To ask what's so wrong about being passive aggressive?

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I am genuinely interested to know; it seems to be the biggest crime possible on Mumsnet. I assume it's because people think honesty should trump everything else, and there is obviously truth in that. But, as any AIBU aficionado knows, there are so many shades of social nicety, and so many possible reasons for what we perceive to be bad behaviour, I can't see why the suggested first course of action is aggression (as opposed y

the messy nonmessy thing just sounds like different values and the adults playing games rather than discussing how they compromise like adults. If you can't compromise then you live separately or continue to try and get your own way and piss the other person off. If someone threw out my newspaper just because I hadn't tidied it away into the space THEY had decided it should live in I would leave rather than live with a control freak, it's my house too.
I agree that sulking is PA, especially if you don't tell the other person what your sulkiing about and make them play "guess why I'm moody today".
If you don't want to live with a sulker you leave them. Staying with them and expecting them to magically change is stupid.
You don't get a medal for staying with someone who pisses you off.

Agree 2rebecca.

The difficulty is deciding if it's their strategy for dealing with relationships or just a temporary reaction. This takes time to work out as the first year is usually a bit different to subsequent years when you've settled.

Usually people are on their best behaviour in the first year so if a bloke was sulky at the beginning of the relationship I wouldn't expect him to improve.
If he started to be sulky or nasty then why not confront it at the beginning and tell him it's unacceptable as he obviously can choose not to behave like that and is deliberately being an arse?
Ditto men in relationships with women with dysfunctional ways of managing conflict.

The classic assertive 'script' is,

'When you did x I felt y because... And what I would like is..,'

So you are NOT saying 'you made me feel', you are owning your own feelings and also making a clear request for change. It's surprisingly effective but can be hard to say if you're not used to communicating in this way.

hiawatha yes that's very passive aggressive.

Snide is just another word for 'sideways attack' ..ie passive aggressive.

I disagree, I don't think snideness is passive aggression, it's just snideness. You can't package up all unpleasant behaviours together and call them passive aggressive. I don't think sideways attacks are necessarily passive aggressive either.

My greatest fault is that I'm passive-aggressive - I absolutely despise it in myself and others.

There's no greater strength than being straightforward about your issues.

I agree with a lot of what you say, Rebecca2 except that passive 'aggression' is called that for a reason. It's still aggression but underhand & deniable if confronted so yes, snideness IMO.

2rebecca

I agree. From my experience of the sulker though, he was on "best"behaviour for the best part of 6 months . Then of course his behaviour slipped.
Personally speaking I always pointed out his sulking and avoidance of subjects when I felt it didn't help. And when that didn't work he became the ex. I don't tolerate PA behaviour of any kind (your replies seem to imply that I did).

Tutting at the person who queue jumps and complaining to a person nearby "no-one seems to have any manners nowadays" is classic passive aggressive.

The passive action is to do nothing (not a bad option)
The aggressive is to shout 'oi, d*ck-head get to the back!" (potentially a silly option)
The assertive to say "excuse me, we are in a queue and you have pushed in. Please go to the back" (acceptable but could invoke aggression)

The point is the passive aggressive achieves nothing and just makes you look like a cowardly, angry person and may still invoke aggression but some will think you deserved it.

revealall I think it was because you talked about the first year and then subsequent years which implied spending a lot of years with a badly behaved man.
Agree with Sacredheart's description of PA behaviour.

Yes to Sacred's explanation, and also people who shout "you're welcome" at the retreating back of someone who holds a door open for them and doesn't say thank you.

This once happened to me in John Lewis - I was pushing a buggy down the middle aisle and a group of 4 people wandered off down an aisle on the left, then came back out and shouted "you're welcome" at my retreating back.

I had no bloody idea they were moving out of my way - how on earth was I to know that they had wandered off down that aisle to get out of my way rather than to look at something --there was loads of bloody room for me to get round them anyway so it was totally unnecessary".

On that occasion I was crazily sleep deprived assertive and actually spun round and went over to them and explained that I had no idea that they were moving for my benefit, that if I had known I would have thanked them and that I didn't appreciate strangers shouting comments at me in department stores.

My exp's DM was a master manipulator, she had her DH and DS's jumping through hoops to avoid upsetting her as she would always cry. They decided to send the boys away to forces boarding school so she could follow her husband to his postings and they boys were too scared to day how much they hatrd it because she cried so much about sending them away everytime they came home, it was all about her. The worst example I saw though was at her stepfather's funeral. She was crying away and when exp tried to comfort her she said she wasnt crying because she was sad that he was dead, but because she didnt feel anything. So her three sons had to comfort her because she wasnt sad that their granddad was dead, and she made sure her mum knew as well! It was a massive headfuck and she still came out of it being comforted. That was one of the straws that broke the camels back for me, no way I would bring children into her clutches.

witch that sounds narc as much as anything. She sounds hard work to be related to

Cruikshank - those are some of the ways PA can manifest itself, yes, but the definition also includes sarcasm - I think that's what a lot of posters (correctly) label as PA behaviour on here.

PA is crap because in most conflict situations there is at least some chance of increased understanding and a positive mutually beneficial outcome. Conflict can bring huge potential for change and progress. PA behaviours shut that right down