Passive-Aggressive husband

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-06-2004
Passive-Aggressive husband
18
Thu, 07-14-2005 - 9:33am

I’m having major problems in my relationship with my husband of 1 and 1/2 years. I feel like I’m nearing the end of even wanting to deal with him anymore. He says he wants things to be better, too, and that he knows what he needs to do, but he simply won’t act.

He’s so freaking passive. He’s like a baby bird or a burn victim or something. The slightest negativity will just set him off, then he shuts down, acts wounded, blames me. We can't argue about anything. I can’t bring up any problems with him, because then he wonders why trying anything new will help. And he’s so afraid of being wrong that he becomes frozen and won’t try anything.

He avoids the responsibility of an decision then holds it against me if I don’t do what he wants (which he won’t voice anyway). He feels so inadequate, he is self-sabotaging. I can’t have any male friends anymore because he's so hyperaware that I may want them more than him. And that self-fulfilling prophecy may come true, because he witholds sex from me. He says it's just not that important to him, but it is to me!

I’m not sure I have the strength or willingness to nurse him through this. He’s like a ghost in his own life, always hoping to sneak by without notice. Yet he’s digging his own grave here, but everything is too much for him to deal with – things are too intimidating, too overwhelming, too much. I can’t ask him to do anything that requires speaking up.

This morning there was a utility truck blocking our driveway. They were replacing the fire hydrant in the front yard. I swear he would’ve waited hours for them to leave instead of simply asking them to let us out, so I had to go out there and talk to them.

He doesn’t want to see a therapist because he “already knows what they’re going to say.” I give him books to read and he stops halfway through. I state simply and clearly what I want and need and he just won’t comply! He says he’s got no complaints about me, so what’s the problem? How can I spell this out to him?

I don’t want a divorce. I want to work these problems out. But how can we if I’m the only one who admits there’s a problem?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 07-14-2005 - 10:56am

>>>I don’t want a divorce. I want to work these problems out. But how can we if I’m the only one who admits there’s a problem?<<<


And there in lies the rub.


If you are the only one who admits there is a problem and you are the only on willing to address those problems then "working" those problems out as they relate to you all as a couple is moot because that would require that both of you be willing participants in the process.



  • Did you notice this type of passive display prior to marrying him?
  • Who made the decision to get married?

Peace,

Di

***If you cannot define yourself, your circumstances will.***

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-06-2004
Thu, 07-14-2005 - 11:50am

"How does he relate to the rest of the world?"

He chooses not relate to the rest of the world for fear of being labeled stupid or wrong.

"Is he so easily intimidated by any confrontational situation?"

Yes.

"If they men in the front yard had not been there for official business but were some misguided kids blocking the driveway, would he have gone out and asked them to move or even questioned their reasons for being there or would he have tried to wait them out also to avoid confrontation?"

He would've waited them out to avoid confrontation.

"What is his relationship with his parents (or the people who assumed a parental role) like?"

His mom is very similar to him; his father was a powder keg of emotion who squelched any enthusiasm or happiness from his children's lives.

"Where they dominators?"

His father was the most dominating dominator who ever dominated. I have no illusions of my husband's past that would lead me to believe he could have ever behaved differently given the situation he grew up in. He kept his emotions in, he kept his opinions to himself, he wouldn't bring attention upon himself in order to fly under the radar of his father. And after 32 years of this, how can one begin to change?

He is going to counselling today. We are going to couple's counselling, but when we get home, the same old patterns arise.

"How is it that you were so remarkably mismatched with your husband?"

Because I think we fell for the other's facade - he was calm and rational, I was happy-go-lucky, we brought out the features we felt we lacked in ourselves.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 07-14-2005 - 12:13pm

And after 32 years of this, how can one begin to change?


This may seem like an over simplified answer but not meant to be cavalier at all.

Peace,

Di

***If you cannot define yourself, your circumstances will.***

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-06-2004
Thu, 07-14-2005 - 12:42pm

"Originally you said he refused to go to counseling so I am glad to hear that he is at least going. But it seems that he may be, again, going along with the program so to speak because it deflects any immediate pressure and confrontation from you."

Well, I didn't say he refused to go, he just doesn't want to go. But he does, and I do feel that he is going along with it to placate me.

I do go to individual therapy. I feel I've made inroads in my relationships with my parents, and now I'm setting my sights on my husband.

I've never bought into that whole "you complete me" co-dependent crap. But we did even each other out in the beginning, he brought me down to earth and I brought him some lightheartedness.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 07-14-2005 - 2:53pm

Well Magg,


It sounds like you have decided to give it a run and give him the opportunity to see the things that are adversely effecting your relationship and I commend you for that (not that you need me to co-sign on your efforts).


But go in knowing that in the event he is more comfortable with the status quo than he would be suffering through metamorphosis, you ultimately have a decision to make.

Peace,

Di

***If you cannot define yourself, your circumstances will.***

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Thu, 07-14-2005 - 7:58pm

I didn't realize my ex-h was passive-aggressive until we were already separated. "He avoids the responsibility of an decision then holds it against me if I don’t do what he wants (which he won’t voice anyway)." and "...he witholds sex from me. He says it's just not that important to him, but it is to me!" describes my relationship with my ex-h very well.

My ex-h would have been perfectly happy staying in our marriage and going on like we were forever. For me it became impossible to stay. He would sabotage our finances and then whine and pout if he wasn't getting an expensive birthday gift. He had a low sex drive, but when we were divorcing he admitted that he withheld sex from me as punishment for my working overtime. I knew the overtime bothered him, it bothered me too! Anytime I had offered to get a less demanding job, he would say no that he didn't want me to take a pay cut. He got 1% raises and refused to ask for more. After we separated he finally went in and said he couldn't live on what he was making, but then he talked them into giving him more responsibilities instead of a raise because "if his job was more rewarding it might make the money okay." He later accused me of 'forcing' him to buy our home, even though I know I did not do anything to make him decide on that. He just felt that becuase I wanted it he couldn't say no and therefore I made him agree to it.

The solution for me was divorce, but hopefully you can work on this relationship as a team and salvage it. My ex-h knew how I felt about sex and he didn't care, until I said I was leaving him. He was petrified to be financially responsible for himself. He would have done anything to make me stay, except that he was doing it out of desperation not love, and he never would grow up if he stayed with me and I never would have been happy either. Now at least he has a chance to grow up, time will tell if he will.

I am sure there are tactics to dealing with passive-aggresive people. I wish I had not always taken on responibilties that my ex didn't want. Like finances, I should have made him make major decisions with me vs. me always reacting to his whining and taking the burden when it wasn't all mine to bear. I hope the counseling helps you both. I still have to deal with my ex-h because of our dd, and I have received lots of help through my therapist. When we were married I would always fix his problems, and when we separated I switched to just offering lists of suggestions to help him fix his problems. With the guidance of my therapist, I learned how to not get involved in his problems and surprise, if I don't do it he does figure out a way to manage (even if that is getting his mom to give him money or driving with his muffler hanging off the back of the car for months, either way it doesn't involve me any longer).

One thing I do know is that if he doesn't want to participate in life, don't let him hold you back. If you need friends, activities and interests to stay happy then do those things. If he wants to act like a victim because you are living your life then let him act that way. He's doing it at least partially to get your attention and if that stops working then he might find some extra motivation to work on himself. You aren't ever going to get him to be the man he can be (only he can make that happen), so be the best person you can be and see if he follows suit.


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 07-15-2005 - 3:09am

You've got some great responses from Dirextor and Firstamendment, Maggberg, and I agree with everything they've said. I also think your husband has a whole lot more/bigger issues than being passive/aggressive.


It sounds like you're in an impossible situation, he won't make a decision or voice his opinion, but you "pay" when you choose wrong. Not a good place to be. You say you've given up your male friends because your husband's hyperaware of them. I'll remind you that no one can make you give up your friends -- or anything else, it's a choice you made. If you wanted to keep your friends (and you should have) standing your ground would have been appropriate. That being said, I'll tell you that in my previous marriage I also did a lot of things I knew I shouldn't do, gave up a lot of things I knew wasn't right to give up. I held my ground for a long while but ultimately gave in because giving them up was easier to deal with my husband's resulting reaction if I didn't. My husband had an ugly childhood too and was a verbally abusive alcoholic on top of it. Which issue caused the problems (emotional issues, alcoholism, verbal abuse) is anybody's guess. Like your husband mine also wouldn't make decisions, I made almost all decisions, both important and non-consequential. Like you, I paid when I made a "wrong" choice, and believe me, there was no right choice to make, my payment was in the form of verbal abuse. Interestingly, my ex's father was a raging, threatening man and his mother was a nervous, incapable woman who couldn't make a decision, and was afraid of her own shadow -- along with everything else you could name. Big surprise -- and a lot like your husband's parents, don't you think?


Now that you know I've been in the same type situations you are in and have made the same kind of choices you've made, I'll tell you that while what you're doing may be easier for you than dealing with the consequences and/or easier than waiting for him to make a move you know he's never going to make, those very actions you're making are enabling his behavior to continue. He doesn't have to change because you always do it for him if he waits long enough. He's never forced into actually having to do something, you make the choices and take the actions, and when you do, you enable him to stay just as he is. It also helps him not face the reality of the severity of his problem because the problems are always taken care of for him. Like an alcoholic who's wife drags his passed out body to bed, cleans up the vomit and/or the destruction he's caused enables him to deny the reality and severity of his problem because he never actually has to face the consequences of his actions since it's cleaned up/taken care of for him, you're enabling your husband to continue to avoid having to deal with the reality of his problem.


Big red flag that you're enabling here:"I’m not sure I have the strength or willingness to nurse him through this."You can't nurse him through this, you have no part in his struggle. You can be nothing but a bystander in his struggle, supporting him as he battles his demons, but taking no action yourself. This is his battle to fight, not yours. To think that you can help him through this is wrong, wrong, wrong. What I hear you say in his reluctance to see a therapist and his disinterest in the books you find for him is that he's not interested in changing how he is. Books would be helpful if he expressed a desire to read on his problem and see what changes he could make on his own, then he went to a bookstore, browsed through, finding the books that he he felt were right for him. It's his problem, he has to not only take an interest in changing, but he has to take the active role in doing something about it. Make sense?

He's also made his feelings quite clear here, ""

"He says he’s got no complaints about me, so what’s the problem? " If you had no complaints about how you were, how motivated would you be to make massive changes for someone else? I'd say not at all, and if you made an attempt it would almost certainly fail because the kinds of changes you're talking about take a lot of hard, hard work and dedication, the kind of dedication that only comes out of a deep desire to be someone other than who you are. I don't hear you saying he wants to change at all. You may be making yourself very clear by stating what you want and need, he doesn't seem too responsive. Fact is, he knows what you want and need and knows you're not getting it, but it doesn't make enough difference to him to motivate him to make the kind of changes that are necessary to meet your wants and needs.


My story gets a bit like Firstamendment's at this point. When I had gone through stating my dissatisfaction with the relationship to the point that I was no longer satisfied to stay in it, my husband suddenly would do anything to keep me from leaving. He would go to therapy. He would go to treatment. He would do anything, just "please don't leave". So I stayed. He went to treatment. We went to counseling. He went to therapy. And so on and so on. Whatever we tried, things got better for a little while during and after the process, but sooner rather than later it always slid right back to where it had always been. Know why? Motivation. He didn't want to stop drinking. He didn't want to face and resolve the demons of his childhood. He didn't want to change anything about himself, what he wanted was for me to stay. So, he went through whatever motions he had to go through to keep me there and then, because he really didn't want change and therefore he did no real work in any areas, he didn't really change. Much farther down the line than I should have, I finally realized I'd been beating my head on the same brick wall for so many years and that we'd made no progress. There were better times and worse times, a cycle, but it always cycled back to the same old same old. No change, just a repeat. At that point I had a second epiphany. For so many years I'd been focused on his childhood issues, trying so hard to help him find a better way, a better life, thinking I could show him a healthy, "normal" way of living his past issues would melt away (or something), he'd realize how it could be and he'd act like the man I knew he could be (after all, he showed me glimpses of this great guy on occasions). I finally realized that I couldn't fix his problem, I couldn't do one damn thing to make them an iota better. They weren't my problems. They were in existence long before I entered the scene, I hadn't caused them, hadn't been a part of them. In no way were they mine in any part. These were his issues to wrestle with, to deal with, not mine. How could I help with a problem that was solely his to work on? On that day I said to him, "I'm sorry you had such a lousy childhood, but it's not my fault and I'm not going to pay for it with the rest of my life." Bingo. And with that, my 2nd_life began. Seven years after our divorce he was exactly who he'd been when we were together, no changes whatsoever. He didn't want to change and he didn't. And thank God I'm out of that mess.


It's great that you're in therapy, it'll be very helpful to you, but I question what good marriage counseling will do; his issues are much, much deeper than marital issues. His marital issues are a direct result of his life issues. Until he works on himself I don't see where working on your marriage can be very effective. The issues that are problems are much deeper than compromise and communication, you know?


You may find that beyond telling him simply and clearly what you want and need, eventually you'll get to the point where you'll have to move a step up and tell him what you will do if your wants and needs aren't met. Then you'll likely have to take the actions you said would come next. I hope your husband becomes serious about wanting his life to be different, but that has to come from him, even being encouraged or coached to come to that decision by you won't help. It has to come solely from him and truly be his desire to change because with or without you, he wants his life to be different. And if he doesn't want change, I hope you don't stay in this as long as I did. You're living in hell.


Check with your therapist on the appropriateness of reading the book "The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships", by Harriet Goldhar Lerner. . Good luck to you.





~ cl-2nd_life

"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."

~ Author unknown

my signature exchange partner:

Understanding the Opposite Sex





Edited 7/15/2005 4:38 am ET ET by cl-2nd_life








"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-06-2004
Fri, 07-15-2005 - 9:11am

That was the first book my therapist recommended to me, then I read "When I Say No, I Feel Guilty," and that was really the book for me.

I have been doing a lot of work on myself, and for once, I'm seeing that life could be a whole lot better if I choose to make it so. And it frustrates me because I want my husband along for the ride, he is a cool person with other redeeming qualities.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-21-2003
Fri, 07-15-2005 - 10:47am

Your post reminds me of something an old friend once told me. "If you give someone a self-help book, it isn't self-help," she said. I went to http://www.coping.org and found out that my great desire to help others was actually a mechanism I was using to control others. That was my great epiphany.

Anyway I love to read your advice you are very insightful and kind.

Cheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 07-15-2005 - 11:38am

Did your therapist also recommend the book "I Feel Guilty When I Say No"?








"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"

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