What to Do about Passive Aggressive Women
The woman whom you had such a great connection with yesterday, but all of a sudden, won’t even look you in the eye if your face is half a centimeter away from hers.
The woman who is giving off the impression that something is wrong through her body language, but isn’t telling you what it is, and isn’t even giving you an opportunity to do something about it.
The woman who won’t even talk to you or acknowledge you.
The woman who has her back to you when you’re talking to her.
The silent treatment.
The rolling of the eyes.
The hostile body language.
The woman who just doesn’t seem to care about you or the friendship you had with her anymore (because dealing with the problem that has arisen is 1,000 times harder than it is to just not care about you anymore).
The bitch face her and her friends pull when you walk in to the room.
The woman who slams doors to get some power.
The woman who gives ambiguous instructions, requests, statements or answers.
The woman who clearly doesn’t understand you, what you do, or why you do it, but couldn’t give a rat’s butt about asking you about it and trying to understand. Judgement is much safer.
The woman who moves things, says things, and organizes things in a way that seems to give off the impression that you or something you are doing is bothering her, but when you ask her about it, you get a curt and reluctant “no! Nothing is wrong!” and then she either walks off or tries her hardest not to talk to you again.
(An extreme example): the woman who threatens to hurt herself or somebody else when you confront her about something.
“What. the. hell.” Seems to be the only possible answer when you’re faced with a situation like this, since you feel so trapped and dishonored as a person.
It’s much easier to make you wrong
One of the most painful things about being in this situation is that usually, women who act this way are making you wrong, and making you out to be a villain, without even considering that they themselves, have been far from perfect in their actions towards you. Even if they do acknowledge they could have been better in their actions – they nonetheless repetitively act from a place that makes you bad and them perfect.
It’s much easier to outsource blame for their own shortcomings and ill intentions.
Often, you know, they could just “not like what you wear” (which is just an surface justification for their own insecurities), perhaps they don’t like that you don’t value the same things that they do in life (ie: maybe, they like bitching a lot of the time and you don’t), perhaps their guy friends go on about how gorgeous you are when you’re not around and it makes them feel bad. Perhaps you just trigger them to feel bad about themselves, for whatever reason.
Usually, these women tend to surround themselves with women who are equally insecure and ill-meaning, and so the influence of their “friends” make it much harder for you to get through or solve a problem with them.
However, to be fair, I have to say that all of us have been passive-aggressive at certain times in our lives. It’s just that some women act from that state continuously and out of habit, out of ease and out of fear.
It’s hard because you probably feel like they have bad intentions (though I could debate the theory of bad intention and whether it truly exists, but that’s for another time). They give off a vibe that makes you feel excluded.
Two words to describe these situations:
Draining; and Frustrating.
Just to be sure, passive-aggressive is defined as: being, marked by, or displaying behavior characterized by the expression of negative feelings, resentment and aggression in an unassertive, passive way (as through procrastination, sullenness or intentional inefficiency and stubbornness).
Getting the truth out of people is a difficult task
If you are anything like me, you prefer people to just come up to you, and tell you what is going on, or just for them to tell you what the problem is, or you prefer to actually be in the know, so that you can move forward, reconnect the friendship/relationship, grow and learn something.
Here’s the problem: it’s going to be hard to get this (the truth, or their feelings) out of many women, especially if you are not very close to them. Many women won’t throw their fears to the curb in order to deal with a problem related to another woman whom they “don’t like”, don’t have a lot in common with, or feel threatened by.
It’s much easier to just make you wrong. Prepare for this to happen. This doesn’t mean you should expect it from every woman, it just means that you aren’t going to be able to solve this problem in every woman in the world.
My feeling is that many women are going to be way too scared to confront their fears and actually deal with it, because it’s just ‘too hard’!
And it’s worse when these women get in to a group, because as I’ve established before, we become who we spend our time with.
It’s very easy to do the following things when you’re confronted with a woman (or two) who are being passive aggressive:
1) try to get power and significance by controlling something that’s related to them and getting revenge.
2) yell at them.
3) blame them.
4) Confront them in aggression
5) Make them wrong.
6) be passive-aggressive, too.
7) Blame yourself, and think you are the bad person.
8 ) get all hoity toity.
The Solution
Here are the steps to take…
1) Understanding. Ask yourself what is missing in their life for them to continually act passive-aggressive towards you. Usually, they want to feel important and certain about themselves. And usually, they don’t feel particularly important or certain about their worth.
And sometimes, they’re just plain scared. Once you have unserstanding, you can act from a place of compassion, and actually do something about the situation, rather than just letting it rot. Even if it doesn’t work out – you become a better woman through your efforts.
2) Give them what they need, not what they want. They may say they need such-and-such, and it’s easy for you to just take what they say literally and withdraw and then do nothing about it (which could lead to passive-aggressive behavior on your part, too). However, what they really need is to feel important, significant, and to have their identity re-affirmed. Hard to do, I know.
Sometimes they just need to be appreciated for what they do or what they have already contributed, to know that you care, and to be made to feel safe around you.
3) Do not make them wrong. This will perpetuate their pattern. So, focus more on your feelings and the situation than blaming them.
But here’s the bottom line: What you decide to do is nowhere near as important as the meaning you choose to place on the events and the person yoou become as a result of the events – you always must take the high-road. There is absolutely no benefit in hiding from problems, or from confrontations, like they are.
So when do you drop out, give up, and stop trying to influence them? This is entirely up to you. How long you decide to put yourself in to being the leader and initiating a better relationship between you and them is your personal choice.
A story of a house mate…
I want to leave you with one (of many) examples in my life, where I had to deal with this.
I once had a female house-mate who I had moved in with. I didn’t know her prior to moving in. We interviewed each other, and she was in a hurry to get a house mate in, and I was also in a hurry to find a suitable place. Before I moved in, it was clear that we were opposites, however, we seemed to manage to get along well – enough to make the decision to be housemates.
At the beginning, we had great conversations, and some talks about very personal things. However, over time, we began to not talk to each other very much, and we were both busy so we also didnt see each other much – despite living in the same house.
Things were fine for the first 3 weeks. And then I attended a birthday gathering of hers. There were, of course, other women at the gathering. I didn’t get the best vibe from some of them. And it seemed, to me, that after that day, my house mate was suddenly more cold to me. Things went downhill from there.
We both did continue, at times, to make an effort to talk to each other, but when I am in my own home, I tend to be quite reserved and quiet. It became more of a business relationship over time, and our differences were clear:
I have extremely anal standards for myself when it comes to health, fitness and cleaninliness.
She: wouldn’t always clean up properly after herself, spent most of her spare time watching television and making excuses as to why she couldn’t go for a run or do the cleaning or get off the couch. At night time, she would have long and loud phone conversations, complaining about how terrible the quality of men are, that there are no good men, and just generally having a complaint session about other people and calling them names.
She would often be really depressed and not even look at me to say hi, and then when she was in a great mood, she would then talk to me. When she was depressed I would pick up on her mood and just want to get out of her way.
Her lack of cleaning did bother me, but not too much. After all, when it got too messy it only took me 10-20 minutes to clean up after her.
As time went by, as it became clear that we were very much opposites, the tension got to a point where it was too much (as it always happens). We had a heated misunderstanding when talking about kitchen utensils and cleaning utensils.
I proceeded to tell her that if she had a problem with something I was doing, that she could just tell me, since I would sometimes find my stuff moved, or I would pick up on her trying not to talk to me, and even trying to ignore me at times. I had felt for months that she had concerns but wouldn’t tell me anything. She denied she had anything to tell me.
Yet at the same time, when I was talking to her, she would have her back to me, and wouldn’t say much and definitely didn’t look like she wanted to say much.
And that same day, about half an hour after that misunderstanding, while she was on the phone to a friend, I hear the front door slam loudly, while I’m crying in my room, thinking about what I could have done wrong, and getting very stressed over the tension.
Of course, seeing me this way, David (my man) immediately proceeded to look for a new place for me to stay. I was too upset to even think about finding a place, because I wanted to fix the situation I was already in with my house mate.
Anyway, a few hours later in the day, I received a call from David, telling me that he had happened across an ad on the internet – my room had been listed for rent on the internet that very day, stating that it would be available for a move in two weeks from that date.
I was floored. My house mate had not told me about it, but I thought that perhaps, given some time she would tell me about it. So I waited a few days, to see if she would approach me about it. She didn’t, so I confronted her on the 3rd day.
Before I even said anything, she launched in to a few minute-long justification of why it had been put up. Saying she had not gone behind my back. (??) And that she was ‘just looking’ to ‘see what’s out there’, and that her friend told her to put it up.
The (almost) resolution
After talking it through, we came to the conclusion that she thought I was the perfect house-mate – always paid on time, always cleaned, respected the house, was quiet and observed all the requirements we had talked about when I moved in. However – she wanted somebody more ‘like-minded’. She said, like-minded was that we would do some things together, like have a meal or go for a walk along the beach. Fair enough.
She also proceeded to mention that she needs to be told what to do by people, and it took her a week to work herself up to talking to me about something. From this conversation, we decided that we would be more open to each other and make a point to connect with each other.
So I thought, ok, great, we have made a little bit of progress. She also promised to take the ad for my room off, of her own accord.
That was a Tuesday. By Monday afternoon the next week, the ad was still up. She again had not approached me about it. On top of that, in the preceeding days I had made a point to talk to her and initiate conversation, but her response was disappointing to say the least. She just wasn’t bouncing back at me with any more conversation. She was keeping it very business-like.
When I asked her about why the ad hadn’t been taken down, she told me she had asked her friend to take it down for her because she didn’t know how to.
The point is: if it was important enough to her, she would have found a way to talk to me about our problems. And if she really wanted to take the ad off, she would have.
She was indicating, through her actions, that she didn’t value fixing the problem over being comfortable. And she made it harder for me by continuously denying things. It became obvious that she simply did not want to deal with the problem, rather, she would prefer to get somebody else in to the house than deal with our issue (which she hadn’t even brought up in the first place, before she placed the ad up without notifying me about it).
Here’s what I learned from the experience:
1) In order to help the process of her feeling comfortable around me, like her, I was going to have to accept (rather than reject) my own lazy side, and accept the part of me who likes to feel bad about myself (a massive challenge for me). This was really seeing the situation for the gifts it brought to the table. I believe this experience was put in front of me for a reason.
2) I had, at times, been too busy judging her for her laziness, the way she talked about (and treated) men, and her passive-aggressive behavior to actually form a deeper connection with her, which contributed to the whole problem.
3) That my resistance to connecting with her because of our differences, and because I felt like I didn’t want to be ‘brought down to her level’ by associating with her most likely made her feel like she wasn’t enough, which made the situation worse. Her passive-aggressive behavior was already a result of feeling diminished and scared.
4) Going by ‘rules’ – ie: paying all my rent early, religiously cleaning up after myself, keeping to all the house requirements, and being quiet, really isn’t what she wanted or needed. In fact, that kind of thing really isn’t what people perceive value in, even though it may be important to them that you pay your rent on time. What she wanted, since I was living in, and renting a room in her house, was a friend.
5) Either I expend lots of energy influencing her, and myself, to form a good connection with me so that we can live amicably (which was hardly worth it since she had so many other women in her life feeding her ‘reasons’ for her actions, her judgments of me, and influencing her to make the decisions she was making already – why would she sacrifice the love of a number of existing friends who were meeting her needs over forming a connection with a person she hardly knew?) OR
I was going to have to decide to leave the house and in the meantime, take leadership and form common ground and a connection with her.
6) Confronting her with the intensity that I did about the ad being placed on the internet may have been justified, but it was not necessarily helpful in preserving a relationship.
7) Ultimately, since I was living in her house, I felt I was working with a situation where her power was greater than mine, so whilst I would continue to form the connection, I didn’t really want to LIVE within her proximity.
Given the situation, (we were talking about somebody who had placed my room up for rent without telling me, it was not worth my energy. I have a bigger mission to work on than to chase her for not taking the ad down.
That is just one example from my own life of dealing with passive-aggressive women.
Do you have any experiences to share with us? Please share in the comments section below your ways of dealing with passive aggressive women. Looking forward to hearing from you. 
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LR
Another thing for a man to do is beat her in the face. That’s how most violence in relationships begins, when the woman is being passive aggressive. But men like passive aggressive women because it’s feminine.
[Reply]
Aneesa
Thank you for this post!!
i’m 17 years old and i’m taking my time reading every topic you’ve posted in this blog to better myself. do you have any suggestions for changing passive-aggressive behavior in women? i usually display passive aggressive behavior but by the time i realize how i’m behaving, it’s already too late to change my words and actions 
i want to change
[Reply]
JOHN ELLIOTT
The closest I can compare your experience of such behaviour to, is my own memory of homophobic bullying by a respected female University lecturer. Her bullying included demeaning comments about small male private parts, asking if I would marry, and stating that I was a ‘man who couldn’t make it with a woman.’
I was simply a 19 year old gay student when all this happened, and I eventually defined the behaviour as that of ‘playing psychological rape games’. I recall that many of the gay women I knew at the time would have relations with males, and may also be the basis for the hostility I suffered.
[Reply]
Sarah
Renee,
Story of my life. This is indeed a confirmation for me. I’m in my mid-20s now, but when I was younger I used to think that perhaps there was something about me that caused certain women to dislike me. Now that I’m older and have gained some perspective, I understand the problem. It was always the same story: They would find some character flaw to judge me about in order to justify their own jealousy towards me. This happened to me last week! I’ve had women dislike me instantly, from the moment I said hi. Now you know it’s not because of anything I’ve done. Anyway, thanks for the article.
[Reply]
Ally
It sounds like you made a lot of effort to come to an understanding with her. Yet, it ended with you parting ways. However, am I understanding you correctly that it was more important to change your perspective than to try and change the outcome?
[Reply]
Renee Reply:
May 26th, 2011 at 2:13 am
Hey Ally
In terms of what is more important; what I am saying is more important is the meaning you give the situation over what you choose to DO, so yes, your persepctive. And the woman you become as a result of the encounter/problem. So, what you do is not as important as who you become, and taking the high road yourself.
When it comes to ‘doing’, and the ‘outome’, to use your words, – we all makes a lot of mistakes, and when it comes to an ‘outcome’, we all have a number of options we can choose from, and there is less certainty when deciding what to do than there is in the perspective you place on the event, in your own mind
I feel we get so focused on what to do we miss the point: it’s our intention that matters. Intention, your perspective on the situation, (and who you become) is more important than what you do, or the outcome.
I certainly learned a lot from the incident I mentioned – especially about myself and the mistakes I had made. I hope that explains it!
[Reply]
Maria
One more thing I would like to add. Sometimes when we do not like something about someone else, there is a message for us. We may need to change some things about OURSELVES.
Although I choose not to deal with them and vice versa: I take them as a lesson. And that is all that matters. Learn from your experiences. And seek out positive and better people once you understand what the message is.
[Reply]
Maria
This was right on time. I am dealing with TWO people like this. Well, WAS. They are both very very insecure but it does not feel good to be around them. So as of today as a matter of fact, i just decided not to be around. It is draining and it brings me down only because i actually love my friends.
First friend: We had our ups and downs, stop talking in Dec.10 and starting talking again in March. She asked me to be her business partner, i jumped on the opportunity because she “told” me it was going to be fully funded and I will need to work and of course market the business. Well-Time went by she wouldnt return phone calls to customers OR ME when I would have customers ready. Then she decided she didnt want to fund the business but borrow the funds and starting asking me for money. She knew upfront I did not have the funds to invest but I had the skill. I still put in work. worked on the business website ect.. When I noticed her communication was flaky, I stopped my efforts on the business. She was serious about the business but MORE serious about going out every night. She would take 2 days to return my calls on business affairs, no im sorry, text message me INSTEAD of calling. And she never committed to weekly meetings and basic paperwork. So, i made up my mind. I spoke with my mentor, advised me to kill the business relationship or else I would sure to be miserable.
Well, I didnt want to give up and said I will give her another week. Still, she never called and ignored all my phone calls. Then one day I saw her FB page- She started working on the business and found a location WITH THE FIRST PERSON she was going to go into business with (but decided not to because she thought the girl was not serious). So I decided to wait and see if she was going to call me to tell me she no longer wanted me as a partner. (because of my money issue) She never did.
So I kindly texted her since she didnt answer any calls and wrote a kind mutually agreed text to end our business relationship. She wrote back immediately and agreed. I already had the paperwork ready to withdrawal from an attorney. She was ready.
I can honestly say I was very disappointed she did not have the courage to tell me she no longer wanted me to be apart of the business ALTHOUGH i had made my mind up that it was not going to work, i still wanted to give it a chance. Not only that, she went behind my back and started working on something with someone else. I wonder how she would of presented this if I would of NEVER said anything, considering my name was on the business.
I do not regret leaving that partnership at all because there was none. I regret not taking my time in the decision to join. Everything happens for a reason and I am glad I am not dealing with her anymore.
2nd Person: Is negative. Complains about EVERYBODY. Attacks EVERYBODY or anything that seems good. Very threatened by me. Uses the “cant look in the eye” insecure method. Silent method. And I have done nothing.
I actually stopped dealing with these two ladies for a couple of years and my life was just fine. I started hanging with them again and it was full of un-necessary drama.
I do not suggest anyone put up with this. Yes, you do and SHOULD be understanding. But you should not let anyone push you around, bully you and stab you in the back. It is mentally draining and there is just no trust there.
I see why neither of them have a MAN.
[Reply]
zigma pluto
oh.. yes, I will SURELY try because I do not want MY picture to be posted next to the pictures of pouting women on top of your post because I like to believe I am a very beautiful woman! Its funny sometimes what can work as a motivation!
[Reply]
zigma pluto
Hi Renee
Hmmm.. makes me think… I know I have been acting passive agressive with people in my life lately, mostly for being judged so harshly, being made to feel inadequate and incompetent…was looking for some sort of courage within myself to open up in an understanding way… not just fighting intensly and openly to these people.Well, I will try now, its just so much hard work, lol.
[Reply]
Michelle
I am currently in this situation with a close friend. She says that nothing is wrong yet she has not made an effort to hang out with me for weeks. Needless to say her actions speak otherwise. Does anyone have any practical steps on how to best deal with her? Things to say/not say or do/not do?
[Reply]
Asma
Hi Renee,
this post really made me think. I also overcame some passive/aggressive behavior on my own within my own self in the past couple of years and it was so freeing to take accountability and see where I contributed to my own woes. It turned me into a brand new person and in turn I got lots of male attention and even noticed some female jealousy at work not just from colleagues but superiors always trying to get me into some kind of trouble, something I have never encountered before. See during my lifetime, I was always felt more at ease with females rather than males so this was new. However, I also see myself in the position you wrote about with your housemate. Being too busy judging these women rather than connecting with them. But it’s like I was targetted constantly and being made to take the fall for things I didn’t do and eventually lost my job which was feeding my family because of these games so like you with the room I felt justified in making these judgements. So what DO we do? There is a blog of another femininity coach where I feel the energy is very crashing and depressing so I find myself again in a recent example staying away but also judging. Maybe the best conclusion is that we are always a work in progress and the best thing we can keep doing is continuing to grow and see our own contributions in our surroundings. Thank you for this post. I love posts like these that challenge me to always look at myself. The biggest hazzard to our soul, IMO, is complacency (is that a word?
).
[Reply]
Renee Reply:
May 24th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Asma! Is this the Asma I think it is?
I’m so happy to hear from you!
My feeling is that no matter what we do, we have to at least leave the situation/encounter with some unnderstanding and compassion. On top of that, what we do is never as important as our intentions, or why we do what we do.
What you do also depends on who they are, what your relationship with them is, etc. In my case we were talking about a place to live, so what to do here would be different to how I’d deal with a sister or a close friend.
xoxo
[Reply]
Asma Reply:
May 25th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Hi Renee,
yep it’s me.
You are so right. The nature of hte relationship matters and it is freeing to hear you say that our intentions also matter and I can safely say my intentions for the most part have always been good. YAY. Thank you for the advice about taking into consideration the nature of the relationship too, that was absolutely correct. I can safely say that how I relate to my loved ones is ten times better than when I was younger and that is wonderful. 
[Reply]
deanna
thank you so much for this post! I’ve definitely been in this situation, and I’ve also been on the other side of the fence- I’ve been very passive aggressive most of my life. I’ve often been really really terrified to say what was bothering me or my opinion, for fear of rejection, loosing a relationship, loosing social status or social currency, getting in trouble, getting kicked out of my apartment- I grew up in a household where you “keep your big f***ing mouth shut or else”, and “keep your opinions to yourself”, and learned really early on that voicing my problems/anger/etc honestly would have only bad (possibly violent) consequences for me, and that I had to be manipulative and passive-aggressive to get what I want or deal with my feelings. My passive agressive behaviour has done a lot more damage than good. It hurts people. I’m still learning how to overcome it. It’s really good to see it from the other side.
[Reply]
Asma Reply:
May 24th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
deanna, you and me both my lovely. I also grew up where we were taught that sometimes it’s better not to say anything and not rock the boat. This was not always a bad lesson. However sometimes it got hard to tell when and where it’s a good idea to speak up and do it in a way that you don’t come off as a nut job lol. Also that fear of the other person’s reaction…ugh. It’s very traumatic in the moment. Renee’s post about having unshakable confidence actually really helped me to manage that a whole lot better. Another thing I found while growing up…sometimes it seems like being quiet and not speaking up is the best thing to do if you want to be “feminine.” I think maybe that contributes to why so many women are like this because it is misconcieved as being feminine or something? Hope that made sense.
[Reply]
Sara
My last roommate from college was somewhat passive-aggressive: she worked late and would come back to the room around midnight-1 am and turn on her light, turn on her computer, turn on the bathroom light, and make noise while I was trying to sleep and had 9 am class. I tried not to say anything and hoped she would figure it out by seeing me make a dirty look at her. It didn’t and so when she would sleep in from her late nights, I would stupidly get up and slam the medicine cabinet, slam the refrigerator door, make other noises, turn on lights, and so on to give her a taste of her own medicine. It didn’t help and she would not address that she started the cycle of passive-aggression due to her apathy and selfishness. Nonetheless I should’ve known better than to fight fire with fire.
[Reply]
deanna Reply:
May 24th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Hi Sara. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I think that when you say “I tried not to say anything and hoped she would figure it out by seeing me make a dirty look at her.”, this was actually an example of you being passive aggressive.
It’s so much harder for us to realise when we’re doing it than to see it in someone else, isn’t it? I am actually putting up a comment about that subject! (I’ve been struggling with this for a while)
[Reply]
Paulina
Hi Renee,
I read your posts and blog a lot but this is the first time I comment. I am afraid that this comment may be a bit off the point but it does touch the core of passive-aggressive behavious and many other themes of your blog.
This is so timely for me! I had to cope with a passive-aggressive woman very recently and that woman was me. I totally agree with you that passive-aggressive behaviour is fed by insecurity and fear. I traveled to new york to meet a man there, the situation between us was very much unclear and I was ever so confused about the total lack of communication on his side concerning his plans of staying there or returning to Europe, although he was otherwise very much treating me as his “girlfriend” (snuggling, holding hands & kissing publicly and in the presence of his friends). Instead of having the courage of the Feminine Woman to be vulnerable and to openly talk about this to him, I chose to make myself distant. No more holding hands etc. I was polite and friendly but very distant. I truly hope I learned from this that being passive-aggressive doesn’t bring you anywhere! Thank you very much for this post, I have to work a lot to move away from the place of insecurity and fear to be brave enough to be vulnerable, truly the only path to real intimacy.
Thank you once more, this was a huge break-through for me, thanks to your post!
[Reply]
Renee Reply:
May 24th, 2011 at 6:33 am
You are welcome, Paulina. Thank You for sharing honestly. This means a lot.
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