I'm currently the world's most critical bitch of a daughter, because I finally got up the courage and said loudly and clearly to my mother "stop being passive-aggressive and having snide little digs at people through a veneer of politeness, while enlisting a third party to agree with how reasonable and put-upon you are. If you have a problem with someone, have the maturity to sort it out like an adult, privately, and don't enlist other people."
She's been doing the three-way playoff all my life, usually ganging up with my sister against me or my Dad, or trying to enlist some poor unsuspecting person in a social situation, where she has a perfectly polite conversation with the 3rd party about how (my or my Dad's) personal deficiencies have really let her down, oh ha ha, isn't it hilarious that (me or my Dad) thinks such behaviour could possibly be acceptable, ooh, isn't it embarrassing when her husband/ daughter behaves like a child. Oooh ha ha, what a cross face, isn't he/she a charmer.
My sister always joins in enthusiastically; I used to join in too, up to about age 12, and then began to hate her for it, and for encouraging my sister to do it. Most of the 3rd parties are horrified by it, though some do join in.
Meanwhile my dad will be sitting there looking cross, with steam coming out his ears, because his response to any criticism has always been to snarl and swear under his breath for a few minutes, and then do nothing. I used to be the same. Now I sit there looking into the distance, smiling, and thinking happy thoughts to block out the "you're so immature I could cheerfully never see you again" thoughts.
I can see that my mother can't see any way of dealing with conflict between the two extremes of smiling polite passive-aggressive seething bitchiness, or outright yelling and screaming. I've tried to tell her all about the middle ground of sorting things out maturely, but she took that as a cue to enlist others to bitch about how I'm so nasty and so superior that I criticise her.
ARGGH.
/rant