Passive Aggressive Love Quotes

Love without sacrifice is like theft

Nobody could hold the same place in your heart as your sister. Love or hate her, she was the only person who grew up exactly like you, who knew the secrets of your household—the laughter that only the walls of your house contained or the screaming at a level low enough the neighbors couldn’t hear, the passive aggressive compliments or the little put-downs. Only your sister could know how it felt to grow up in the house that made you you.

A man worth being with is one… That never lies to you Is kind to people that have hurt him A person that respects another’s life That has manners and shows people respect That goes out of his way to help people That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met Who brags about your accomplishments with pride Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less That is a peacemaker That will see you through illness Who keeps his promises Who doesn’t blame others, but finds the good in them That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars That doesn’t need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy That is gentle and patient with children Who won’t let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow Who lives what he says he believes in Who doesn’t hold a grudge or hold onto the past Who doesn’t ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him Who will run with your dreams That makes you laugh at the world and yourself Who forgives and is quick to apologize Who doesn’t betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women Who doesn’t react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn’t plan to keep Who takes his children’s spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down Who communicates to solve problems Who doesn’t play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them Who is real and doesn’t pretend to be something he is not Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God Who doesn’t have an ego or believes he is better than anyone Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met Who works hard to provide for the family Who doesn’t feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family Who is morally free from sin Who sees your potential to be great Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you Who is a gentleman Who is honest and lives with integrity Who never discusses your private business with anyone Who will protect his family Who forgives, forgets, repairs and restores When you find a man that possesses these traits then all the little things you don’t have in common don’t matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.

If I could fall in love with a girl, it’d be her. Those ifs are dangerous. You try them on in your head like dresses, so easy to slide in and out of. If I kissed girls, I’d kiss her. If we kissed, it’d go like this. At some point I dropped the if like a slip and just wore the feeling, nothing between it and my skin. When I kiss her. When it happens. All of it took place in my head, in silence, locked tight in skull bone and the frantic synaptic whispers between neurons, no clues popping out except the passive-aggressive haircut, the incriminating poem. That’s the problem with writers. Too much imagination. The greater part of me knew it couldn’t be real, but the hopeful part, which is more concentrated and condensed, rich in nine essential delusions, thought: It’s not all in your head.

If you use sarcasm, ridicule, teasing, pinching, tickling, or barbed kidding at times, make a commitment to cease using these passive-aggressive weapons against your partner or anyone.

Fine! He is being passive aggressive with me, and it's gonna backfire; I'm gonna be active friendly.

Side note: is anyone else grateful social media wasn’t a thing when they were a teenager? It’s like Draco Malfoy and all three Heathers smooshed into one invisible organism that thrives on Internet memes and passive aggression.

do you give yourself enough attention? Do you settle for second best? When you look in the mirror, does your attention immediately gravitate toward flaws? When you are sad, do you tell yourself to “get over it”? Do you try to suppress or silence your feelings by being passive-aggressive or indulging in an addiction? Just take some time to look at your life, and write down all the ways in which

When couples cannot talk about their problems in a healthy way and become entrenched in their opinions, they have the same failed conversations over and over.  The relationship becomes emotionally clogged. Friction and frustration grow. Partners feel rejected, like they can’t get through to one another.  Behaviors associated with conflict avoidance include passive aggressive behavior, withdrawal. 

A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat. The victim compels others to come to his rescue or to behave as he wishes by holding them hostage to the prospect of his own further illness/meltdown/mental dissolution, or simply by threatening to make their lives so miserable that they do what he wants.

Wisdom is really the key to wealth. With great wisdom, comes great wealth and success. Rather than pursuing wealth, pursue wisdom. The aggressive pursuit of wealth can lead to disappointment. Wisdom is defined as the quality of having experience, and being able to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting. Wisdom is basically the practical application of knowledge. Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs. Become completely focused on one subject and study the subject for a long period of time. Don't skip around from one subject to the next. The problem is generally not money. Jesus taught that the problem was attachment to possessions and dependence on money rather than dependence on God. Those who love people, acquire wealth so they can give generously. After all, money feeds, shelters, and clothes people. They key is to work extremely hard for a short period of time (1-5 years), create abundant wealth, and then make money work hard for you through wise investments that yield a passive income for life. Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand. Failure is success if we learn from it. Continuing failure eventually leads to success. Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly. Whenever you pursue a goal, it should be with complete focus. This means no interruptions. Only when one loves his career and is skilled at it can he truly succeed. Never rush into an investment without prior research and deliberation. With preferred shares, investors are guaranteed a dividend forever, while common stocks have variable dividends. Some regions with very low or no income taxes include the following: Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Delaware, South Dakota, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Panama, San Marino, Seychelles, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Curaçao, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Monaco, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bermuda, Kuwait, Oman, Andorra, Cayman Islands, Belize, Vanuatu, and Campione d'Italia. There is only one God who is infinite and supreme above all things. Do not replace that infinite one with finite idols. As frustrated as you may feel due to your life circumstances, do not vent it by cursing God or unnecessarily uttering his name. Greed leads to poverty. Greed inclines people to act impulsively in hopes of gaining more. The benefit of giving to the poor is so great that a beggar is actually doing the giver a favor by allowing the person to give. The more I give away, the more that comes back. Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. Give as much as you can.

Ah yes, bitch. I don’t love that word, myself. Passive aggressive. I much prefer cunt if you are looking to make a point. Much more vulgar, don’t you agree? Widens people’s eyes.

Passive-aggressive behavior is the perverse art of letting someone know you’re not happy without actually telling them.

While the differences between love and hate can be blurred and difficult to decipher at times, the dichotomy of denial and acceptance are much more distinct. One is halting and aggressively rejects all truth, while the other is more passive and at peace – welcoming whatever truth is in waiting, whether fortunate or tragic.

Everyone loves CNs on a surface level. They tend to not have long-lasting friendships with people who know them deeply. They may have friends who have known them for years, but don’t really know them. They are rarely without a partner. After they discard you, they usually move on quickly to another source—another target who will think they are so lucky to have found such a “nice guy” or “nice gal,” just like you did in the beginning.

I underestimated this guy. He plays the game well. Of course he does. He’s had years of adulthood – where everyone smiles when they hate someone and bottles up their emotions – to practice in. He’s a master of passive-aggressive-bullshit-taekwondo. And I’m more a master of the aggressive style.

Triangulation can also look like the CN telling his girlfriend about a woman at work who keeps flirting with him. This creates an illusion of him being desirable and instills the fear of her possibly being replaced someday. Emotionally healthy people do not invoke feelings of jealousy and insecurity in people they love.

It is important to know these are master manipulators who could fool just about anyone. People who haven’t experienced this will never fully understand. When others hear the stories, they wonder why the survivor stayed for so long. It all begins with the love-bombing stage, which lays the foundation and sets everything in motion.

When I consider the men (like my father) I have treated in psychotherapy, I recognize the challenge I face as a counselor. These men are in counseling due to an insistent wife, troubled child or their own addiction. They suffer a lack of connection with the people they say they love most. Chronically accused of being over controlling or emotionally absent, they feel at sea when their wives and children claim to be lonely in their presence. How can these people feel “un-loved” when (from his perspective) he has dedicated his life to their welfare? Some of these men will express their lack of vitality and emotional engagement though endless service. They are hyperaware of the moods, needs and prefer-ences of loved ones, yet their self-neglect can be profound. This text examines how a lack of secure early attachment with caregivers can result in the tendency to self-abandon while managing connections with significant others. Their anxiety and distrust of the connection of others will manifest in anxious monitoring, over-giving, passive aggressive approaches to anger and chronic worry. For them, failure to anticipate and meet the needs of others equals abandonment.

There’s a fine line between being impish and being a passive-aggressive jerk.

Don’t let the passive-aggressive person in your life ruin your day. They just want to be found out.

Passive-aggressive behavior is the art of saying one thing, meaning another.

The passive-aggressive person does not say what he thinks. He says what he thinks you want to hear.

One of the most annoying things in the world is passive-aggressive behavior. If you hate someone, tell them to their face.

The only way to make a passive-aggressive person smile is to tell them what they want to hear.

Words and actions that appear loving contrasted with demeaning and devaluing messages, whether straightforward or subtle.

To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself. In myths, nothing good comes from gloating. You have to let the gods maintain the image of their singular power. I did not yet know that nightmares know no geography, that guilt and anxiety wander borderless. It is a reflex to expect the bad with the good. I don't know what fears kept hidden only grow more fierce. I don't know that my habits of pretending are only making us worse. Maybe moving forward also meant circling back. There are always two worlds. The one that I choose and the one that I deny, which inserts itself without my permission. To change our behavior, we must change our feelings and to change our feelings, we must change our thoughts. Freedom is bout choice - about choosing compassion, humor, optimism, intuition, curiosity and self-expression. To be free is to live in the present. When you have something to prove, you are not free. When we grieve, it's not just over what happened - we grieve for what didn't happen. You can't heal what you can't feel. It's easier to hold someone or something else responsible for your pain than to take responsibility for ending your own victimhood. Our painful experiences aren't a liability, they are a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength. One of the proving grounds for our freedom is in how we relate to our loved ones. There is no forgiveness without rage. But to ask "why" is to stay in the past, to keep company with our guilt and regret. We can't control other people and we can't control the past. You can't change what happened, you can't change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.

Intermittent reinforcement in the context of a relationship is when kindness and loving acts are not given consistently, but rather intermittently. In 30 Covert Emotional Manipulation Tactics, author Adelyn Birch writes, “This is an extremely powerful and effective manipulation tactic. In fact, psychology experts consider it the most powerful motivator in existence.

Imagine if Jesus chased you around, trying to catch you and save your soul. Not just a patient passive God, but a hardworking, aggressive bloodhound. We want the criminal to confess during the trial. We want him to be exposed in the drawing room scene, surrounded by his peers. The detective is a shepherd, and we want the criminal back in the fold, returned to us. We love him. We miss him. We want to hug him. Mona

Healthy people don’t stay in unhealthy romantic relationships. Healthy people don’t ignore red flags when they’re falling for someone, they acknowledge the flags like there’s no tomorrow. Healthy people don’t let go of their boundaries because they make the person they are interested in uncomfortable, they stick to them. Healthy people aren’t passive-aggressive with their partners, they communicate effectively and affectionately. Healthy people don’t change their identity because their partner doesn’t like it, they stay true to who they are. Healthy people don’t tolerate abuse from their partner because they love them, they leave them instead

When you first begin to realize a person you have loved and fully believed loved you is a covert narcissist, it is so hard to accept because you have seen them in such a different light for so long. It is a struggle for the brain to reconcile the man or woman you thought existed with the one who is now treating you with such anger and hostility. This is called cognitive dissonance—having two competing thoughts in your mind at the same time—and is part of the confusing feelings you might be experiencing. It is both painful and exhausting.

My mom is another constant. She passed away a few years ago, but I carry all loving memories of her with me daily. She was the personification of unconditional love. I always felt fully accepted by her. I don’t ever remember her putting me down through her words or in any other way. She never

You have the most accurate barometer for truth living within you. Every time you choose to trust yourself, you are strengthening a muscle that will someday become second nature. This will trickle into every area of your life—relationships, career, everyday decisions, where to live, where to vacation, etc. You have a gold mine inside you, and the more you use it, trust it, believe in it, the more miracles you will experience. Life will take on a magical feeling. Things will seem to flow with more ease and enjoyment. Your life will unfold in a way where you feel incredibly loved because you are.

Covert narcissists seek out certain types of people. They look for people who are kind, authentic, self-reflective, nurturing, loving, and caring people with a conscience. They look for energy supplies. Without these attributes, the narcissist has no use for you, as their manipulative tactics wouldn’t work.

It is important that you know this was abuse. You thought it was love because they acted like it was; said it was. The truth is you are a survivor of abuse. You have no physical scars, so it is easy and common to underplay what you have been through, but the reality is you are a victim and survivor of psychological and emotional abuse.

If your boundaries have been injured, you may find that when you are in conflict with someone, you shut down without even being aware of it. This isolates us from love, and keeps us from taking in safe people. Kate had been quite controlled by her overprotective mother. She’d always been warned that she was sickly, would get hit by cars, and didn’t know how to care for herself well. So she fulfilled all those prophecies. Having no sense of strong boundaries, Kate had great difficulty taking risks and connecting with people. The only safe people were at her home. Finally, however, with a supportive church group, Kate set limits on her time with her mom, made friends in her singles’ group, and stayed connected to her new spiritual family. People who have trouble with boundaries may exhibit the following symptoms: blaming others, codependency, depression, difficulties with being alone, disorganization and lack of direction, extreme dependency, feelings of being let down, feelings of obligation, generalized anxiety, identity confusion, impulsiveness, inability to say no, isolation, masochism, overresponsibility and guilt, panic, passive-aggressive behavior, procrastination and inability to follow through, resentment, substance abuse and eating disorders, thought problems and obsessive-compulsive problems, underresponsibility, and victim mentality.

They may look lovely, act put-together, sound confident, say nice things, but your stomach rolls in warning. Something is off with this person. I encourage you to listen to that above all else. You now know people can put on the most convincing act and be completely different from the front they are showing. This is a very useful thing to know in life.

Most likely, the discard phase will feel like the most confusing and painful betrayal you’ve ever felt in your life. The person you have loved for years and who you believed loved you back is now saying the cruelest things—things you would have never imagined possible. They treat you like a child, “teach” you, punish you, and tell you how you should behave.

The truth is this relationship never meant the same to them as it did to you. You approached it from a genuine, goodhearted, loving place. They did not. They acted like they did, but it wasn’t genuine. The reality is they have enormous issues and have projected them onto you for years, making you think you are responsible for things that have nothing to do with you.

One reason covert narcissists are so damaging is because of cognitive dissonance. This is when you have two competing thoughts in your mind. You love your mom, spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend and thought they loved you the same. Yet when you look back, their behaviors make you question your beliefs about them. As you reflect, you begin to wonder, Could this person really have been controlling and manipulating me for years and I didn’t see it…or were things really my fault and I’m just overdramatizing my experience? You have a solid belief that has formed over years that this is a good person who cares about you, and at the same time, they are being incredibly cruel and controlling. The cognitive dissonance is dizzying and crazy-making.

A helpful thing to notice while you are trying to find answers is the fact that men and women who are with healthy people don’t enter words into online search engines such as “toxic relationships”; “energy vampires”; “mean spouses”; “confusing relationships”; “hidden abuse”; “subtle abuse”; “manipulation”; “narcissism”; “covert narcissism”; “sociopaths.” The same is true for people who are going through a divorce or a breakup where they just realized they weren’t a good match, or they fell out of love, or they find themselves wanting other things. If you are searching for answers because you feel utterly confused, you are on the right track because you’re smart. If your body feels weak and flustered around someone, it knows something is not right.

The more my own eyes began to open, the more overwhelming grief and anger I felt. With time, education, and support, this awakening turned into a growing strength and hope inside me. This will happen for you, too. Reading this book is going to be incredibly helpful for you as you begin to awaken to the truth of what you have been through. If you have lived with a covert narcissist, you have been held down for a long time. You have experienced the illusion of love, not the real thing. You have been lied to, manipulated, and controlled. You have not been heard or respected. You were devalued and brutally discarded by someone who said they cared about you, but in fact only cared about themselves. You have experienced an insanity-inducing relationship that is difficult to describe.

You have been through a tremendously difficult and painful experience. You have been treated terribly by someone who is selfish and doesn’t care about you. You have been given messages about who you are that are not true. You have been conned, manipulated, lied to, and brainwashed. You have been belittled, talked down to, and treated with disrespect. You were used. You have been emotionally and psychologically abused for years. You have been blamed for things that had nothing to do with you. You have been made to feel like things are wrong with you when they are not. You have been treated in a way that has made you doubt yourself. Someone who does not have your best interests at heart has controlled you. You have experienced the illusion of love, not the real thing. Not even close.

In the classic children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed animal becomes “real” because of a child’s love. Tamagotchis do not wait passively but demand attention and claim that without it they will not survive. With this aggressive demand for care, the question of biological aliveness almost falls away. We love what we nurture; if a Tamagotchi makes you love it, and you feel it loves you in return, it is alive enough to be a creature.

At the beginning of a relationship with a covert narcissist, you feel incredibly valued. Then you begin to experience little things, statements they make, looks they give that begin to demean and devalue you. It is all very subtle. Over a long period of time, you are given the message by someone you love and trust that you have no value, no matter what you do, no matter how kind you are, no matter how much you do for them, you will never ever be enough for them. The cold, hard truth is you do not matter to them, and unfortunately, the message you end up receiving is that you do not matter, period. The confusing thing is that while you are being devalued, you are also experiencing kindness. You receive beautiful love letters, affection, and loving gestures. You continue to believe this is a good relationship, and your partner loves you. You tell everyone around you how lucky you are to have the partner you do because you sincerely believe that. Your friends tell you they wish their husband/wife/partner was more like yours. However, though you are saying all of these things, you don’t notice your self-image and self-worth slowly declining over time. Through the years, you notice your health isn’t great, you feel depressed, you aren’t that happy, but you contribute these things to other things in life or blame yourself. The way your CN partner treats you goes unnoticed because it has become your normal. You don’t notice the consistent devaluing because it is so subtle. You don’t realize how you feel is a result of the trauma of living with an abuser.

I don't know your struggle. You don't know mine. I do know, it is NOT a competition. Respect the fact everyone is going through something and handle people with care. Remember, someone's passive response to your aggression does not mean the next person you meet won't use you as target practice. Some people are doing fine. Other folks out here broke, tired, grieving, unsure, scared, annoyed, angry, sad, depressed, lonely, and holding on to their last good nerve for dear life. Just stay in your lane, be kind when you can, live and let live. Have a good Monday!

A wise elder once said that we fight what is in front of us so we might protect what is behind us. Our enemies (the evil one, the fallen world, and the flesh in the heart of every person) are aggressively waging war against our heart, the hearts of those we love, and the hearts of those entrusted to our care. Our passivity will only increase the casualties. We must turn with increasing measure to our Father to be trained as a warrior, to become the kind of man who not only has the heart to give his life heroically but also has the skills and strength to do it effectively.

My huge generalities touched on millennials’ oversensitivity, their sense of entitlement, their insistence that they were always right despite sometimes overwhelming proof to the contrary, their failure to consider anything within its context, their joint tendencies of overreaction and passive-aggressive positivity—incidentally, all of these misdemeanors happening only sometimes, not always, and possibly exacerbated by the meds many this age had been fed since childhood by overprotective, helicopter moms and dads mapping their every move. These parents, whether tail-end baby boomers or Gen Xers, now seemed to be rebelling against their own rebelliousness because they felt they’d never really been loved by their own selfish narcissistic true-boomer parents, and who as a result were smothering their kids and not teaching them how to deal with life’s hardships about how things actually work: people might not like you, this person will not love you back, kids are really cruel, work sucks, it’s hard to be good at something, your days will be made up of failure and disappointment, you’re not talented, people suffer, people grow old, people die. And the response from Generation Wuss was to collapse into sentimentality and create victim narratives, instead of grappling with the cold realities by struggling and processing them and then moving on, better prepared to navigate an often hostile or indifferent world that doesn’t care if you exist.

Primer of Love [Lesson 14] I think the best thing I can do is to be a distraction. A husband lives and breathes his work all day long. If he comes home to more table thumping, how can the poor man ever relax? - Jackie Kennedy Lesson 14) Learn to nip lover's quarrels in the bud by distraction and humor -- without raising your voice. This does not include mastering that passive aggressive ploy called the silent treatment which is much louder and destructive than outright screaming. Nipping techniques include distraction, humor, rough sex and counting backwards from MCLV in Latin.Once you've mastered this technique, you'll spend the night neatly tucked in each other's arms -- though her ass will be a little sore. No argument about that.

A covert narcissist is in some ways a more dangerous abuser. I say this delicately. All abusers are horrific, and all abuse is deplorable; all victims of all types of abuse have been through a tremendous amount. I don’t want to diminish anyone’s pain. The point I’m trying to make is when someone is hitting you or yelling at you it is clearly abuse. Covert abuse is hidden and so subtle, it is far from obvious. Manipulative, covert tactics not only hurt you, they also chip away at your identity, your self-worth, and make you feel like this is all your fault. Covert emotional and psychological abuse is what happens in cults. Leaders who make you feel loved can also talk you into committing suicide. These people are powerful. Do not diminish what you have experienced. You have been controlled and manipulated for years.

One of the things necessary for healing to take place is recognizing the truth of the relationship and that person. You experienced so many covert lies; it is incredibly helpful to be able to see clearly. The truth is you were in love with an illusion, with the person they portrayed themselves to be. At first, this is an excruciating realization. You will doubt and wonder if you are overinflating this, if they really are innocent and you’re just scared to move on. You will have a ton of self-doubt. Eventually, with education and support, you will see that your hunch, your inner knowing, is on target. In time the truth that you were in love with an illusion will feel like a relief because truth does set you free. That full realization will validate years of confusion you felt, years of unexplained exhaustion and health issues, years of sexual confusion, years of feeling less than, and years of unhappiness, along with anxiety. You lived in an unsafe environment, were demeaned and devalued for years (decades for some of you; entire childhoods for many of you). You did not experience unconditional love; you did not live with someone who treated you with respect, who cherished you, treasured you, and felt so lucky to have you in their life. No, the truth is you experienced a counterfeit. If this was a spouse or romantic partner, this awakening to the truth is excruciating because you did love that person with all your heart. You were dedicated. You were in 100%. The truth is that you were the lifeforce in the relationship. When you’re really honest with yourself, when you look back with clear vision, that life, that love you gave and felt, was never fully reciprocated.

Sometimes, however, unmet attachment needs have a positive impact on future relationships, if those later friendships are experienced as second chances. Eager to love and be loved, eager to meet those basic needs for caring and affiliation, children can make up for those unmet needs by being outgoing, having strong leadership qualities, and becoming devoted friends. So insecurely attached children are not doomed to a life of desperation, withdrawal, clinging, aggression, or insecurity, but they may need some additional help negotiating the complex terrain of the social world. The deeper a child’s unmet need, the harder it may be to ever have it filled later on. Expecting rejection, neglect, or smothering, the child may respond to peers with passivity, withdrawal, or aggression. Children who are afraid to assert their own needs may follow along with whatever the friend or the group says.

Putting the Other Person Down The manipulator has other options available to help them reach their ultimate goal. One tactic that can be quite effective consists in putting their target down on a regular basis. However, this isn’t done through insults or threats. This covert technique is very useful because the manipulator uses it in a very subtle manner. This can be seen in the abundant use of sarcasm or perhaps passive-aggressive attacks. For example, the manipulator may say, “don’t we look lovely today” when it is clear that the victim is not at their best. A passive-aggressive approach might be something like, “I’m just going to have to take you in for a good scrubbing and a haircut.” It might say in a playful tone, but the subtext is far more sinister. As for the target, they may not realize that they are the subject of manipulation. They may feel terrible as a result of the interaction, but may not realize that they are being deliberately acted upon by the manipulator. Consequently, the target is left to wonder is what the motives might be for being treated in such a manner. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter, at least not to the manipulator. What does matter is that the target is left feeling vulnerable and exposed. This is where the manipulator can make the most of their efforts. When a victim is left feeling defenseless, the manipulator is in a prime position to take advantage ([27]). On the contrary, if a person feels safe and empowered, the likelihood of them being manipulated is quite low. That’s why manipulators prey upon people with low self-esteem. If a person has high self-esteem, then they won’t be easily manipulated. If anything, put-downs and insults will spark a defensive reaction. That would leave the manipulator with no choice but to move on to the next victim.

... - the Age of Anxiety, dating from around August 1945, is twenty three years old this very month - and her daily life is in essence a sandbagging operation against its seas and their tides. But this is worry and it is a little different from anxirty: Particular rather than pervasive, it arrives unannounced, without anxiety's harbingers, dread and forboding, the fearful tea in which we steep awaiting oblivion. Instead, worry turns up on the door step, the overbearing, passive aggressive out-of-town relative who insists he "won't be any trouble" even as he displaces every known routine and custom of the house for days and weeks on end; as he expropriates the sofa, the bathroom, the contents of the liqour cabinet and cigarette carton, and monopolises the telephone and the ear of anyone within shouting distance. Worry displaces the entire mood, the entire ethos of the house - even if that mood hitherto consisted largely of anxiety - and replaces it with something more substantive, more real than mere mood. You would be mightily pleased to have ordinary anxiety back in residence, for under worry there is no peace whatsoever, not even the peace of cynicism, pessimism or despair. Even when the rest of the world is abed, worry is awake, plundering the kitchen cupboards, raiding the refrigerator, playing the hifi, watching the late show until the national anthem closes the broadcast day; then noisily treading the halls, standing in your bedroom door, wondering if by any chance you are still up (knowing that of course you are), breathing and casting its shadow upon you, the silhouette of its slope-shouldered hulk and towering black wings.

But here’s the tricky part about compassion and connecting: We can’t call just anyone. It’s not that simple. I have a lot of good friends, but there are only a handful of people whom I can count on to practice compassion when I’m in the dark shame place. If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm. We want solid connection in a situation like this—something akin to a sturdy tree firmly planted in the ground. We definitely want to avoid the following: The friend who hears the story and actually feels shame for you. She gasps and confirms how horrified you should be. Then there is awkward silence. Then you have to make her feel better. The friend who responds with sympathy (I feel so sorry for you) rather than empathy (I get it, I feel with you, and I’ve been there). If you want to see a shame cyclone turn deadly, throw one of these at it: “Oh, you poor thing.” Or, the incredibly passive-aggressive southern version of sympathy: “Bless your heart.” The friend who needs you to be the pillar of worthiness and authenticity. She can’t help because she’s too disappointed in your imperfections. You’ve let her down. The friend who is so uncomfortable with vulnerability that she scolds you: “How did you let this happen? What were you thinking?” Or she looks for someone to blame: “Who was that guy? We’ll kick his ass.” The friend who is all about making it better and, out of her own discomfort, refuses to acknowledge that you can actually be crazy and make terrible choices: “You’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad. You rock. You’re perfect. Everyone loves you.” The friend who confuses “connection” with the opportunity to one-up you: “That’s nothing. Listen to what happened to me one time!

Here are two examples of just how strange and unique humans can be when they go about harming one another and caring for one another. The first example involves, well, my wife. So we’re in the minivan, our kids in the back, my wife driving. And this complete jerk cuts us off, almost causing an accident, and in a way that makes it clear that it wasn’t distractedness on his part, just sheer selfishness. My wife honks at him, and he flips us off. We’re livid, incensed. Asshole-where’s-the-cops-when-you-need-them, etc. And suddenly my wife announces that we’re going to follow him, make him a little nervous. I’m still furious, but this doesn’t strike me as the most prudent thing in the world. Nonetheless, my wife starts trailing him, right on his rear. After a few minutes the guy’s driving evasively, but my wife’s on him. Finally both cars stop at a red light, one that we know is a long one. Another car is stopped in front of the villain. He’s not going anywhere. Suddenly my wife grabs something from the front seat divider, opens her door, and says, “Now he’s going to be sorry.” I rouse myself feebly—“Uh, honey, do you really think this is such a goo—” But she’s out of the car, starts pounding on his window. I hurry over just in time to hear my wife say, “If you could do something that mean to another person, you probably need this,” in a venomous voice. She then flings something in the window. She returns to the car triumphant, just glorious. “What did you throw in there!?” She’s not talking yet. The light turns green, there’s no one behind us, and we just sit there. The thug’s car starts to blink a very sensible turn indicator, makes a slow turn, and heads down a side street into the dark at, like, five miles an hour. If it’s possible for a car to look ashamed, this car was doing it. “Honey, what did you throw in there, tell me?” She allows herself a small, malicious grin. “A grape lollipop.” I was awed by her savage passive-aggressiveness—“You’re such a mean, awful human that something must have gone really wrong in your childhood, and maybe this lollipop will help correct that just a little.” That guy was going to think twice before screwing with us again. I swelled with pride and love.

The alternative to violence is nonviolent resistance. This method was made famous in our generation by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who used it to free India from the domination of the British empire. Five points can be made concerning nonviolence as a method in bringing about better racial conditions. First, this is not a method for cowards; it does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests as the person who uses violence. His method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent. But his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually; it is nonaggressive physically but dynamically aggressive spiritually. A second point is that nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness. A third characteristic of this method is that the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not just the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is not between races. As I like to say to the people in Montgomery, Alabama: ‘The tension in this city is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may happen to be unjust.’ A fourth point that must be brought out concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.

No community should have better relationships than the local church. After all, our faith is based on a Savior who reconciled the world to Himself, forgiving our sin. What could we possibly hold against one another? And yet often the local church is home to some of the most fractious, passive-aggressive relationships out there. We have a Savior who came full of grace and truth, yet church leaders will often swing to either extreme: all grace, so issues are never dealt with, or all truth, so people get hurt. Many people love the mission of the organization they work for; they just can’t stand the personal politics and dysfunction.

THE VICTIM AND THE PREDATOR The victim and predator act as the two basic archetypes of the ego. The victim represents the passive aspect, while the predator represents the aggressive side of human conditioning. Essentially, the movement of ego is various patterns of passive-aggressive behavior. It is the unconscious energy of passive-aggressive behavior that inspires the activities of worry, anticipation, and regret that also play out as responses of fight, flight, or freeze. Whether spending more time in one aspect or ping-ponging back and forth, the greater purpose of unconsciousness is to help build up emotional momentum to inspire an awakening of renewed perspective. While there are many paths and approaches to waking up from the incubation of ego, it is common when not rooted in the most heart-centered approach to transform the victim into a spiritual victim and exchange the predator for a spiritual predator. This is why it is so essential to always remember how everything is here to help you. When life is on your side, even when appearing as characters that seem to undermine your radiance and joy, you are able to be in communion with the choices always available to you that no person, place, or thing can ever take away.

The return journey was nothing like the arrival. Bea couldn’t wait to get out of the car. She remembered feeling like this before, with Brandon, on several occasions. It was an excruciating need to escape the confinement of being in too close a proximity to passive-aggressive behaviour. She hated conflict, after a row, it would take her hours, perhaps days to become fully relaxed and herself again. She became anxious, not entirely brought on by his coldness, but by old memories, and the way her body would instinctively react to them. It wasn’t a feeling that she wanted to experience with someone new, of whom she’d told his sister only a short time ago that she was falling in love with.

What she didn’t know was one of the worst things you can do is take a CN to therapy, especially in the beginning. Here is why: it’s like a training ground for them. When the counselor tells them what they are doing wrong, how they are hurting you, it shows them which part of their mask is cracking. They learn what you want, and what they need to do to impress you as well as others. They do what the therapist suggests, impressing the target and the therapist. Their heart isn’t in it, but they act like it is. The therapy sessions make you feel even more love and respect for them, once again sealing their image as the perfect mate, ensuring your love and loyalty for a very long time.

With CNs, it is all about them, but they know how to appear like it isn’t. For example, they despise taking care of you when you are sick or recovering from surgery or an injury. They won’t tell you that, but you feel it. They let you know through passive-aggressive ways. To family and friends, they will tell stories of how much they feel for you and appear to be taking exceptional care of you. They will come across as humble and will be sure to paint a picture of being a great caretaker. People around you will think how lucky you are to have someone so tender and loving by your side. The CN might even do things that look like they are taking care of you, but you will feel their resentment and will find yourself feeling alone and unsupported even though they are doing things that appear to be helpful.

This conditions you to keep trying to please them in order to get the reward of love. It brings you to a place where you lower your standards so much that you become grateful for mediocre treatment that you never would have tolerated when you first met them. You end up believing you don’t deserve any better and that you are not worthy of love and affection. Or you think this is just what happens in marriages. In dating situations, CNs will seem uncertain about you and other times they will express how you are the only one for them. You never know where you stand with them.

Being passive-aggressive is like a broken record. It just plays itself all day long.

Sometimes you just have to be the bigger person and let someone know that they are being jerks.

The important thing is to be aware of your needs and wants so you can go about getting them met with full consciousness. If you pretend that you have no needs for sex, affection, or emotional support, you are lying to yourself, and you will wind up trying to get your needs met by indirect methods that won’t work very well. People who do this often get called manipulative or passive-aggressive —terms, in our opinion, for people who have not figured out how to get their needs met in a straightforward manner. When you figure out what you want and ask for it, you’ll be surprised how often the answer is yes. Think how relieved you might feel when someone asks you for support or a hug or otherwise lets you know how to please them. Think of how competent and just plain good you feel when you can truly help another person, whether it’s by offering a shoulder to cry on or that just-right stimulation that leads to the perfect orgasm. Give your friends the opportunity to feel good by fulfilling you, too.

I spoke with one woman who would watch her narcissistic mom observe other people's insecurities and shower them with compliments and praise in those areas. Those "targets" felt loved, seen, heard. Her mom didn't care about these people.

We need safety, care, deep reflection and authentic approval for the duration of our childhood. If these needs are unmet, we suffer in relationships as adults. We need lots of social connections, many of which need to be close. Some can be more superficial. We need to matter to others, be approved of and be held in high esteem by others. We need one significant, permanent and loving partner. We will have a deep craving and sense of something missing – even if we force these feelings away from our consciousness

Psychologically, we die when we stop growing. Marriage, has been said before, is the last (and best) opportunity to grow up...We need constant development in our emotional, intellectual and spiritual lives in order for us to feel happy and satisfied with ourselves. Whether it is your body or your love life, you need to devote energy to improving and cultivating the things that are important to you. Otherwise, they will slide backward. In couples, this need for growth passes to the relationship itself - the connection between the two people must grow and develop in order to remain healthy. 

victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through

In the short term, passive aggressive behaviors can be more convenient than confrontation and generally require less skill than assertiveness. They allow a person to exact revenge from behind the safety of plausible excuses ... So, what’s not to love? Truth be told, while momentarily satisfying or briefly convenient, in the long run, passive aggressive behavior is even more destructive to interpersonal relationships than aggression. Over time, virtually all relationships with a person who is passive aggressive become confusing, destructive, and dysfunctional.

But it isn’t the fun of DIY invention, urban exploration, physical danger, and civil disorder that the Z-Boys enjoyed in 1976. It is fun within serious limits, and for all of its thrills it is (by contrast) scripted. And rather obedient. The fact that there are public skateparks and high-performance skateboards signals progress: America has embraced this sport, as it did bicycles in the nineteenth century. Towns want to make skating safe and acceptable. The economy has more opportunity to grow. America is better off for all of this. Yet such government and commercial intervention in a sport that was born of radical liberty means that the fun itself has changed; it has become mediated. For the skaters who take pride in their flashy store-bought equipment have already missed the Z-Boys’ joke: Skating is a guerrilla activity. It’s the fun of beating, not supporting, the system. P. T. Barnum said it himself: all of business is humbug. How else could business turn a profit, if it didn’t trick you with advertising? If it didn’t hook you with its product? This particular brand of humbug was perfected in the late 1960s, when merchandise was developed and marketed and sold to make Americans feel like rebels. Now, as then, customers always pay for this privilege, and purveyors keep it safe (and generally clean) to curb their liability. They can’t afford customers taking real risks. Plus it’s bad for business to encourage real rebellion. And yet, marketers know Americans love fun—they have known this for centuries. And they know that Americans, especially kids, crave autonomy and participation, so they simulate the DIY experience at franchises like the Build-A-Bear “workshops,” where kids construct teddy bears from limited options, or “DIY” restaurants, where customers pay to grill their own steaks, fry their own pancakes, make their own Bloody Marys. These pay-to-play stores and restaurants are, in a sense, more active, more “fun,” than their traditional competition: that’s their big selling point. But in both cases (as Barnum knew) the joke is still on you: the personalized bear is a standardized mishmash, the personalized food is often inedible. As Las Vegas knows, the house always wins. In the history of radical American fun, pleasure comes from resistance, risk, and participation—the same virtues celebrated in the “Port Huron Statement” and the Digger Papers, in the flapper’s slang and the Pinkster Ode. In the history of commercial amusement, most pleasures for sale are by necessity passive. They curtail creativity and they limit participation (as they do, say, in a laser-tag arena) to a narrow range of calculated surprises, often amplified by dazzling technology. To this extent, TV and computer screens, from the tiny to the colossal, have become the scourge of American fun. The ubiquity of TV screens in public spaces (even in taxicabs and elevators) shows that such viewing isn’t amusement at all but rather an aggressive, ubiquitous distraction. Although a punky insurgency of heedless satire has stung the airwaves in recent decades—from equal-opportunity offenders like The Simpsons and South Park to Comedy Central’s rabble-rousing pundits, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—the prevailing “fun” of commercial amusement puts minimal demands on citizens, besides their time and money. TV’s inherent ease seems to be its appeal, but it also sends a sobering, Jumbotron-sized message about the health of the public sphere.

The passive aggressive objectifies the object of their desire. You are to be used as a means to an end. Your only value is to feed his/her own emotional needs. You are not seen as a person with feelings and needs but as an extension of him/her. They care for you the way they care for a favorite chair. You are there for their comfort and pleasure and are of use as long as you fill their needs. The passive aggressive wants the attention and attachment that comes with loving someone but fears losing his/her independence and sense of self to his/her spouse. They want love and attention but avoid it out of fear of it destroying them. You have to be kept at arms length and if there is an emotional attachment it is tenuous at best. The only hope for change in the way they deal with relationship issues is if they are able to acknowledge their shortcomings and contributions . . . Facing childhood wounds, looking internally instead of externally to find the cause of problems in their life will help them form deeper emotional attachments with a higher sense of emotional safety.

Awakening powerfully from your brainwashed, love-bombed, gaslit slumber can transform you into a wonderful healer, a devoted spiritual and self-care practitioner, an energy master, and someone who sees beyond the veil in all things and all matters, with all people.

Dawn’s body knew she was not being loved and that she was not emotionally safe with Brad, so her body shut down. She lost all desire for sex.

We don’t always yell at people who say something we don’t like to hear, but we often forget how many ways we can make it very expensive for people to be honest with us. When we love someone, it’s hard even under the best of circumstances to say something that will make them unhappy. It requires a lot of vulnerability and courage to do that. We expose ourselves emotionally, because our partners’ feelings affect ours. When that vulnerability is met with defensiveness, annoyance, passive-aggressiveness, silence, anger or resentment, honesty becomes damn near impossible.

Over a long period of time, you are given the message by someone you love and trust that you have no value, no matter what you do, no matter how kind you are, no matter how much you do for them, you will never ever be enough for them.

Most likely, the discard phase will feel like the most confusing and painful betrayal you’ve ever felt in your life. The person you have loved for years and who you believed loved you back is now saying the cruelest things—things you would have never imagined possible.

A CN will say loving and nice things to you, compliment you, make you dinner, buy you gifts, but only on a random basis. Mixed in with this nice, loving behavior that keeps you thinking this is the person you fell in love with is also belittling that keeps you feeling weak and small, silent treatment that makes you think you’ve done something wrong, moodiness that makes you believe you are the source of their unhappiness, and several other means of making you feel insecure and not good enough.

They naturally want to keep that good feeling of being loved by their mom or dad, so they learn early on how they must behave to be treated with love. This sets them up for a life that is filled with the pressure of never being less than perfect in anything they do. It has been instilled in them that this is how they get people to love them and to keep their love and attention. They also don’t expect to be unconditionally loved, so often they choose partners who don’t treat them with consistent, pure love. They never feel good enough and can live with underlying despair and unhappiness for a long time.

How to Communicate If You’re a Secure Attachment When: You Want to Enforce a Boundary That Was Violated “I am not sure if it was intentional, but I want to be very clear that the boundary I set has been violated again. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I need you to know that this is a hard boundary for me. I will do my part to remind you and see my needs through in this area, but if this remains a habit I am definitely going to have to protect myself in this area by [insert what you’ll have to do as a consequence, not as a punishment. For example, ‘I will have to take some space in our relationship,’ ‘I will have to see you less often,’ ‘I will only be able to communicate via phone until I see that an awareness of the boundary is demonstrated in person’].” Obviously, this should depend on the nature of the boundary. If the boundary violated is something that makes you feel unsafe, there should be no further conversation except to leave the relationship. You Are Being Stonewalled “I can feel that you are shutting me out. I want to respect the space and time you may need to process right now. At the same time, if you stay in a mode of stonewalling me forever, we aren’t going to get the opportunity to get to the root of the problem and work through it together. It is my intention to try to understand you and hear what you have to say (as long as you can speak respectfully) so that I can meet your needs. I would love it if you could hear me out too. Please think about this and let me know a time when you might be ready to openly communicate about this. I promise to be respectful with my words and I ask that you do the same.” Someone Is Being Critical “You may not mean for it to happen this way, but your words are really hurting me. I’m interpreting the way you are communicating to mean that I am not good enough. If you are open to sharing more vulnerably and clearly about what you need from me, that would be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, I do not want to hold space any longer for this type of communication, as I feel it is counterproductive.” Someone Is Being Passive-Aggressive “I am not sure if it was your intention, but that comment felt very passive-aggressive. If there is something specific you’d like to speak about directly that is bothering you, please know that you can do so and I am happy to hold space for that. What I will not hold space for, however, are passive-aggressive remarks that can be hurtful and counterproductive.” You Need to Be Heard by a Loved One “This conversation matters a lot to me, and I want to have it when you’re fully present. Are you okay to finish up what you’re doing and then turn and face me so that we can go through this together? It will take about [insert number of minutes]. If that doesn’t work right now, can you please let me know when it will?” These scripts aren’t meant to be used verbatim, but they illustrate some helpful tools for communication.

Those of us who have not been allowed to be openly angry have often reverted to passive aggressiveness to express our upset without being punished.

Abuse is an attempt to get rid of one’s own negative or unwanted energy and steal someone else’s positive energy. The abuser’s inner self thinks, “Why should I hang on to this bad-feeling energy when someone else can carry it for me?” Rape, shaming statements, passive-aggressive behavior, and other types of dysfunction punch holes in another’s emotional energetic layer so the undesirable feelings can be deposited into the other person’s energetic system. Meanwhile, through those same holes, the abuser can also extract energy from the victim. “Why not help myself to what I want? Look at all this beautiful energy!” thinks the abuser’s inner self. And out goes the shocked victim’s resources—the very resources he or she needs to respond to the abuse. The emotional effects of abuse are often a factor in illnesses, mood disorders, or any extreme condition

God, at his deepest level, is a lover (1 John 4:8). He is relationally oriented and relationally driven. He desires connection with us from womb to tomb: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3). God’s loving nature isn’t passive. It’s active. Love multiplies itself. God the relational Lover is also God the aggressive Creator. He wants to fill up his universe with beings who care for him—and for each other.

Loving, healthy, life-giving relationships require certain essential traits, such as putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, showing respect, really listening, caring about the other person’s feelings, being self-reflective, and wanting the best for the

People didn’t go around confronting his mom. The woman was intimidating as hell. She had a soft side, but reserved it for her family—the people she loved. The rest of the world got icy, assessing glares and passive aggression glazed over with elegance. And people put up with it because of who she was. But Hannah hadn’t. And it had been damn entertaining to watch.

Understanding Your Emotions Our emotions are wonderful tools. Being in touch with them allows us to experience life to the fullest. When we are aware, our emotions can teach us a variety of things. They can show us what we like and don't like, what's really important to us as opposed to what isn't, and they can provide a wonderful guide to discovering the work we are meant to do in the Dream of the Planet. For instance, when you are faced with an important decision and you are unsure of which course of action to take, one thing that can help you is to focus on how you feel about the options presented instead of being consumed with the stories your narrators are spouting. As you get to know yourself better, this type of discernment becomes a very effective tool for recognizing what you really want. In popular vernacular, this would be referred to as “listening to your heart instead of your head,” but it's really the Mastery of Self in action. Your emotions can also show you where you are still holding on to attachments and reveal any remaining fears and self-doubts from past domestications that you haven't yet released. Sometimes you won't even realize you have an attachment until an event triggers an emotional reaction in you. Anytime you feel a burst of anger, frustration, guilt, shame, or any number of other negative emotions, that's your cue to look within and see what is happening. Ask yourself questions like, Where is this feeling coming from? When have I experienced this before? What is the source of this feeling? Once you are aware of what's happening inside, you are able to calm yourself and stop the downward spiral before you lose control. While anger is a common emotional reaction, it is by no means the only one. Shutting down, being defensive or passive-aggressiveness, feeling guilty or remorseful, or any unhelpful reactions in between are additional ways in which you can react emotionally and lose awareness of your Authentic Self. Whether your tendency is to be consumed with anger and rage or to sulk silently in the corner, the underlying cause of all of these emotional reactions is always fear, the tool of conditional love. When fear overtakes you and sparks an emotional reaction, your attachments and domestications are now running the show, and unconditional love is cast to the wayside. Becoming a Master of Self is about noticing when you begin to have an emotional reaction and asking yourself immediately, “What am I afraid of?” The quicker you can identify and release the fear, the faster you become re-grounded in the Authentic Self. Any emotional reaction you experience is yours, not anyone else's, and consequently it is here to teach you something about yourself. The Master of Self sees this as an opportunity to learn and grow, and in doing so you can deal with these emotions before they lead to an outburst that causes harm to your Personal Dream or the Dream of the Planet.

A covert narcissist can appear to be a loving partner for a long time. Their behavior often becomes more aggressive at the end of the relationship. This is when the narcissistic traits listed in the DSM-IV become more obvious; the sense of entitlement and superiority, the arrogant attitude, becomes more pronounced. They will still be covert with others, but the survivor will see and experience more of the overt traits coming to the surface. Their mask cracks when you, the survivor, begin trusting yourself. The stronger you become, the less they can control and manipulate you. When this happens, they no longer need you. You are no longer supplying them. This is when you feel their rage more than ever. This is when their behavior turns aggressive, cruel, and shocking.

Covert narcissists are not capable of real love. It was an illusion. That is an incredibly painful and disheartening realization.

Intermittent reinforcement is a conditioning behavior where CNs set the rules. Their love is inconsistent and on their terms. This leaves you feeling unstable and longing for their love and attention. The relationship becomes a mixture of subtle cruelty and periodic affection. They will woo you and withhold from you. This conditions you to keep trying to please them in order to get the reward of love. It brings you to a place where you lower your standards so much that you become grateful for mediocre treatment that you never would have tolerated when you first met them. You end up believing you don’t deserve any better and that you are not worthy of love and affection.

When you start out working with or for these people, they seem like the dream boss, coworker, or partner. You feel incredibly lucky to be working with them. They compliment you and make you feel valued and needed. They are often described as charismatic people, the boss or employee everyone likes. CN bosses are easy to work with, and many victims feel relieved to have a boss like them after experiencing difficult employers in the past. However, they are often chameleons who mirror the people they are around, so everyone feels like they are seen by them and understood. They win people’s trust quickly. They are charming, but not in a creepy-player kind of way. They seem like the real deal. Easygoing, smart, not a big ego, endearing—these are words I have heard to describe this type of person. As in romantic relationships, a CN boss will take you through the three stages. They will love bomb you in the beginning. It will feel easy, exciting, fun. They might make grandiose promises of your future with the company, your financial success, and your involvement in projects you love. You will feel excited and so lucky to have gotten this opportunity, telling your friends and family all the glowing stories of this new boss. Sometimes this person becomes a trusted friend.

Everyone around her loved him and was constantly confirming how lucky she was. The trap of the powerful love-bombing stage had been laid, so she trusted the way he appeared more than things she was feeling deep inside. She excused things he did that were unkind and disrespectful, believing he loved and cared about her. Her body knew better and was trying to warn her. She was feeling stressed and trapped for a reason. She had difficulty trusting him because her body knew he could not be trusted. She didn’t realize how much she could trust herself.

Here are a few of the defenses that many people carry inside, sometimes for the rest of their lives: AVOIDANCE. Avoidance is usually about fear. Emotions and relationships have hurt me, so I will minimize emotions and relationships. People who are avoidant feel most comfortable when the conversation stays superficial. They often overintellectualize life. They retreat to work. They try to be self-sufficient and pretend they don’t have needs. Often, they have not had close relationships as kids and have lowered their expectations about future relationships. A person who fears intimacy in this way may be always on the move, preferring not to be rooted or pinned down; they are sometimes relentlessly positive so as not to display vulnerability; they engineer things so they are the strong one others turn to but never the one who turns to others. DEPRIVATION. Some children are raised around people so self-centered that the needs of the child are ignored. The child naturally learns the lesson “My needs won’t be met.” It is a short step from that to “I’m not worthy.” A person haunted by a deprivation schema can experience feelings of worthlessness throughout life no matter how many amazing successes they achieve. They often carry the idea that there is some flaw deep within themselves, that if other people knew it, it would cause them to run away. When they are treated badly, they are likely to blame themselves. (Of course he had an affair; I’m a pathetic wife.) They sometimes grapple with a fierce inner critic. OVERREACTIVITY. Children who are abused and threatened grow up in a dangerous world. The person afflicted in this way often has, deep in their nervous system, a hyperactive threat-detection system. Such people interpret ambivalent situations as menacing situations, neutral faces as angry faces. They are trapped in a hyperactive mind theater in which the world is dangerous. They overreact to things and fail to understand why they did so. PASSIVE AGGRESSION. Passive aggression is the indirect expression of anger. It is a way to sidestep direct communication by a person who fears conflict, who has trouble dealing with negative emotions. It’s possible such a person grew up in a home where anger was terrifying, where emotions were not addressed, or where love was conditional and the lesson was that direct communication would lead to the withdrawal of affection. Passive aggression is thus a form of emotional manipulation, a subtle power play to extract guilt and affection. A husband with passive-aggressive tendencies may encourage his wife to go on a weekend outing with her friends, feeling himself to be a selfless martyr, but then get angry with her in the days before the outing and through the weekend. He’ll let her know by various acts of withdrawal and self-pity that she’s a selfish person and he’s an innocent victim. —

Everything" I can be an asshole of the grandest kind I can withhold like it's going out of style I can be the moodiest, baby and you've never met anyone Who's as negative as I am sometimes I am the wisest woman you've ever met I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen and you've never met anyone Who's as positive as I am sometimes You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can't relate And you're still here I blame everyone else, not my own partaking My passive aggressiveness can be devastating I'm terrified and mistrusting and you've never met anyone Who's as closed down as I am sometimes You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can't relate And you're still here What I resist persists and speaks louder than I know What I resist you love, no matter how low or high I go I am the funniest woman that you've ever known I am the dullest woman that you've ever known I'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known and you've never met anyone Who's as everything as I am sometimes You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can't relate And you're still here (You see everything, you see every part) And you're still here (You see all my light and you love my dark) And you're still here (You dig everything of which I'm ashamed) (There's not anything to which you can't relate) And you're still here Alanis Morissette So Called Chaos (2004)

I wanted to shout, but instead I did the dishes. In a way that was more noisy than usual.

Returning to work boosted her self-esteem and changed the passive-aggressive rage and depression that had developed as a consequence of her isolation and stagnation. Making this decision and finding ways to realize it was not an easy process, however. Her husband and children were often disgruntled when her independence forced them to accept more household responsibility. In the long run, everyone benefited. And it goes without saying that these changes boosted her self-esteem in ways that showed her how self-love made it possible to extend herself in a constructive way to others. She was happier and so were those around her.

When I say I loved Anthony, I don't mean this beautifully pleasant, supportive togetherness, laughing and being there for each other, helping each other through all the hardships of life like in the movies. I mean love the way two dysfunctional street kids running amok in Hollywood loved. Inseparable, down to party, ultimately having each other's backs, but hurtful to each other. Betrayal, fear, passive-aggressive emotional blackmail. I have never felt more hurt by anybody than Anthony, and we have spent huge swaths of our friendship in states of distrust and anger. Is that what having a brother is like? It's what I know.

A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat. The victim compels others to come to his rescue or to behave as he wishes by holding them hostage to the prospect of his own further illness/meltdown/mental dissolution, or simply by threatening to make their lives so miserable that they do what he wants. Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work.

One of the most comprehensive biblical discussions of anger is found in Ephesians 4. The Apostle Paul suggests ways to put off the old style of life and put on the new (vv.22-24). We are to put away falsehoods and speak only truth (v.25), to put away stealing and work honestly (v.28), to avoid unwholesome talk, while speaking only things that build others up (v.29). He tells us to develop new ways of handling our anger: “In your anger do not sin,” that is, don’t become aggressive (v.26a). “Never let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold;” that is, don’t be passive (vv.26b, 27). After dealing with other ways to put off the old way of life, Paul returns to the topic of how to effectively handle anger and frustrations effectively: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (vv.31, 32). These words describe the entire range of passive-aggressive responses that occur when we suppress or repress anger: thumos (the outburst of anger that occurs when too many resentments have built up), orge (chronic anger and ill-temper), krauge (brawling or anger that makes sure everyone hears the grievance), pikria (bitterness, the emotional state that comes when we nurse grudges), blas-phemia (slanderous, abusive speech toward an irritating party), pasa kakis (Paul’s catch-all term for any malicious feeling not already mentioned). We are to learn how to handle frustrations without being passive, aggressive or passive-aggressive.

You are the most passive son of a bitch,” Cynthie said. “No wonder she never slept with you. You probably never asked her.” “Thank you,” David said. “That’s great coming from somebody who got turned down after putting out for nine months. Don’t see that being aggressive worked for you, sweetheart. Maybe you’re the one with the heat problem.” “Listen, you,” Cynthie said. “I have a perfect body and I am great in bed.” “You know, I doubt it,” David said, coming around his desk. “Don’t bother to open your jacket again. I already saw that commercial.” Cynthie gaped at him. “You bastard.” “Well, hell, Cynthie, what do you expect? You come in here screaming at me and calling me names because your ex took the woman I love home to meet his mother. If you want to stop it, go get him. Unbutton your jacket at him.” David stopped and closed his eyes. “Look, I’m tired, I’m miserable, and I haven’t had sex in three months. Take your perfect body back to the guy who was having perfect sex with you. I have work to do.