Passive aggression: It’s more than just sarcasm and silent treatment
Passive aggression is one of those things that people talk about a lot, but when you stop and think about it, it’s actually quite interesting psychologically because most people don’t wake up in the morning and consciously decide they’re going to be passive aggressive. Usually, there is something else going on underneath it.
Most of us can recognise passive aggression when we’re on the receiving end of it. It might be the person who says “fine” when they’re clearly not fine, your work friend who agrees to do something but somehow never quite gets around to it, the partner who insists nothing is wrong whilst at the same time slamming cupboard doors with full force, or the friend who says something that sounds like a compliment but somehow leaves you feeling criticised.
The difficult thing about passive aggression is that it sends a message whilst pretending not to send a message.
The person is communicating something, often anger, frustration, disappointment, hurt or resentment, but they’re doing it indirectly. Instead of saying, “I’m upset with you”, they express it through their behaviour, their tone, their sarcasm, their withdrawal, or sometimes through simply not doing something they’ve agreed to do.
What I find interesting is that passive aggression is often viewed as manipulative, and whilst it certainly can be, I think that description sometimes misses what’s happening underneath. In many cases, passive aggression isn’t really about manipulation at all. It’s about somebody struggling to express difficult emotions directly. If you think about the messages many of us receive growing up, it starts to make a bit more sense. Some people grow up in families where anger isn’t tolerated. Perhaps expressing frustration resulted in criticism. Perhaps disagreements led to arguments that felt frightening. Perhaps they learned that being angry made them a bad person. In some families, emotions are discussed openly. In others, emotions are avoided, minimised, or swept under the carpet as quickly as possible.
The problem is that emotions don’t disappear simply because we’re uncomfortable with them. If somebody learns that anger isn’t safe to express directly, they don’t suddenly stop experiencing anger. Instead, they often become disconnected from it or learn to express it in ways that feel safer. The anger still comes out, just not in a straightforward way.
Another aspect that is worth considering is that passive aggression can simply be learned behaviour. Children learn far more from what they observe than what they are told, and if somebody grows up around passive-aggressive communication, it can start to feel completely normal. If a child regularly witnesses adults using the silent treatment, making sarcastic comments instead of expressing how they feel, saying one thing whilst meaning another, or expecting people to somehow know what is wrong without being told, they may come to see this as how relationships work. It becomes part of their communication blueprint. Often, people are not consciously choosing passive aggression because they believe it is the best way to handle a situation. They may simply be repeating patterns they have seen throughout their lives. In the same way that some people grow up learning how to have open and honest disagreements, others grow up learning that difficult feelings are expressed indirectly.
This is one of the reasons why passive aggression can be so difficult to change. It isn’t always just a behaviour, it can be a deeply familiar way of relating to other people. For some, direct communication can feel uncomfortable, unnatural or even risky because it wasn’t something they regularly experienced growing up. Sometimes passive aggression can develop because a person wants something to change but doesn’t feel able to ask for it. They might want more support, more appreciation, more understanding, or simply for somebody to recognise that they’re struggling. Rather than saying this directly, which can leave them feeling vulnerable, they communicate it indirectly and hope the other person picks up on it.
Unfortunately, this is where problems usually begin.
Passive aggression tends to create confusion rather than clarity. The other person senses that something isn’t right but can’t quite identify what it is. They start analysing conversations, wondering if they’ve done something wrong, trying to read between the lines and second-guessing themselves. The issue that needed discussing remains unspoken, whilst tension quietly grows around it. I also think there can sometimes be a degree of self-protection involved. If you never actually say you’re angry, disappointed or hurt, then nobody can reject those feelings. Nobody can tell you you’re wrong. Nobody can disagree with you. In some ways, indirect communication can feel safer than direct communication because it avoids the vulnerability that comes with being honest about what you’re experiencing.
The irony, of course, is that whilst passive aggression often develops as a way of avoiding conflict, it frequently creates more conflict. Relationships become strained, resentment builds, and people end up feeling disconnected from one another because nobody is talking about what’s really going on. Most of us have probably been passive aggressive at some point. We are human and difficult conversations aren’t always easy. The question isn’t whether we’ve ever done it. The more interesting question is what was happening underneath when we did.
Were we angry?
Were we hurt?
Were we afraid of confrontation?
Were we worried about being seen as demanding, difficult, needy or unreasonable?
Very often, passive aggression isn’t really about the sarcastic comment, the forgotten task, or the frosty silence. Those are just the visible parts. The more important part is usually the emotion sitting underneath it that doesn’t yet feel safe enough to be expressed directly. Perhaps that’s why understanding passive aggression is often more useful than simply criticising it. It doesn’t excuse hurtful behaviour, but it can help us understand that what looks like hostility on the surface is sometimes a person’s awkward attempt to communicate something they don’t quite know how to say out loud.
Hayley McAuley
Psychotherapist
Curious Counselling & Psychotherapy
Photo by Obie Fernandez on Unsplash