was listening to the radio this morning, and they started talking about passive aggressive men and if all men are passive aggressive. there's an article (link below) regarding this, and a lot of things that were noted are true. what are your thoughts? http://thehoopla.com.au/meet-bitch-makers/ MEET THE BITCH-MAKERS By Nikki McWatters September 10, 2012 Don’t get me wrong. I love men. As a young rock and roll groupie I loved lots of men. But over a lifetime of studying men from every angle, I have noticed a very common behavioural peculiarity. Men tend to do the opposite of what I want them to do. If I ask them to be faithful, they cheat on me. If I ask them to pick up wet towels, they leave wet clothes on the floor beside the wet towels. If I ask them to pick up a bottle of Shiraz on the way home from work, they arrive with Chardonnay! It sounds like nit-picking but over time these small acts of rebellion dressed up as forgetfulness or stupidity begin to drive a woman insane. Literally. It’s the ‘leaving-the-toilet-seat-up-on-purpose’ syndrome. Now, there is science to back up my claim that many men suffer from the disorder known to behavioural scientists as ‘oppositional defiance disorder’. It’s commonly diagnosed during childhood but I’ve been witnessing it in the significant men in my life for years. And as a professional dispute resolution practitioner, I’m starting to notice it in the office as well. Jerry Seinfeld once made the claim that ‘men are really nothing more than extremely advanced dogs’ and jokes aside, science has proven that he’s kind of right. Those small acts of defiance against a wife/partner are the result of early programming. It’s a form of passive aggression. A sneaky way of ‘paying back’ the controlling mother figure. In the US, three scientists by the names of Baker, Chartrand and Fitzsimons (the latter two being a married couple) conducted a study which determined that many men subconsciously rebel against any request or demand by the one person they perceive as ‘controlling’ or the replacement for a dominant parent from childhood. In the study, participants were asked to list the significant people in their life and rate them on a scale from submissive to controlling. When given simple requests, the psychologists flashed name cards that were undetectable to the subjects. It showed that the men in the study subconsciously resisted and indeed often did the exact opposite of requests by the person they most identified as controlling. In many cases this was the wife, sometimes a female boss. Although this phenomenon was witnessed occurring in both men and women it was overwhelmingly more common in men. This is passive aggression under the microscope. In my dispute resolution sessions with couples, passive aggression underlies almost every problem with communication that is vital to a healthy relationship. Key warning signs are… 1. A reluctance or failure to keep promises. 2. Sabotaging the efforts of others. 3. Blaming others for personal failures. 4. Feeling underappreciated despite not doing their fair share. 5. Agreeing to tasks and then postponing them or doing an inadequate job so that someone else has to fix/complete them. 6. Cannot handle any form of criticism. 7. Has difficulty buying gifts for people. 8. When confronted accuses the other person of ‘being crazy’ or ‘acting crazy’. The passive aggressive is usually a male and has often come from a household with an absent (physically or emotionally) father and a dominant mother. He is often an only child or a youngest child. He was brought up to believe that it was unacceptable to display anger and therefore his only outlet for natural anger was repressed and learns to sneak out in unpredictable ways. The passive aggressive husband is almost always seen by the world as the archetypal ‘nice guy’. And beside these nice guys is often a frazzled woman who is going mad. The psychology books have labelled this disorder as ‘crazy-making’. I have dubbed it ‘bitch-making’ and often see the passive aggression appear long before the controlling, bitchiness. Strong, assertive women are the norm these days and many men are struggling to know how to deal with them. Of course this gender challenge works both ways. If we want our men to be emotionally available and say what they mean, we must allow them to safely express themselves. Too often, we don’t. Passive aggression stems from a fear of confrontation and men who have this tendency are attracted to strong women. Of course, the Oedipal thing was bound to rear its head eventually. Damn you Freud! Men with controlling mothers tend to marry women they can manipulate into a similar role and women reared by ‘nice guy’ Dads who backed down to their wives, tend also to marry emotional blue-prints of their fathers. The gentle, soft blokes who never raise their voice and can only be mean in sweet little bursts of sarcasm that are covered up with ‘But I was only joking’ end up with those women who have absolutely no problem expressing their own anger and do so with aplomb. So if you are a crazy bitch within a relationship, take heed. Before popping Xanax or joining anger management therapy, look at that smiling, fellow who ordered the family take-away pizzas on the first day of your new diet and realise that perhaps the angriest one is the one everyone least suspects. The Incredible Hulk is the poster boy for passive aggression. Common celebrity couples displaying this syndrome might be Margaret Thatcher and what’s-his-name. Gladys and Abner from Bewitched. David and Maddie from Moonlighting. Charles and Diana (that one was a double-whammy). Cheating is the ultimate form of passive aggression! While the Baker, Chartrand and Fitzsimons study does nothing to suggest ways of eradicating this problem, it lets the crazy bitches in such relationships realise that they are not going mad, that their man is not just a complete idiot and that there is indeed some fundamental sociology at work that is bigger than both of them. So Freud, in the end, comes out on top again. We often really do marry our fathers. And it can drive us just as nutty as it did our mothers.
Off base. Yes passive aggression is a real psychological behavior, but most men just don't pay their women any heed outside of the bedroom and it takes a near herculean effort, or general MATURITY, to hold oneself accountable in a relationship. The worst relationships I've had with women when I was younger were because from my perspective mentally I was treating them like my MALE FRIENDS.:smt031 I might call a male friend. I might not. I might make arrangements to hang and get drinks, or I might ditch at the last minute because I found something more interesting to do. I might tell a male friend happy b-day. Or not. I sure as hell was unlikely to ever buy him a gift(!). Guys I think by nature are a little selfish and inconsiderate because they aren't really keyed into how their behavior makes other people FEEL. If I go to a male friend's apartment, what do I care if he's folded all the towels and washed the dishes and took out the trash this morning?? I'm there to talk, shoot the shit, maybe play some vids and toke, then roll the fuck out. I've never really had 'mommy control issues' or hostility towards GFs I was seriously involved with, the problem was learning that what's considered acceptable behavior with another man is nowhere near up to standard for a woman. EVERYTHING matters to a woman. WHereas if I do something kinda annoying to a male friend, he might call me an 'asshole' just to check me and then we're done with it. THe thing with men is, we don't try to 'fix' each other. If a guy asks one of his boys to participate in an activity after work and his friend always ditches, we stop asking and don't worry about it. For the record, I try harder with women nowadays since I know shit that matters to them REALLY matters and most women in my experience only want you to give an honest sincere effort, a literal demonstration of how much I say I care in my heart by having that compassion reflect in my actions. However let's not pretend that some women aren't TOTALLY controlling and want their men programmed. I had a significant other tell me once that she and I were a team effort and if we weren't holding each other up in the relationship we were both going to fail in it. So yeah that little stupid shit a woman asks me to do that I would cuss another man out for being silly and trivial, I just do it to keep treading water so that a woman knows she matters to me.:smt056
Just wondering wouldn't this be considered "man bashing" since its a blanketed statement towards men? And the title is bullshit. Those attributes about passive aggressive are way more notable in women than in men. Men are more likely to either avoid certain situations or be straight up rude. Bottom line is there are a lot of women pissed off that they can't control their men and make them do what they want when they want. Tough shit ladies because keep this in mind. Would you really want a dude who did what you told him to do?
the bolded part made me snort as there has/is more than enough women bashing around here. don't be so sensitive lol as for the rest, i agree that both men and women can be passive aggressive, but i've experienced quite a bit of what was spoken about in the article
First off no one is making threads with titles focused on women in negative way. You guys internalize things that in all absolute seriousness has nothing to do with any of you. Like I've said before how much more ass kissing do you people want. The men flirt with you people 50 times more than they talk about topics you guys are sensitive about. Secondly in terms of the article I refer you to Boba's post. Women just have an incredibly hard time deal with and understanding men are different. We just don't put as much meaning into the same things. Like buying/recieving a gift doesn't mean as much to us. Its the classic problem of women not understanding what we are but knowing who we are. As well as men knowing what you are but not paying as much attention to who you are.
This is such a cool post. I like the way you explain things AND how you make the effort to lay your self/ego aside to understand what a woman who matters to you needs & wants.
Kudos to you for acknowledging the differences between men & women. Honestly, not trying to male bash by any means. Simple fact is we are indeed DIFFERENT. MOST women take to heart the simple things that many men may feel are irrelevant. We read into the small shyt and then we argue about why the woman is "nagging" him (thereby pushing him away) and the woman complains that he doesn't try hard enough. This is a very interesting article. Just had a convo that could have been used as an example for this article last night LOL Anyone ever read "The Conversation" by Hill Harper? I did...while some didn't relate specifically to me, there is much to be said about how men and women communicate with each other. Intersting read.
Very interesting article. From personal experience in my marriage I think I can definitely say that I as a wife would use passive aggression towards my husband when I got it from him. If ever I'm in a marriage again, I will never try to hold my husband to all the things I held my ex husband to. If he constantly wants to throw dirty wet towels on the floor after I've asked him not to..well, when he finally wants a clean one..he can go through the pile he has created (which has since been moved to the floor by his side of the bed) and wash them himself.
