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Passive-Aggressive Defiance

Fourteen-year-old Billy dreaded the idea of growing up to be like his father. In Billy’s eyes, his dad was a wuss, always letting himself be pushed around, never speaking up for himself. Either his boss was bashing him, his customers were blaming him or his wife was nitpicking about something he didn’t do right. Billy couldn’t imagine a worse fate.

To avoid such a fate, Billy was determined to be “his own man.” And so he began developing a defiant personality. At times, he was openly defiant, refusing to do what was asked of him. But more typically, his defiance was concealed under a guise of compliance. Though he was not openly disrespectful, his responses were slippery, noncommittal, hard to pin down. A few examples:

“I’ll do it Mom.” (A “yes” response designed to get her off his back)

“Chill out Dad, my room is cleaner than any of my friends!” (Assuming the authoritative role.)

“Don’t worry Mom, I’m studying now!” (A bit of studying followed by a slew of video games.)

“It’s okay, I’ll clean up the mess I made.” (No commitment as to when.)

Billy honed these passive-aggressive skills not only at home, but also at school. He became a master at dancing a daring pattern of defiance and manipulation (meeting a deadline at the last minute, getting an extension, or sweet talking his teacher into accepting a late assignment.)

For the most part, Billy got away with his defiant tactics, though every now and then, he would experience a setback at school – a low grade, an opportunity lost, a brief suspension. Usually these negative consequences occurred only after a teacher had had enough of his excuses, refusing to buy into them. Yet, in general, the educational system enabled him to survive and even thrive with his passive-aggressiveness tendencies intact.

Fast forward 20 years. Bill now works as a middle-level manager in the insurance industry. For years, he managed to sustain his reputation through aggressiveness, sweet talking and manipulation rather than through a more positive, efficient use of his time and energy. But time was running out on him, both in his career and his marriage.

Other people were losing their patience with his passive-aggressive tendencies. He had developed a reputation as someone who was not reliable and whose words would not be backed up with appropriate action. Despite being confronted on these issues, Bill refused to acknowledge that any of the problems were of his own making.

Instead, he looked upon the criticism as unfair, an intrusion on his freedom to do things his own way.

It wasn’t easy for Bill to shift his concern away from knee-jerk defiance to working with a team – both at work and at home. But it became easier for him when he realized he no longer needed to work so hard to differentiate himself from his father. He was his own person. He didn’t have to be rebellious to prove it.

As he became less wrapped up in his defiant ways, Bill came to appreciate these basic truths:

Not everything needs to feel good in order for you to do it.
Something that feels good in the short term (like putting off a disagreeable task) may have negative consequences in the long term.
Something that feels bad in the short term (like applying yourself to a disagreeable task) may have positive consequences in the long term.

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