Is this passive aggressive? Really need some advice here.

[confusedandangry]

First I will give you an example. On the train the other day, I peeled an orange and divided it into segments to give to my two year old dd. As I was doing so my h pulled a disgusted face and muttered "Oh dear, lets find a bin for this shall we?" meaning the peel still on the table and shuddered. When I told him I was about to put it in the bin he said smilingly "Well its a bit disgusting and dirty to leave it there isn't it?", shaking his head as though really surprised someone could be quite so disgusting as I was being.

Today we went out shopping for New Year and he offered to take us for lunch. I was really pleased and said with enthusiasm "Oh Great". After about 5 minutes he said "Didnt you and the kids go out for lunch yesterday?" (me and dc had been away at my parents), I said No we hadnt and looked disbelieving and then said "Really?" I again replied that we hadn't and then he smirked at me and said "Come on, look I don't want to be taking the dc out for lunch two days in a row, just tell me the truth". I was telling the farkin truth!

This is just two examples of things he does like this. I feel like I am going nuts. When we got home he went straight to bed and when I tried to speak to him about it he said "how dare you try to blame this on me, stop bullying me, I want to go to sleep" and refused to say another word to me. These things seem so small and silly and I feel silly writing them down but after these episodes I feel so angry and stressed out, I literally feel sick with anger. We have been together for 8 years and he does this kind of thing quite a lot, probably monthly. Is there a name for this? Anyone else experience this sort of thing? Or am I totally overreacting? Thank you.

He sounds like a bully tbh.

It seems like such small things but its constant. If he has to do anything for the dc that I may have overlooked, he will always talk quietly to himself (but so I can hear) while doing it as in "Oh, dear your nappy needs changing, come on lets get it done, its just not fair for you to have to be wearing that". It may have been that I was cooking tea and hadn't been near dd for 10 minutes so couldn't possibly know she needed changing.

Just before term ended dd was really ill so I woke h up to take ds to school. We were running late as I had been sitting with dd and cleaning her up etc. He said "I am not taking him to school late, it is embarassing, looks like we dont give a shit and can't make the effort". When he said this he mean't me of course not himself. It was all designed to let me know how useless I was because ds would be late for school. The reasons for the lateness were not taken into account. They never are.

I am so glad to read that I am not overreacting. He honestly makes me feel sick with anger and frustration.

he sounds petulant, childish and paranoid.

the muttering is passive aggression but the rest is knobbishness.

don't let him undermine you and stand up for yourself. call him out on his behaviour calmly and as it happens. don't let it build up or it will feel insurmountable.

Has he always been like this?

because ir is crap if he has. If not then maybve he is being bullied by family or boss (or "friends").

I guess does he not know this is wrong (thinks this the way to act-in whicjh case get away from him) or is he using you as a whipping boy(in which case tell him to sort out his problem).

He does have quite a high opinion of himself. Very critical of others. He probably would be more open about criticising me except that I tend to flare up at him after a while. I find that if he is feeling pissed off about something, nothing to do with me - work etc, he will always find away to blame me or find something to have a go at me about in order to off load it I think. It is just the constant comments whenever he has to do something for dc or in the house. As though it should have already been done and it is just pure laziness and low standards on my part that have left the task undone.

He has always been like this.

Sounds as though he is point scoring and looking to get one over on you. I don't expect this is any good for your confidence and therefore it is a harmful dynamic to your relationship.

I would suggest that you use the 3 point plan which i find is useful for both adults and kids in dealing with problematic behaviour - it goes like this:
say to dh "when you do xx" (state behaviour)
"it makes me feel like xx"(state how you feel)
then tell him what you would like him to do in the first person "I would like you to xx"

He sounds very controlling. TBH I would not like to contemplate a lifetime with someone who behaved in that way towards me. I would be very worried about his parenting methods too.

he sounds really grim to live with if he is constantly like this.

Don't think there is much good in the relationship tbh. He is a good father, he seems to reserve all his toxic crap for me. In fact he has fairly decent relationships with most people that is why I was worried it was just me.

We were at my parents house and he came and sat on a dining room chair out of the general group who were all on sofas etc. A seat became available next to me and I patted it and said "there is a seat here dh" wanting him to feel included. He looked round at all my family members and raised his eyebrows as if to say see what I have to put up with and then said "Alright, alright, calm down a bit" and then came unwillingly over, while still shaking his head and pulling faces and smirking about me. I was shaking with fury but noone else seemed to notice except my Mum. She detests him anyway. I felt so stupid, which I suppose is what he wants.

A superiority complex? Controlling power plays... it sounds like he may be narcissistic. That would be a personality disorder (NPD). Maybe look up Bipolar, too.
Not that just being plain mean isn't a personality disorder .

You needn't care for his opinion anymore, as an emotional self-defense strategy for yourself.

I always think mums have a radar for this kind of thing. My mum dislikes DH who has recently (or I've just noticed recently) started with the passive aggressive stuff. It isn't nice, and I've started calling him on it straightaway as I'm not having it. Problem is, like your examples, it can be so subtle it's barely there and they can easily then imply you're imagining it.

One example - I'd got the dc's ready for a walk, bag packed, children all togged up in outdoor clothes, boots etc while he faffed about watching the end of the sport, sorting himself etc. As an afterthought I'd grabbed my umbrella from by the door. He'd forgotten his coat, so when it started raining on our walk and I got my umbrella out, he snapped "sorted yourself out, I see." It was in front of my parents, who we barely see, and I was inwardly seething at the injustice.

Sickofthisrain I hope you smiled broadly and said "yeah-I have". That's the way to deal with those sorts of comments.

sickofthisrain, that is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. It is so hard to put your finger on it and on more than one occasion I have flared up in front of who ever we were with and am now labelled as extremely uptight by my in laws. He often doesn't even say anything, just smirks so that only I can see.

Anyway I had a great new year. On getting up from his three hour nap he still tried to justify how he had been behaving all day and also brought up something that annoyed him while we were visiting my parents so I went to the cinema by myself and he went out to see in the New Year when I got home at 11.00 pm. So that was lovely.

confused, did your dh's behaviour get worse after your dd was born?

He sounds inadequate. I don't know what would motivate a person to target and mess with the mind of another, especially one so close to him, but this is passive aggressiveness to the max. Your mother is right about him.

He is a coward to boot. Knowing you will call his bluff if he goes too far, he keeps it at a low level. Enough to rile you but not enough for you to pull him up on it. And to do it when you are in company means he can get a secret satisfaction from ramping it up knowing you have less options to respond, perhaps even hoping you will blow it in public and make you look mad/bad.

He is a nasty piece of work with big issues. Can you persuade him to go for couples counselling like Relate to see if there is anything that can be done or salvage?

have you tried calling him on it in company?

"Like saying in a normal, calm tone "Don't be rude to me in front of other people in the mistaken belief that I will put up with it to keep the peace. You sound like a pissed off nine year old girl - stop it. It's childish, unnecessary, and I've had enough. Either confront me directly about whatever you perceive me to have done wrong, or shut up. Don't be snide."

he msut have some good points though?
otherwise there are so many descriptive rude words i could use here!
it is on a monthly basis did you say?
how weird.
does he have a strange sense of humour ?

sounds like my STBXH has taken me 10 years to realise it

Blimey, are you sure you're not with my DP? Currently I can't:

Eat tomato soup
Eat peanut butter
Drink hot milk or make porridge
Drink hot chocolate
Have the small table lamp on in the living room

...without him shuddering, making sounds of disgust or annoyance and then usually leaving the room. Peanut butter and porridge the only think he won't leave the room for, but he'll snatch up my bowl/cup whatever afterwards and rinse then out, as if leaving a tomato soup-y bowl lying about in the kitchen sink is the height of unreasonableness. If I leave the door open and 'waste' the heat from the fire (the rest of the house is unheated and freezing) then I get tsked at, and he slams the door pointedly. Leaving lights on, filling the kettle more than is needed, putting on the washing machine in the day (it's cheaper at night)... oh, I could go on. All provoke a similar pointed negative response, designed to make me feel like a foolish little girl and not an equal in this partnership. As far as I know this is classic passive aggressive behaviour, with some instances of twattishness and miserly behaviour thrown in too of course. I have bought 'Living with the passive aggressive man' but haven't had time to read it yet due to caring for our four month old DS. But I found the Amazon UK and US reviews helpful in summing up the book, if you are interested.

I'm also in the process of slowly reading Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft. It's AMAZING, and already has helped me so much to stand up to the above behaviour. For example if he does a big breathy sigh when I switch on the ('blinding, unbearably bright', according to him) living room lamp, I ignore it. If he shields his eyes or gets up and walks out, I don't switch it off like I used to. If he says melodramatically 'well, I'll go upstairs then if you're going to be drinking that/using that' I say 'okay then, if you feel the need! See ya...' and don't stop what I'm doing.

What is humiliating and embarassing about passive agressive behaviour, is that its such little things. I feel daft just typing what he does, but although its so insiduous, it can drive you crazy. In fact, that's probably WHY it drives you crazy.
I've lost count of the time I've heard 'Oh, I was only joking' 'Don't be so over sensitive' after a snide remark designed to make me look foolish in some way. His mum is the same as him too, which is depressing. Makes me think its pretty ingrained and these people can't change, although some do. For a passive aggressive to make changes though, they have to really want to, and admit their behaviour is problematic and unacceptable. I'm making small inroads in this area but its so tiring always calling them on it that it makes me not want to bother and just tell him to fuck off.

Lastly, I found the following websites on passive aggression VERY helpful, especially the first one:

divorcesupport.about.com/od/abusiverelationships/a/Pass_Agg.htm

www.coping.org/anger/passive.htm

I have utmost sympathy with you, I know what this is like. The only difference is I have been with my DP for only one and a half years, not eight. And I don't know how you put up with it for so long, but I salute you. I suggest you read the Lundy Bancroft book as I think it will really help you.
Good luck x

ColdTits, by the way - if I called my DP in the way you describe, I can predict his reaction to the letter. A massive, dramatic: "Oh for GODS SAKE. I give up! Fine, I won't say anything at all then, if you're going to take it the wrong way. No, just leave it: I'm not saying anything to you" and would then promptly leave the room so that further discussion was impossible.

Hmm.

You could respond with "thank you, yes, that would be preferable to the snide comments"

then smile as if you just got your own way.

Thank you so much all. I have that book Inside the Mind of the Angry and Controlling Men and have found it a great help. It has helped me confront the higher level abusive behaviour head on, it is just the smaller stuff like the orange peel etc. I still now wonder if I am going mad to feel as upset as I do.

Cheerfulvicky - my h would be as bad as this if I didn't flare up at him the way I do. I used to do everything I could and feel really bad for ages after each little episode trying to change my behaviours so I wouldnt annoy him and after 8 years I realise it is not possible. He wants to bully me and make me feel silly so nothing I can do will make a difference. I think it is worse because it is Christmas and obviously he has been drinking (I dont drink) so is going further due to lack of control. Coldtits that is a great response but I too would get the same response as cheefulvicky plus many meaningful looks at the people in whose company we were. I am so glad I posted about this. I honestly thought I would get people saying "Oh get over it, there are people with REAL problems on here". Will pull out my Lundy Bancroft Book don't know why I didnt think of it before actually as I have found incredibly helpful in the past.