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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Is this passive aggressive? Really need some advice here.

245 replies

confusedandangry · 31/12/2008 17:12

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.

OP posts:
LiffeyAnnaLivia · 02/01/2009 21:13

Monkeytrousers, clearly you have never lived with a controlling abusive man. You think we're making this stuff up 'at the time of the month'.

Just be glad you have no comprehension of how dreadful it is, but don't belittle the hell women DO experience with these controlling bullying men.

macdoodle · 02/01/2009 21:23

Monkey I was clear who you were adressing - have absolute disdain for what you think you have no idea as I said before!!!
And telling the OP (or any of us here) to be grown up is actually incredibly nasty

Monkeytrousers · 02/01/2009 22:21

LittleBella, if you have had a child with such a person, the very last thing you can do is try to be friends. What?s patronising is you deeming to speak for the OP. This is an open free forum and many views are better than one. That is it?s strength not its weakness. Then OP is intelligent enough to take and leave our opinions, if she wants. Even if she hates my guts, an alternative opinion to the norm is always some food for thought. It?s your right not to eat it. Just try not to vomit your biliousness over everyone.

Same to you Kate. The very terrible appeals to idiotic emotion ? as if simply announcing having a ?bad? time with an ex make anyone?s opinion more valid ? are more morally corrupt that you yourself probably realises. Ditto for Liffey ? I actually really hgop[e you are making this up as you go along, because if you are trying to make a concerted and conscious assault, I pity you all. McDoodle enc.

Bring it on

? but lets not forget the OP ? if any of you actually care.

LittleBella · 02/01/2009 22:23

Er, where do I say I speak for the OP?

And um... biliousness? Are you drunk by any chance?

LittleBella · 02/01/2009 22:28

I also don't understand your arguments. You said "But you maybe need to take the heat off the realtionship at the mo and just try and be friends?"

Then you said "if you have had a child with such a person, the very last thing you can do is try to be friends"

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm finding that confusing.

macdoodle · 02/01/2009 22:35

You pity us you pity us ??????
am incandescent with rage TBH

fuzzywuzzy · 02/01/2009 22:36

MT the OP has elaborated and her partners behaviour is actually a lot worse than the initial post, he's managed to knock her down stairs in the tube, screamed in her face etc accidentally on purpose caused her physical harm.

I do think if the OP was it, there's something to work with, later posts indicate (to me anyway) that OP should try and extricate herself from the situation.

This is such an emotive topic, but in my experience any woman in this situation will do what she is strong enough to do.

About 8years ago, I had a splendid boss who told me in a round about way that she had managed to get a divorce for a fiver, looking back she was suggesting that divorce was prolly the better option for me and could be made easy (she didn't know ex, who's bizarrely tried to refuse me a divorce, like any sane judge is going to accept that). Then when I first went to the police the officer in case was lovely and when I spoke to him again months down the line he sighed and said, I did try to tell you we could help you get out. Yes and I didn't listen, because for me at that point I was fighting to make my marriage work.

It's good to get balance, I so don't want to become a mad man hating bitch, a balancing opinion is always good.

dittany · 02/01/2009 22:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

kate1956 · 02/01/2009 22:52

What odd comments monkeytrousers!
Sorry that you feel that 'appeals to idiotic emotion' are happening - and I do sincerely hope that the original poster doesn't think that.

However, whatever some people think, I do think it's useful to know that other people have similar experiences and do not consider them a good part of life.
I read on mumsnet of all sorts of behaviour by partners but to be honest what is so nice is to read of the relationships where love shows (even when someone is being an arse!) - it gives hope that the world is not full of people who are coexisting while hating each other supposedly for the 'sake of the children'.

Anyway, enough of the emotive stuff!! The problem with merely telling the original poster to be friends with someone who is abusive is you are effectively telling them to put up with abuse. Not sure why you would want to do that but I guess it takes all sorts!

Northernlurker · 02/01/2009 22:52

MT - I have what I think of a normal relationship - dh and I fall out and we argue and we make up but we are always existing in an arena of an adult relationship - where both are equal and respected and things are worked through. What Macdoodle and the Op and others have described is very far from that - they are talking about relationships where there is no respect - so acting 'like an adult' won't work. They are outlining abusive relationships - and if you're 'thinking of the children' then you have to get the hell out - because violence - whether mental or physical breeds violence.

dittany · 02/01/2009 23:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Monkeytrousers · 02/01/2009 23:25

Incandesant? How odd and how quick to rage you all are, at the slightest provocation. You are feeding numerus comedy lines with your indignation. Outraged of Islnington!..honestly it's beyond parody..but if you want to continue...it's entertaining..

Monkeytrousers · 02/01/2009 23:30

Fuzzy, If I have comitted the terrible crtime of only reading the OP and respondiong to tjat then that is between me an the OP. I remind you all, this is a parenting forum, some of us have perenting to dom especially at night time. Responding to the OP is not a crime, MN being equal to all, including thos who don;t have time to follow long threads.

I made it clear that I was resonding to the OP the 2nd time I posted. The hysteria unleashed regardless of that is quite insane. But if it's driven by something else, I invite those people to ironically 'get a room'.

LittleBella · 02/01/2009 23:36

I thought your post was fairly full of hysteria actually MT.

Monkeytrousers · 02/01/2009 23:38

I take that as a compliment from you and your previous offerings LB.

Northernlurker · 02/01/2009 23:38

MT - you said 'You have a reason in your children to weork at this and try not to fall for the laziest explanation - that he is simply a bastard.' There were what 120? posts on this thread when you posted that. Did it not occur to you to look a little deeper before you accused the op of taking an 'easy' option? Recognising and standing up to domestic abuse is incredibly hard. There's nothing 'lazy' about recognising what is happening to you - the women who have come on here and shared that have been very brave. They deserve our respect not accusations of hysteria.

macdoodle · 02/01/2009 23:39

thanks MT I have been doing a pretty good job at getting past my H abuse!
But the thought that someone who doesnt know me feels that I am easily hysterical at the slightest provocation has somewhat flattened me so for that I thank you

dittany · 02/01/2009 23:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Northernlurker · 02/01/2009 23:40

Oy Macdoodle - don't be ground down. Chin up and all that!

Monkeytrousers · 02/01/2009 23:41

And Kate, it was an opinion not an instruction. The OP, wise women I'm sure, will be able to take it or leave it. A forbearance the PC lynch mob of MN have yet to learn, they hang themselves from their own scaffolds so often.

lovemybabes · 02/01/2009 23:42

may i just say that cheerfulvicky's first website is just amazing! i finally feel sane, as if someone understands my partner, and therefore my feelings. sorry to hijack the post - big hugs to all girls living with PA (passive aggressive) guys. it's like living with an extra kid, but one who won't grow up. ever. they seem so calm and yet you feel such anger coming from them - but they won't admit to the anger, so you feel you must be imagining it. x

macdoodle · 02/01/2009 23:43

or the part where he stands on her toes stop her coming in with shopping bags - but then perhaps she is hysterical
thanks NL have just had a long phone chat with a very supportive lovely friend
and I for one am never going back to that life - whether that makes me hysterical overreacting or whatever!
am off to bed now hope OP is ok and being strong!

Northernlurker · 02/01/2009 23:44

Ooh MT - I'll rise to that one - so is challenging domestic abuse 'pc' then?

LittleBella · 02/01/2009 23:47

Lynch mob?

What's that then?

A majority of posters on one thread who disagree with Monkeytrousers?

Monkeytrousers · 03/01/2009 00:01

Read my posts. I resonded to the OP about the OP. A simple heads up about more info might have sufficed re that. Had a had the chance to read the thread - whcch I still haven't, I've been so busy responding to various challenges - I might have had the chance to respnd furher. As it is it stopped being about the poor OP ages ago. Get a grip. Are you so easliy wound up in real life?

You won't stop me posting, or people posting resonses to OP's - even if the thread has moved on. Surely, if it has, it is up to the people in the know to have some restraint.

Lets just stop any attemts to control what people post, if MN is the equal demographic place its supposed to be. The OP is not an idiot and would have worked out that I hadn't read the thread. Unlike many of you seem to, I hold most women to have a modicum of intelegence, and to be capable of not taking any opinion as fact.