Often, we blog about the positive things of love and life. Sometimes, we vent about personal things. Not today. We dive into one small dark perspective of romance that can throw shade on the best of love. That passive aggressive ish!

That Passive Aggressive Ish

That thing your partner does that just gets under your skin, but you can’t put your finger on it. That irksome mess that sends a signal you can scarcely defend.

Some folks aren’t good at this passive aggressive nonsense. Those you can spot a mile away. It’s the really good professional grade ish that really gets an annoying itch going inside an otherwise perfectly normal relationship.

Definition please…

Passive Aggressive: adjective – denoting a type of behavior or personality characterize by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials.

Rather than being upfront, it’s the sideways zings that suggests there’s a problem, but the person won’t own up to it. So, let’s look at a fictional set of scenarios.

That ish be annoying…

Nothing like coming home after a long work day to find that things are not quite in order. At first, Stan didn’t think much of it. Life happens. But, then, a pattern started to show. Stan started to worry that his relationship had taken a turn for the worse. Sadly, confronting his lady proved not helpful.

-There was that time that the v8 juice spilled all over the floor. Stan was not sure how that came to be, but he went to rush and get the paper towel to mop it up only to find that his lady had used his favorite bath towel to mop up the mess and left it on the floor for him to pick up.

-There was that other time when Stan, who usually does the laundry, had folded everything perfectly and had taken a break to go watch the game. His plan was to return and put everything away after the game. It was a short game too. When he went down to the laundry, all her stuff was put away and all his stuff was all over the floor. She seemed to know nothing about the incident.

-During one of their social outings, Stan felt uncomfortably thrown under the bus as his lady used example after example of how men are so horrible in relationship. It was comical to most. But why had all the examples, both real and fictitious, had his name all over it… with that extra bit of sass and neck roll in her delivery?

Trying to get ahead of whatever issue was at hand, Stan made the plan to send his lady and her crew to the nail salon. It would be a nice ladies night out. He planned it well with the other husbands and boyfriends.

According to his research, a group reservation at 7:30pm would have all the ladies done and back home by 9pm. To make it ever nicer, Stan laid out a lovely candle lit dinner to welcome his lady home. Somehow, sleep got the better of him, around 2am, as he was sitting on the couch watching Netflix.

Stan was awakened to a few text messages from the other fellas wondering how it was he failed to mention the movie night after the salon as part of the plan. Checking his credit card, Stan’s heart sank. Apparently, he had treated everyone to more than just nails, movie, and spa. They bought jewelry too.

The conversation that night went in pointless circles as his lady was mortified that Stan’s memory was so horrible as to not recall the anniversary package he had promised. The tears that flowed to express her hurt at being emotionally jilted after enjoying such a gift made Stan question his own sanity.

But then, it gets even better…

Stan started noticing other things happening that made him wonder just how safe was his sense of security in his relationship. Looking for evidence of infidelity, he not only didn’t find any, he found more evidence of passive aggression being thrown his way. Something had gone wrong, but what?

-There was that time Stan had prepped his lunch the night before, and in the morning it was missing. His lady knew nothing of it. But on social media, she posted how amazing her man was for preparing her a very delicious meal. His lunch!

-Punctuality. Yeah. That word. Stan tries to be on time most of the time. His lady is never late to any of her functions. Ever. Always on time or early. However, Stan noticed that the last few events he had to go to, his lady was late. Not horribly late. Just enough to annoy Stan, but not enough that some speeding and white knuckle driving couldn’t correct. With no explanation non-whatsoever.

-The sting got a bit harsher when Stan started noticing little things not getting done. Like the time Stan asked his lady to drop off some invitations at the post office for an event he was throwing with the fellas. They made it out the house OK but never made it to the post office. They got lost in the trunk of her car. Even though he had watched her place them in her purse, which she never ever places in the trunk of her car.

-Stan was left puzzled once. He had taken the time to help one of his lady’s friends move furniture around. Not expecting too much, his mind was left in a daze when his lady said “for an old guy, you did OK. Not like when you were young, but nice effort nevertheless”. Did Stan miss something? What did that mean? Should he even address this with his lady later? He was doing her a favor, and it’s not like the furniture was easy to move in the first place.

-The long silent treatment. Stan had enough. He confronted his lady. Only to find that there was no response at all. Trying a different approach, Stan leveled up his intensity. His lady carried on as if Stan was not present. Out of frustration, Stan tapped his lady on her shoulder and was baffled by her surprise at his actual presence there. As if he had never been there and the touch nearly terrified her at the rude unexpected apparition/manifestation of presence.

Stan, now enraged, throws up his hands in disbelief… looking for words to speak. In his moment of exacerbation, his wife throws in a wistful wishing note that boiled Stan into a stupor. “It would be really nice if the grass got cut on Wednesday before your folks came to visit, if it’s not too much to ask… but I guess I’ll have to settle for you scrambling to get it done on Sunday as your parents pull up… sigh”

The last straw came when Stan had a very important business trip to make that his lady didn’t want him to attend. She didn’t quite say she didn’t want him to go, but she piled on a long list of things to get done on the dates of the trip. They had argued for a while about it. Eventually, she cooled off and apologized. Stan felt that some progress was made until the night before the trip. He could not find any of his presentation clothing. After frantically tearing down the house, Stan found a slip for dry-cleaning behind the couch.

Someone had dropped off a large stash of clothing to the dry-cleaners. Stan was the one who usually handled the dry cleaning. His lady said he must have forgotten that he had taken the clothing out. But, the date on the paper was too close to the present to be something Stan forgot he did. A call to the cleaners informed him that his presentation clothes would not be ready for a few days, coinciding with the close of his trip.

Not one to mess around with his business plans, Stan flew into damage control mode and found a way to order new clothing to meet him at his hotel, at great cost to himself. His anger was flaming blue hot. Stan vowed to exact revenge on his return.

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