Understanding Passive-Aggressive Men

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Reka Morvay. I'm a psychologist, and I'm going to talk to you today about understanding passive-aggressive men. The definition of passive-aggressive is somebody who uses the results of a lack of action to achieve a desired result. This is really a manipulative tactic, and most often, it is conscious -- at least, partly. What do I mean by lack of activity? For example, somebody who lets you deal with the fallout and the negative results of being forgetful or somebody who refuses to do something, and then let you deal with the negative effects of that. Being passive-aggressive is very difficult to deal with sometimes, and sometimes it is even more difficult to deal with than somebody who's overly controlling or overly aggressive because this is a very sneaky tactic to try to get you to do what they want you to do. Forgetting things, lying, making excuses, always being late, doing things badly -- these are all tactics that are passive-aggressive and some...have some very negative consequences that you will have to deal with instead of the person who is doing them. So all of these are passive-aggressive tactics -- manipulative tactics. The way to deal with somebody who's using passive-aggressive tactics on you is to draw very, very clear boundaries for what you are willing to put up with and what you are not willing to put up with. And then make sure that you have clearly defined consequences and that you actually follow through on those consequences to make sure that the person using these tactics cannot use them on you."