Please advise how to counter mild passive aggressiveness.

[Boobina]

So DH has a passive aggressive side which drives me nuts. The positive thing is that he acknowledges it, and it embarrasses him, and he tries to be more aware of it. So I can say "that was spectacularly passive aggressive" and he'll say "....yeah, it was a bit...sorry about that...."

But that's not ideal as a way to deal with it, as it feels a bit confrontational to be always pointing out instances so bluntly. Besides who wants to always be wagging the finger and pointing out someone is wrong? Not me.

It also doesn't work when you're seething and instead you hear yourself biting out a snotty comeback which just turns it into an atmosphere.

I'd much prefer to say something that basically punctures the PA behaviour like a balloon without escalating everything. But I have no idea what is the best tone to take!

I find if I'm angered by it, then I just sound angry and unpleasant to my own ears - and I know being forced into the raging harpy role is a classic trap I really refuse to fall into.

So what tone is the most effective to take?

Zaphod, that's me too! Interesting to read all this.

I would find your tea remarks confusing For me the frank thing to do would be say some sort of thanks, or noise of approval, then put it down. Afterall no one expects someone to start drinking tea the moment its handed over. A description from someone about how they are putting it down and why could come across as pa to me. I have a very pa mother though and that's the sort of thing she'd say when wanting to make some unfathomable point.

I'm not saying that you were being pa at all, or trying to make a big deal out of the correct way to give or receive a cuppa but if you have critical pa parents it's too easy to tie yourself in knots trying to work out what the other person really meant.

In my early 20s it dawned on me that I had learnt quite a bit of pa behaviour. It took me quite a while to accept that I was allowed to make direct requests. With my mother you never knew when making a simple request would result in huffing or a small character assassination.

Huldra - It's brilliant that you had the insight to recognise it.

One day it all fell into place why my Mum's behaviour was so frustrating, then I tought oooh shit I do some of that too

Sorry, I haven't read everything but I think people are being very cruel in their criticisms of your DH, as he obviously doesn't want to be like that, but it is not that easy to change.

My DM grew up with three brothers in a small house where they were never allowed to get angry so she developed an ulcer instead. Then I grew up in a house where if I behaved badly she never hit me but went and was sick in the toilet instead. Then when I was a horrible teenager I would get the silent treatment. It wasn't her fault but it was horrible.

When I had my dd I opted to do anything rather than reproduce what my mother did, but I found when none of the other things worked, I would resort to emotional blackmail, as I had learnt as a child.

This stuff is not so easy to turn around.

The whole point of passive aggression is that it forces the recipient of the passive aggressive behaviour to get angry, so the partner expresses the anger that the passive aggressive CAN NOT express. If you don't express anger, you are by definition passive aggressive. Because it's impossible to never feel angry and be human.

This is just not correct. Most PA people are not doing it TO others, they are doing it because this is how they have learnt to manage conflict. They certainly are not doing it to force someone else to become angry - anger and conflict is exactly what they are trying to avoid!

Plenty of people don't express anger. That's because they don't FEEL anger for long enough to need to express it. It washes over them, and if they need to act, they are calm and measured. These people are not even few and far between. Or maybe they are, in our culture.

To answer your OP, though - I'd advise as others have suggested.

Either take it at face value, shrug and walk away. Or every time, ask 'You seem annoyed. What do you really mean?'

I always think pa behaviour (rife in my wand dh's families) is about taking a negative feeling which may be anger or some internalised worthless feeling and making someone else have that feeling. Like shifting toxic waste around.