What does ‘being petty’ actually achieve?

[PeriJane]

I’ll preface this by disclosing that I’m diagnosed autistic so there’s perhaps a reason why I struggle to understand this behaviour.

What does being petty about something actually achieve? I see people on threads saying ‘I’d do something petty back” etc etc and I get a bit confused because it’s written as if it’s something funny or not a big deal to do, but to me it indicates something lacking in that person. I don’t see pettiness as a mature, intelligent thing to do and I really don’t see how it can lead to anything positive.

What is the general consensus about ‘pettiness’?

Well it might make the other person feel better? For example I had an argument with my husband yesterday, I don’t want to apologise as I don’t feel I should, but to attempt to get things civil again I purchased him a slice of lemon drizzle cake from the cafe this morning. I pointed out the box to him and he said, very sarcastically, ‘is it poisoned’ instead of the more socially acceptable ‘thank you’

so I chucked it to the pigeons out the window.

yes it was petty, and I now wish I’d saved it to eat myself with a cup of tea. But in the moment it was satisfying.

A shit load of satisfaction

Pettiness suggests a lack of emotional maturity and often lowers the person to the level of the person they’re retaliating against. It achieves nothing except a perpetual cycle

Behaviour is a communication tool.

Being petty is usually in response to something that has upset a person but that they often feel powerless to address.
So they will do small things, the petty things, to communication they are upset or to readdress the power balance.
IME......

What a miserable marriage

I don’t get pettiness either.

Sometimes it’s just giving others the reality check they so desperately need :)

I can be petty from time to time.

If someone is a dick to me then I can be a dick back. Nothing more sinister or deep than that.

Not every action has to be a personal achievement or be mature.

I agree with this. As an example, we've been put a set break-time at work. Previously we could go any time after 1am (nightshift). Completely within the rights of management to do so. Because it's night, it means the team are all in the work dining room at the same time. I really hate it, so I now eat lunch either in my car, or sitting on the wall in the carpark if my friend is on the same shift. A couple of others have followed suit. My manager hates it, as he can't listen to our conversations (he's very paranoid) which was his main reason for wanting us all on a scheduled break together. I always used to do the dishwasher and clean up, so manager has to do it now as the others won't 😅

This is spiteful, not just petty. Something similar happened to be in the context of an abusive family relationship and I have never forgotten about it. Just awful.

It’s satisfying at the time and also a way of making me feel a little bit more like I have a voice and an opinion I suppose which I can’t always express in normal ways.

sometimes it’s funny, ds (adult) are petty to each other and as we both have the same sense of humour (both of us are ND) we end up laughing at our sheer pettiness.

im also petty in ways that gives me satisfaction internally but the other person doesn’t realise.

I’ve no doubt other people have been petty to me. I don’t really care tbh.

Satisfaction. My neighbour refused to stop her kids kicking the walls at 2 in the morning. So I posted glitter through her door followed up with a burst of compressed air for maximum dispersal.

I smile every time I hear the hoover come on.

What a miserable waste of a lemon slice, more like🤣

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

How so? It was my lemon slice to do what I wanted with, which was to give it to him in the first instance, but he was surly and ungrateful. What is ‘abuse’ about it? Or do you mean abusive on his side?

yes it is a bit of a ‘miserable marriage’ at the moment, I agree.

There is a much wider context than what I’ve shared here, obviously, and believe me if I did there’d be less sympathy for him and the defenestration of baked goods.

I guess we have different standards for non-abusive, emotionally healthy behaviour. Purposefully ruining something nice out of spite is thoroughly unpleasant. Like I say, I was subjected to this kind of behaviour and it has stuck with me. I’m sorry you’re experiencing problems in your marriage that is leading you both to behave unkindly to one another. You only have one life - you don’t have to live like this.

Is it big or clever? No
Does it make me happy? yes

I think of it - in some cases - as being necessary. A bit like the pedants corner thread. You are fighting to retain something that in another person's world is irrelevant. Maybe if you are petty you are doing good, maintaining our language is one and maintaining standards in other areas too; customer service say (my hobby horse). Does that make any sense?

I'm also diagnosed autistic and understand the satisfaction of being petty. The only reason I'm not petty is I can't be bothered, but I totally get it.

I also worked with autistic adults in the past and they were often the kings and queens of petty lol.

Yes.

Was asking if it was poisoned emotionally healthy behaviour? Was reacting like that to an attempt a peacemaking by the offer of cake not ruining something nice out of spite?

Why does the husband get to be petty and spiteful but @FanofLeavesreacting is the one accused of being unpleasant?

Had forgotten what a great word defenestration is! And that action was possibly life saving!!
No poisoned slice risk here!!

Sometimes doing something petty is a substitute for doing something more destructive that would escalate a situation, and it tends to be a situation where a conversation about the problem feels difficult, or impossible. I’m not petty very often, but it’s quite satisfying from time to time.

Agreed - I suspect I would have been equally as petty in this situation by eating the cake in front of him.

In my experience a well delivered moment of pettiness can teach a valuable lesson to a DH who is mostly a decent bloke but can take his wife for granted and sometimes assumes she will do the ‘wife work’. Mine now knows when his DM’s birthday is and sorts out her present. This was important to me as I have no DM to buy gifts for- which he seemed to have forgotten when he assumed I’d save him the bother of buying for his DM.

I would see it as a small dose of medicine. You are usually trying to prove a point by doing a similar small shitty thing back to the person who has done a big shitty thing and you are hoping to create a mild inconvenience. It’s not that deep.