About the Episode:

Addressing passive-aggressive comments like a ninja is highly satisfying. It can stop the aggressor in their shoes and wake them up to the impact they’re having. Most passive-aggressive comments are simply unskilled communications of negative feelings. By directly and neutrally addressing passive aggressiveness, we can support each other to grow as human beings. 

In episode 121 of the Art of We podcast, we get into the nuanced terrain of passive aggressiveness in both personal and professional relationships. Dr. Will and Krista Van Derveer discuss its subtle nature and how it can operate under a veneer of politeness, making it challenging to detect and address. They dive into the psychological underpinnings of why individuals resort to such behavior, highlighting the cultural lack of effective tools for expressing negative feelings directly.

The hosts share practical strategies, share personal anecdotes, and role-play scenarios to illustrate how to respond to passive aggression in a way that fosters understanding and growth rather than perpetuating a cycle of negativity. They advocate for an approach that involves acknowledging the impact of such comments, expressing one's feelings without aggression, and seeking to understand the underlying needs of the other person.

A must listen for:

• Individuals in leadership positions who deal with other humans :)
• Partners who have a hard time communicating their needs and wants skillfully 
• People who have a family or community that has a habit of passive-aggressive behavior
• Anyone who loves to grow!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Resources Mentioned: 

• Our Top 10 Relationship Agreements 
• Psychology Today

Get in Touch: 

• The Art Of We Website
• The Art of We Instagram 
• Integrative Psychiatry Institute: Mental Wellness & Psychedelic Therapy Training

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Dr. Will Van Derveer 0:00

We can choose if we want to live in a world where we can wipe the slate clean by cleaning up miscommunications or passive aggression or whatever. Or we can choose to construct a world where there's a mark that's permanent, that's left by a feeling that didn't feel good to us. And you know, we're building a case against a person, and not just the person but also the world, right? Like, the world sucks, the world disappointed me or whatever, rather than a life that is rugged, you know, it's a rugged landscape, there's a lot of beauty, there's a lot of scary areas, and we can get hurt. And we can also recover from getting hurt.

Krista Van Derveer 0:38

Welcome to the Art of we podcast, this is episode number 74. Today, we are going to be talking about a juicy topic, which is passive aggressive comments and our suggestions on how to work with that when it comes up inside of your partnership, or maybe even more likely with extended or large family circles or social events or in the workplace. So it's a topic that we feel is prevalent enough for us to address. And I can certainly own my part of making passive aggressive, aggressive comments to you when I'm pretty triggered, and my little girl comes out when I'm upset with you, Will. So it's a good topic. And yeah, how are you feeling about this topic? Well,

Dr. Will Van Derveer 1:21

I like this topic.

Krista Van Derveer 1:22

So maybe we start off by just describing what we mean by passive aggressiveness, and then we can go into a lot of the psychology around it, and then how we might deal with it. So when we were preparing for this podcast, we found these really exciting articles on Psychology Today about passive aggressiveness, and we were in the kitchen and just laughing our asses off, because there are some really funny comments that they had in there about what people are saying to each other. And we're just like, oh, my gosh, this is kind of ridiculous. But I do want to describe the definition that they had in their article, which I can also link in the show notes. So they say that passive aggressive aggressiveness is a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them. Passive aggressiveness is subtle and challenging to detect and address effectively. And instead of addressing directly, it tends to operate under the surface and often beneath a veneer of politeness and ambiguity, which makes it hard to address. I would agree with all that, what do you think about that definition?

Dr. Will Van Derveer 2:23

I think it's great. I want to give a little bit of context, psychological context, in our culture, my opinion is that it's not a unique opinion, but the culture we live in doesn't give us a lot of options for effectively expressing anger or feeling triggered or disappointed or unhappy with someone else, to be impacted negatively, so to speak, by other people's actions, or words. So the impact is there anyway, whether we have an outlet for it or not, whether we have skills for it or not. So I think passive aggression is something that's very common in our culture, as a way for this feeling of I mean, ultimately, it's like a no to the person in front of us or the person who did something that triggered us, we're doing it indirectly. So we're not facing up to it, we're not honing it, we're not developing skills around how to say I was negatively impacted. So we just do a behavior or make a comment that kind of releases the pressure of the negative impact. But the way that we do that with passive aggression, obviously creates more negative impact. So it's not great. So we wanted to offer some insights on that today.

Krista Van Derveer 3:37

Yeah and really, if we're taking the art of we seriously, then hopefully the people who care about how we show up inside of our different various relationships, were wanting to orient towards a leadership move. And something about passive aggression is that it is a form of aggression. And if you meet aggression with defensiveness, you're gonna breed more defensiveness back. And so that's not really doing the Art Of We in a really skillful way. So we imagine that most of you who are listening are interested in doing something a little bit different. And

Dr. Will Van Derveer 4:09

I would say that if you're a relationship nerd like us, you might be extra curious about the different forms of passive aggression that you might be engaging in that you don't even know you are. So there's a big spectrum here. Obviously, there's very overt passive aggressive behavior. And then there's way more subtle stuff. So I could start with an example of something I did this morning. That was pretty subtle, but I was on to myself, so I caught it. Oh, sure. be news to me. Yeah. Okay. So I started a project that I was not aware was going to take a ton of my time. And this morning, I showed up an hour late for it. And so, this is a great example in my book of I need to have a conversation with the group With people I'm working with, that the commitment level is too much for me to be able to handle and I need to take a step back. But instead of doing that I was an hour late. So it's just like that's a very subtle, maybe example.

Krista Van Derveer 5:12

Right? And you didn't even realize you were an hour late until it was like, oh, shoot, I forgot about this, right? Like you forgot, there's a level of forgetfulness that can happen inside of a subconscious level of passive aggression.

Dr. Will Van Derveer 5:25

For sure. Yeah, I forgot that deadline. Or I forgot to pick up my kid at school or sometimes forgetting can be pretty impactful. Yeah,

Krista Van Derveer 5:34

definitely. Other examples might be not replying to texts, either, like on the spectrum of immediately to, you know, months later, or something like that. They could be really subtle snubs, like gestures or remarks such as eye rolls or exasperated sighs it's a good one. They could be overt comments, like you were saying, somebody could just directly say something backhanded compliments, compliments that are concealed insults, masquerading as a compliment. It could be understated remarks to others behind someone's back to degrade their confidence, or there are to increase doubt about the person or something like that. My comments tend to come out with you like just really kind of snarky. I can't think of one in this moment that would represent that exactly. But there's a way that when I think that you're thinking just about yourself, and not about me, I might say that, I might say something kind of snarky to you.

Dr. Will Van Derveer 6:38

Yeah or it can be even more disguised. For example, in a previous relationship I was in I noticed myself getting into sort of, not not affairs, per se, but juicy emotional exchanges with outside people. And it took me a few times of doing that to realize that I was actually just really angry at my partner for a bunch of different reasons. But it took a long time for me to see that. Basically, flirting with other people was a form of passive aggression. So that's another way it can happen. That's a good one.

Krista Van Derveer 7:11

I would say in my past relationships, probably my go to was making them wait. So whether it was a text, or it was a phone call, or they needed something from me, and I was upset with them, I would be like, a very small internal voice would say something like, “I'm gonna make him wait.” I haven't done that with you. I have noticed the desire for that come up and maybe once or twice in the last seven years. And I'm totally being honest about that. But I wouldn't act on it. I don't act on it with you, which says I think a lot about our relationship and the level of work we've done together and separately.

Dr. Will Van Derveer 7:47

Krista Van Derveer 7:57

Yeah. So yeah, these can come out in many different ways. And I feel like there's different ways to address these, whether they're with our partner, or they're people that we know out in the world, or colleagues, people we work with. But I also think that there's some fundamental basics that we can use to address the passive aggressive comments that are universal, even though they might be slightly different for each context. So why don't we take a quick break? And when we come back, we'll share some thoughts about how to deal with these kinds of comments.

Dr. Will Van Derveer 8:33

Sounds great. Let's do it.

Krista Van Derveer 8:34

Welcome back. We're talking about how to deal with passive aggressive comments, whether it's from your partner, your friends, your extended family, or close in family, or your colleagues at work, whoever it's coming from, we're going to dive in and get in there. Let's take this down, because we want to show up as leaders, right, and we want to be able to bring our adult selves forward. So let me first talk about the common responses to a passive aggressive comment. Why don't you kick us off there, Will?

Dr. Will Van Derveer 9:05

Well, I think one of the most common responses is avoidance or not notice, you know, it's kind of like brushing it off or not noticing it?

Krista Van Derveer 9:14

Yeah, I would say, totally, that's very common, brushing it off, or diminishing the negative impact it had on us. Like, oh, I shouldn't be so sensitive. I'm just gonna wipe it off. I'm just gonna not pay attention to it.

Dr. Will Van Derveer 9:26

Right or avoiding the conflict that might be anticipated by calling it out?

Krista Van Derveer 9:31

Yes. And then we're just holding resentments and judgments towards that person because they're being a bunch of assholes. Right?

Dr. Will Van Derveer 9:36

You know, we're just putting more logs on the fire of our filter about that person.

Krista Van Derveer 9:43

So not addressing it is one response.

Dr. Will Van Derveer 9:45

Or I might come home and talk to you about it (behind other people’s backs). You know that I'm doing passive aggressive behavior.

Krista Van Derveer 9:54

That’s funny. And then you mentioned to me earlier a “counter attack.” That would be another response, getting reactive. Somebody's making a passive aggressive comment to you, and you turn around and basically attack them back, right, which I think is a form of getting defensive for defending our terrain and our territory. And again, I think that that is just like throwing gas on the fire, and then all of sudden, there's a big explosion, and nobody knows what happens. And it can happen really fast. Like, you know what, I mean, those moments are pretty explosive or at least can be?

Yeah they escalate quickly. That's true. Are there any other common responses that we should talk about?

There might be the kind of eye rolling, you know, behind the person's back, or like some gesture, right? That, again, isn't addressing the situation, but it's just tolerating the situation. But I think the key for me that I would say, in addressing any challenging moment, whether it's passive aggressive, or even direct aggression, is to address it head on, easier said than done. That's hard to do, just to address it head on, when it comes to us, it lands in our ears in our body, and be ready in that moment to address it. But even the harder thing to do is to address it in an uncharged neutral manner. These are masterful skills we're talking about here. And the reason is, because I think that the person who is dropping the passive aggressive comments, whether consciously or subconsciously, what they're actually wanting is they're wanting a reaction out of you, they're wanting to induce some sort of pain, some sort of indirect communication. But if they don't get that back from you, then it can tend to neutralize the moment because it's like their shackles are coming down, if you're not reacting with a high level of energy back to them, if that makes sense.

Yeah it sounds like you're talking about a kind of Aikido move where you're not hitting back in the face of aggression. But you're also not avoiding or dismissing the impact.

Exactly. So it's like holding your seat. And it's also holding a boundary. But without throwing darts and arrows back at them.

It's like being in the adult in the moment when a child is in front of you. And that includes having compassion and care for that person, but not in a saccharine way, or you're not getting to the bottom of it.

Yeah, I would say that's, that's the other ingredient that I would totally agree with, which is having a real true desire to actually understand what's happening for the person, which is also hard to do when it feels like we're being attacked. And on some level, we kind of are being attacked. So it's like, okay, how do we get there? How do we get to neutral? How do we get to actually wanting to know their experience? And for me, it's really about what am I standing for, for my own self and my own kind of leadership and how I want to be as a person to these kinds of comments, or to these kinds of people? That's the first commitment that I need to make.

Yeah. And it could even be more global than that, like, how do I want to show up in the world? What kind of person do I want to be? Do I want to be a person who gets reactive or, you know, amplifies, whatever the thing is fear, anger, you know, dysregulation, whatever? Or am I going to be a person who shows up as a buffer? Who receives the person's shadow, let's say, but doesn't receive it as in like, it's being deposited in our body? It's like, okay, what does this mean? Let's look at this together.

Right. And I think that there's a, like you said, a Keto move, where you're actually turning a mirror back onto them about who they're being in that moment, rather than just allowing the comment to exist. Nobody's actually like showing them. What kind of person they're being at that moment. Yeah. Okay, so we have some one liners that we can share here, but maybe it'd be fun to do a little bit of role playing at first and roleplay.

Definitely, let's do it. This is fun stuff.

So this one, this one is kind of more for the home scenario. If it's between you and your partner. I think Will's gonna give a comment to me. And we'll see what happens.

Ok “Sure, go ahead. spend the whole weekend on your hobby. It's not like we could be doing anything together.”

So in this situation, I would probably want to get a little bit defensive and be like, well, bla bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla bla bla (defending myself). But when we were actually talking about doing this episode, one of our friends shared with us what she and her current partner are doing, and I think it's, I think it's exactly what I would want to be doing in the moment. And what that is, is actually leaning in and being like, “Oh, honey, it actually sounds like he wants more contact from me. Would you like that?” You know, like, that's like, leaning into the fire with love, actually. And knowing that when your partner says a passive aggressive comment like that, it's actually like they're actually needing us probably, to show up in a different way. or you could say something like, it seems like I'm picking up on a frustrated tone in your voice. I care about your experience. Can you tell me more about what's happening for you right now?

The first one sort of leaves me with a question of the follow up that I almost would want to hear from you is, “do you want to reframe the request for us to spend some time together this weekend or something?”

So you, you'd be like, how would you respond to that? Then if I said that to you? I

I think I would say yes, actually, I'd really like to X, Y, and Z with you this weekend. That would feel great to me. If I

If I said to you, “it sounds like you have a request”? Yeah. Okay. So Will likes it a little more straight. He's a straight shooter.

Well, it would help me identify the behavior as something that I don't want to keep doing.

Usually under any kind of complaint, and sometimes passive aggressiveness seems like a complaint, there is a request that could be made. And you're the extraordinarily skilled man that I get to have as my husband who has a growth mindset and wants to keep growing, which makes such a big difference. So I really appreciate that about you.

Well, thanks. I also have younger parts that don't know how to advocate effectively for them.

Totally, totally, totally. And I love them, too. I love all your parts.

Thank you, sweetheart. Yeah.

So should we try one more? Or let's do two more?

Sure. Let's do one more.

Why don't I give you the comment, and you tell me what you would do? And then I'll tell you what I would do. How's that sound? Okay. So this is more of a work context: “Glad you could finally make it into a meeting on time.”

“It sounds like something's bothering you. Could we talk about this?”

That’s good. I mean, you were you came with a neutral tone. I don't know if it's just the role playing but I liked that you actually came with a little bit of humor, which is really cool. So for this one, it can be tricky, because if it was in front of other people, and we weren't assuming either way, but I probably would address it afterwards, depending on the context. But if I did address it afterwards, I'd probably say “Hey, Will, you got a sec? I heard your comment about me. In the beginning of the meeting about being on time, I assume you thought you were just making a harmless joke. However, it didn't really land that way. And it didn't feel very good. I interpret your comment as frustration with me regarding my time management. Am I reading that right?” So it's assuming positive intent, that he was just making a joke, but I think most people think that they are making harmless jokes when a lot of the jokes that they're making in the workplace actually are very much not harmless, anyway, but if you lead with assuming positive intent, I think it's disarming inside the conversation, rather than saying something along the lines of what's wrong with you, why are you trying to sabotage me in front of the group, or whatever the thing is.

When I hear you say it that way, it also has an empowered flavor to it, you know, that if I'm your manager, and I hear you say that, to me, it's all of a sudden, I'm kind of like, Whoa, I need to grow up here to like, it's, it's really helpful, because it calls me into a higher level of functioning,

I love that that would cut to you and to our level of functioning, you're like, the ideal in my world person who both has relational intelligence, and emotional intelligence, and, you know, has a lot of skill and talent out in the world. And it's super sexy, and, you know, just such a great package, even all your parts. But so, you know, not all managers would want to grow up the way that you want to grow up, and so sweet. You know, hopefully, hopefully, in some form, though, they can pick up on Oh, I had a negative impact on this person. And I really didn't intend that. And I think there's part of part of actually addressing the passive aggression to people we report to is, in part, attempting to educate them what it's like to be on the other side of their management style. Hopefully, most people actually want to understand it and know it. But I don't think a lot of people actually ask for feedback about their management styles.

Yeah, that's definitely unusual.

Okay, how about one more that can be done either at home or work?

Great. Let's do it.

Okay, I'll start I'll give it to you again and you tell me how you would respond. So we live in Boulder, Colorado, and before we were recording this today, we had about 24 inches of snow in the last two days and Will, bless your heart, takes on the snow blowing job. We have a very long and windy driveway that we have. And so after you did all the snow blowing, you notice that the rest of the shoveling wasn't done. And you came in and said to me, “Hey, honey, I've been out here for a couple hours. I'm wondering if you know why you didn't come out and help?”. And I say, “Well, I would have helped but I assumed you knew what you were doing and you had it handled.”

Oh that's a good one. You know, I'm reminded of another response that I learned in a psychotherapy training that I think is applicable here. It's actually quite useful when aggression comes with words. And the teacher I was learning from, she had a habit of saying “Ouch.” When there was an aggressive statement.

I had that in my notes, too.

Yeah it’s such a useful response, because there's nothing in it except, okay, I receive the aggression. Exactly. And then there can be a regrouping. And, you know, okay, well, what's next after that, but I find it helpful in the heat of the moment, sometimes to just acknowledge that like, oh, ouch.

I had that, too. It was like, “ouch, that one hurts”. And then what I would like to say in that moment, is “I'm sure you didn't mean to have that kind of impact, again, assuming positive intent. But when you say it that way, it sounds like you don't think I'm very competent? Is that what you intended to communicate?”

Right, that's fun, we should do more of these role plays, I think it illuminates a lot for me.

And I just want to add in here, too, that I feel like this particular navigation of aggression is really related to one of our relationship agreements, which is that “we vow to protect each other in public or private, even from ourselves.” (From Stan Tatkin’s book.) So if we can be conscious and aware enough as the one who's about to give the passive aggressive comment that we're actually giving some form of “Ouch,” to whether it's a partner, or it's our colleague, someone at work a friend that we're actually like giving a statement of harm, rather than a statement of clear direct communication about what's happening in the moment. Hopefully, that can help us stop ourselves in our shoes, when we're about to throw those barb's at each other.

Yeah, and I think inside of the relational world, it's so important for me anyway, to remember that there's going to be plenty of negative impact and navigate and so having the expectation that that's not going to happen, or it shouldn't happen, or it's bad when it does happen, or somebody's at fault, when that happened, is just the world of fantasy, you know, and if you're living in the world of fantasy, you're gonna get plenty and nightmare to balance that out. So, you know, I think, I don't know if you correct me if I'm wrong here. But I think I can speak for us both that we want to live in a reality where we are human beings. And as such, we're gonna have plenty of negative triggers and reactions and things that happen. So it's for us to navigate, and get empowered around how we're going to be with those experiences, rather than thinking that something's wrong here, if we're having those experiences.

So well said, I appreciate that so much. And I think I just want to add that having a negative impact on somebody can also really lead to a positive outcome, right? Whether it's growth, like we're talking about here, or helping them make up to something about themselves, that it's not easy to hear. It's like negative impact doesn't equate, like you're saying, Will, that we did something wrong. And that could actually be something really right in the right circumstances. So thanks for saying that.

Yeah I think we can choose if we want to live in a world where we can wipe the slate clean by cleaning up miscommunications or passive aggression, or whatever. Or we can choose to construct a world where there's a mark that's permanent, that's left by a feeling that didn't feel good to us. And you know, we're building a case against a person, and not just the person but also the world, right? Like, the world sucks, the world disappointed me or whatever, rather than a life is rugged, you know, it's a rugged landscape, there's a lot of beauty, there's a lot of scary areas, and we can get hurt. And we can also recover from getting hurt.

Absolutely. And it's also just gonna add to there's also something so empowering. When we have the ability to navigate these kinds of comments from a centered sovereign leadership place because they're going to come at us, we're going to give them out. But when we can actually address them with skill and love and leadership and boundaries, healthy boundaries, it makes a world of difference about what we can navigate in our lives. Totally agree with you. All right, that was a fun episode.

That's fun. Thank you.

Thank you all so much for joining us. And if there are, if there are any specific topics that you would like to hear, we would so love to hear from you. You can go to our website at Krista van derveer.com. And there's a button to contact us and you can just email us from that website and let us know what kinds of topics you'd like to hear or just go to your podcast platform. And leave us a message in the reviews and we will read every single one in verse so deeply touched and we will definitely keep your eyes posted there for topics you want to hear about thank you thank you so much and we'll see you next week.