Anyone else end up as an angry banshee after living with “Mr. Nice” = passive & irresponsible?

[Somethingtodo]

Anyone else been through this? I have just realised that this is the dynamic in my relationship – I have taken all the blame for our dysfunctional relationship because I got angry and angrier. I now don’t get angry but need to get divorced. However my 4 children (3 teens) can only see that I am the nasty one leaving their lovely kind Dad. How do I explain it to them – or do I not explain anything?
www.angriesout.com/couples8.htm
“One of the hardest patterns of behavior for all of us to deal with is passive aggressive behavior. Passive aggressive behavior happens when the person avoids responsibility and attempts to control others to keep them away through his passivity and withdrawal. It is a dynamic born of fear of being controlled, fear of confrontation, hidden anger and an inability to deal straight with people.
Passive aggressive behavior is complex and takes many forms. We all have passive behavior that comes up when we don't want to deal with conflict directly or do a task. We all hedge, fudge and remain noncommittal on issues some of the time. That's normal. It's only when repeated passivity creates severe issues for others setting up continual tension and anger in the household that it becomes a serious problem that should be addressed. Common examples of this habitual, passive retreat style of dealing with confrontation and stress include:
• The person who says one thing but means the opposite.
• The man who acts passive but aggressively gets his own way by not doing what is wanted.
• The person who fears self assertion and confrontation, but says no by sidestepping responsibility.
• Anyone in the family who creatively gets out of doing his or her part of the chores.
• The Mr. Nice Guy who puts on the sweet face to agree, then does what he darn well pleases.
• The parent who refuses to discipline the children and insists on the spouse being the ‘heavy.'
• The person who refuses to hear criticism, discuss his problems or read books about the issue.
• The not ready to be committed man wanting someone there for him but feels entitled to his freedom.
• Any individual who spends his effort into under achieving in school, in relationships and in life!
What all of these people have in common is that the significant people in their life become very, very angry at their resistant behavior. The negative energy in the relationship boomerangs from one partner to the other resulting in an unhappy relationship.
While women can have passive aggressive behavior, this condition is more typically found in men, therefore this article will focus on the typical male version of this dynamic. The typical passive aggressive man has not worked through his anger and power issues with his parents so he replays them in current relationships. His anger comes out in passive way of avoidance.

Is this the PA...?

THE WATER TORTURER [Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?]

The Water Torturer's style proves that anger doesn't cause abuse. He can assault his partner psychologically without even raising his voice. He tends to stay calm in arguments, using his own evenness as a weapon to push her over the edge. He often has a superior or contemptuous grin on his face, smug and self-assured. He uses a repertoire of aggressive conversational tactics at low volume, including sarcasm, derision—such as openly laughing at her—mimicking her voice, and cruel, cutting remarks. Like Mr. Right, he tends to take things she has said and twist them beyond recognition to make her appear absurd, perhaps especially in front of other people. He gets to his partner through a slow but steady stream of low-level emotional assaults, and perhaps occasional shoves or other minor acts of violence that don't generally cause visible injury but may do great psychological harm. He is relentless in his quiet derision and meanness.

The impact on a woman of all these subtle tactics is that either her blood temperature rises to a boil or she feels stupid and inferior, or some combination of the two. In an argument, she may end up yelling in frustration, leaving the room crying, or sinking into silence. The Water Torturer then says, See, you're the abusive one, not me. You're the one who's yelling and refusing to talk things out rationally. I wasn't even raising my voice. It's impossible to reason with you.

The psychological effects of living with the Water Torturer can be severe. His tactics can be difficult to identify, so they sink in deeply. Women can find it difficult not to blame themselves for their reactions to what their partner does if they don't even know what to call it. When someone slaps you in the face, you know you've been slapped. But when a woman feels psychologically assaulted, with little idea why, after an argument with The Water Torturer, she may turn her frustration inward. How do you seek support from a friend, for example, when you don't know how to describe what is going wrong?

The Water Torturer tends to genuinely believe that there is nothing unusual about his behavior. When his partner starts to confront him with his abusiveness—which she usually does sooner or later—he looks at her as if she were crazy and says, What the hell are you talking about? I've never done anything to you. Friends and relatives who have witnessed the couple's interactions may back him up. They shake their heads and say to each other, I don't know what goes on with her. She just explodes at him sometimes, and he's so low-key. Their children can develop the impression that Mom blows up over nothing. She herself may start to wonder if there is something psychologically wrong with her.

The Water Torturer is payback-oriented like most abusive men, but he may hide it better. If he is physically abusive, his violence may take the form of cold-hearted slaps for your own good or to get you to wake up rather than explosive rage. His moves appear carefully thought out, and he rarely makes obvious mistakes—such as letting his abusiveness show in public—that could turn other people against him or get him in legal trouble.

If you are involved with a Water Torturer, you may struggle for years trying to figure out what is happening. You may feel that you overreact to his behavior and that he isn't really so bad. But the effects of his control and contempt have crept up on you over the years. If you finally leave him, you may experience intense periods of delayed rage, as you become conscious of how quietly but deathly oppressive he was.

This style of man rarely lasts long in an abuser program unless he has a court order. He is so accustomed to having complete success with his tactics that he can't tolerate an environment where the counselors recognize and name his maneuvers and don't let him get away with them. He tends to rapidly decide that his group leaders are as crazy as his partner and heads for the door.

The central attitudes driving the Water Torturer are:

• You are crazy. You fly off the handle over nothing.

• I can easily convince other people that you're the one who is messed up.

• As long as I'm calm, you can't call anything I do abusive, no matter how cruel.

• I know exactly how to get under your skin.

I'm not sure if this is the criteria for my dp, but it sounds similar to a few other descriptions.

He just doesn't think, ever. Therefore I have to do everything. I asked him to call sky last week (in his name only as it worked out a better deal) because the Internet keeps dropping- he hasent.
I ask him to check the glasses are clean if he empties the dishwasher, mine was covered in weetabix today.
I ask that he thinks of something to do at the weekend with the dc, I plan all week and 90% of weekend, every Saturday morning he just say... Erm.. Park?
He made scrambled egg on Sunday, in the pan with no non stick left, and threw it in the dishwasher- it obviously came out exactly as it went in. I told him and he said to leave it on the side and he would do it, it's still there- and it stinks.
He's meant to empty the bins, I don't remember the last time he did.
And change the beds, I know dds hasent been done in over a month, and I genuinly don't remember when ours was last done. If I ask him he will make all the right noises about doing it tomorrow, but never actually does.

Whenever I pull him up on it, he always seems genuinly sorry, but nothing ever changes.

We are meant to be getting married in November and have 2 young dc.. :/

Oh and he holds down a full time job, managing 6 other people across the country.. He's perfectly capable, but just 'forgets' everything at home

I was scrolling through threads looking for a similar situation to my relationship with DH and came across the OP. This perfectly describes my relationship, his characteristics and the dynamic between us when he winds me up to the point of exploding by resolutely refusing to accept responsibility for anything or acknowledge my feelings.

The latest situation is that he has run up a huge debt, which I have no idea how we will pay, not by active spending but inertia and a refusal to deal with the account to limit interest and charges spiralling out of control. Apparently I am actually to blame for this because he knew what my reaction would be and therefore chose to hide it

Anyway. From reading the various links about strategies for dealing with a PA partner what's not clear to me is whether there actually is any way of having a healthy relationship in this scenario? The advice re modifying your own responses and expectations seems all very well but if a core feature is that your DP refuses to take responsibility for his emotions and his actions, then wouldn't you still be left with a big heap of resentment etc? Or is there some way a PA DP would see the light as it were and change their behaviour in return??

I am pg with DC3 and see no hope of our relationship improving anytime soon

I don't think there is any way of having a healthy relationship, I'm afraid.

it's one of the personality traits that simply is highly resistant to change. The only way is if they decide to change. They, not you. Very few do as being PA works too well for them, in a miserable sort of way.

You have two options: accept that he's like this, that he won't ever support you and that he's a loose cannon that will make your life more difficult, not less. or split up. I'm sorry, it's that stark.

How is he with the kids? if he's the same - then get out for their sakes. If he's better with them, well, it's a desperately difficult relationship for you to be in, but if you wished to you could keep going ... just be careful. the title of this thread is accurate. Living with Mr PA drives people into becoming demented banshees. It's a very unpleasant way to live.

Is there room for another banshee?

One year into being separate. He's still in the house and pretending to sort out moving whenever I get really cross.

I'm still in the stage of thinking if I can only get him to see what's happening then he'll step up and be a real partner rather than an angry teenager.
Still want it to work

I've done things I never thought I'd be able to do though...
Told family and friends we had separated (made it real)
Found two free places for him to stay (obviously he didn't take either of them)
Had the house valued (making plans for the future)
Started weaning toddler off the breast (to facilitate access)
Looked up local solicitors for divorce
Mentioned divorce
Downloaded divorce papers
Saved some money (first time in years)
Now provided ultimatum that he goes by end of week) obviously he won't)
Making plans for finding work as sahm
Thinking about moving back to parents town.

Each of these things is massive for me as I'm still fighting with wanting it to work and him having regular revelations and remorse sessions.

It's like wading through treacle.

I've just read through the whole of this thread and wow alot of it hits home.

I've been having doubts about my relationship for a while now and could never really put my finger on it. He is a lovely lovely man on the surface and everybody tells me how lucky I am to have somebody so kind and handsome.

However, the passivity really gets to me. I do absolutely everything around and for the house. Do all the finances, shopping, cleaning and cooking. He doesn't drive so I drive us everywhere for example this morning he needed to the doctor so I was 20 mins late for work.

He has zero DIY skills, whereas I am quite handy and just tends to get in the way more than anything so I do it all myself. We were painting together once and all he did was moan about his arm hurting.

If I leave him to do one thing he will inevitably f*ck it up. I asked him to buy bread and he came back with a raw, doughy loaf. I asked him to clean the cat litter tray and nearly poisoned the cat!

The thing is if I ask him directly to do something such as wash the dishes he will do it but I have to ask every time. He gets home before me most days and wouldn't dream of putting dinner on unless I explicitly tell him to beforehand and then I have to leave detailed instructions on how to do so. But this is every time. Every time I ask him to put on dinner and if I don't then it doesn't get done.

I research and buy all birthday/Christmas presents for his family and will have to nag and nag if I want him to look at something. Even then it's a joint effort as he 'couldn't' do it on his own.

Now, I really can't work out if he in just inept or stupid or this is a game. I am honestly at a loss.

Hit enter before I finished! Think mumsnet is hinting that I'm rambling :D

Anyway to sum up, I can''t work out why he is like this. Is he really that stupid and passive that I literally have to tell him to do everything or is he lazy? I really don't know.

When I do bring it up or have a go at him for being moody - which he is quite regularly he gets very very defensive and puts it back on me, saying that I am the one with the problem, to leave it alone.

Just to add he has serious Mummy issues. Some justified, some not so much. He embarrasses me sometimes when he is interacting with his mum. It's like he is a petulant teenager and cannot see the wood from the trees sometimes.

I feel like I've taken on a man child. I don't want to be a carer, I want to be an equal partner. As a consequence our sex life has really suffered. I find his meekness, indecision and dependence so unattractive.

Is this fixable? I want it to be but I'm not sure anymore.

God, it feels so good to get this out in the open! I can't talk to any family or friends because they think he is the loveliest person.

This link is brilliant..

www.counselling-directory.org.uk/passive-aggressive.html

Explains that their behaviors come across as below - painful and hurtful for the recipient day in day out:

However, because by nature passive aggressive people are unwilling to expose their true feelings, it can be hard to understand the routes of their behaviour. These behaviours often come across instead as:

stubbornness
contrariness
bitterness
closed-mindedness
unreasonableness
being difficult
frustratingly forgetful
cold
lazy
careless
manipulative
secretive
sly.

I know this is a Zombie thread but has just answered a lot of questions for me..I am not alone and I am doing the right thing..

if he won't change, it's crazy making. Or more likely, promise to change then quite deliberately never does. Good luck ohdeary

Good for you ohdeary

Yep been with one of them
Wasted a lifetime in fact

Oh god, yes, this, all this. My XH is a lovely person but I got so fed up of being the only one to deal with anything. I have unresolved anger at him for not taking a day off work when I had an operation under general anaesthetic to remove an ovarian cyst at 13weeks pregnant, and not helping me arrange childcare so I gave birth alone as well. I am non-confrontational so let things go, got on with it, but I felt more alone in my marriage than I do now we have split up. I now recognise our argument free relationship as deeply unhealthy.

I wish I had the courage to go but am now reliant financially as disabled and not prepared to be poor whilst he is a big earner.
Our kids are just about left home.
Very lonely.

Rendit in the 1st sentence of the OP, it is stated that she had "just realised" about passive-aggressive behaviour.

So not before she had DC with her passive-aggressive husband.

I would start a new thread to discuss this.

This is a year old thread so there is potential for confusion.

I repeat. This is a one year old thread. Discussing the OP is now irrelevant.

fidelia - yes they all hide it - that is the point of PA - they are getting punches in without raising their voice or any confrontation - it is really hard to put your finger on it or pin it down as it is deliberately slippery and sabotaging behaviour. Hard for outsiders to see as it appears that we are being petty and unreasonable ... and you believe that yourself until you collapse with frustration and exhaustion.