the wife? to frustrate her needs and expectations??
We all have human needs; basically here we look at both people’s needs for love and connection…At the least, you need to engage in some kind of relationship with others. There is his duality, searching for love and connection while being hostile to his relationships.
As he developed a toxic image of what a relationship is, he is now trying to duplicate the kind of relationship he learned being a child, this time with another grown up, with himself playing the controlling role. Why is he picking a woman willing to receive his angry words…
He then needs to frustrate her a little bit every day, building up in her a pattern of frustration so high that she gets to express the anger that he has been repressing all his life.
She Needs To Feel Needed!
She grew up in a home where she was relegated and not appreciated…always in a little corner. When she wanted to be seen, someone stole the focus off her. She has been dreaming of finding someone who would change under the love shower she can send him.
Sending two contradictory messages of attraction and rejection is the mark of this relationship. When she receives little bones of appreciation, she tends to confirm again that he is a prisoner of his shield but able and willing to come out and play with her She keeps dreaming that with enough love and patience he will change and be loving to her
Even when he sets up experiences to get her to reject or deprive him, (so then he can blame her for his dissatisfaction), she prefers to play along. She needs to be happy with herself first, and then she will not fear to be alone. Her choice is to keep waiting on him. He is incapable of sharing intimacy with her.
Accepting this fact can take her from feeling lonely and depressed in this marriage, to angry at him. The more he feels threatened and insecure and withdraws, the more she gets angry. He doesn’t know how to answer to her anger, so he goes silent and withdraws and all gets worse. It’s a seesaw of search for connection and withdrawal.
Why Is This Seesaw Between Anger And Depression Functional To Her?
How much does she need to be with someone who will frustrate her??
Is she inviting people to entice and reject her, as it happened to her in her past?
Is permanent frustration of her emotional needs her childhood script, needing someone like her husband to frustrate her here and now?
In repetitive scenes from this script, you can see her self-esteem reduced to zero as her frustration and anger turn to rage when she feels again unable to attract a direct commitment from a loving man. She can break the linkage between her past story and her present abusive relationships. Perhaps raising her self-esteem would stop this cycle and make her less needy and more worthy of respect and appreciation by any partner.
Nora Femenia, Ph.D. is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. She has written postings about happy, healthy marriages and how to enhance marital happiness. Her innovative and compassionate conflict solutions are offered as ebooks, articles and life-changing coaching sessions, from her blog: http://www.creativeconflicts.com
