Is my ex bf passive aggressive!?

[exback]

During our relationship (4 years, I am 23, he is 25) he always ignored me for days/weeks if I criticised him - he didn't say anything and just started ignoring me till I begged for him to at least talk to me or till I told him I am sorry and I was wrong and we should just forget about everything...We had never a real fight since he never expressed his anger - not even once. I could sit at his bed for hours and he could watch tv and ignore every single word from me. After we made up/ I apologized he always said "I don't make mistakes. It was your fault!". He made no appointments with me; for example when I asked him why he doesn't tell me a time for us to meet he just answered "I can't be to late if I don't give you a time to meet with me"...

5.5 months ago we got into a stupid "fight" about the car or at least I started criticising him because he forget to give it back to me (my car- he borrowed it for some weeks). After that he started ignoring me and I kept apologizing and tried to contact him 5 weeks long. I even visited him at home and he let me in his room but ignored me for 7 HOURS watching tv and playing computer games - he didn't say a single word till I left. His behaviour became worse during that 4 years - the time of his silent treatment increased after every "fight". First just for some hours, then days, then weeks. This time I gave up after 5 weeks trying to contact him and now we are kind of broken up since 5 months even so he didn't officially break up with me and just started ignoring me. Friends told me he does/did suffer and looks horrible and didn't leave his room for 2 months ( his mother told me) and barely talks to anyone. I didn't contact him the last couple of months till friends told me he is bad-mouthing me and furthermore he tells everyone that I tried to get him back by all means (I guess he is talking about the 5 weeks in which I tried to talk to him). I got angry and sent him after months of NC an email and a text message that I need to talk to him since I know what he told his friends about me and that I want to live in peace and I told him that if he gets that message to answer at least "ok" that he does understand what I am saying - he ignored me.

I love him I want him back. If he is passive-aggressive there is no way he would come back to me I guess. During 4 years I can't remember him apologizing at least once even so he would have been clearly at fault sometimes.

What to do to get him back!?

[exback]

Because I lovee him - sounds crazy under the circumstances but still missing him after 5 months apart shows me: I love him and it is not only addiction...

[agent1607307371]

Because I lovee him - sounds crazy under the circumstances but still missing him after 5 months apart shows me: I love him and it is not only addiction...

 

No, it's idiocy.

 

But his behaviour has done what it's designed to do. Make you a dog waiting for their master.

[Stella Sleepwalks]

No, it's idiocy.

 

But his behaviour has done what it's designed to do. Make you a dog waiting for their master.

 

I agree - sounds passive aggressive to me. My ex used to do the same sorts of things to me, but I got out luckily. It sounds as though you are trying to figure him out so that you can fix him and that's wrong.

 

You can't fix people, or communicate that their behavior is damaging, if they are adamant that the problems in your relationship are your fault.

[metwo]

I agree - sounds passive aggressive to me. My ex used to do the same sorts of things to me, but I got out luckily. It sounds as though you are trying to figure him out so that you can fix him and that's wrong.

 

You can't fix people, or communicate that their behavior is damaging, if they are adamant that the problems in your relationship are your fault.

sooo right

[Lucius]

I think that his behaviour goes far beyond what is regularly considered passive aggression. We can all exhibit passive aggressiveness from time to time, but to be comfortable ignoring a person for 7 hours whilst they sit beside you ... that is difficult to fathom. He's not just passive aggressive - he's passive aggressive's poster boy.

 

I think you should pause for a moment, and consider why it is that you would be willing to return to someone who treats you this way. He is emotionally abusive. This technique of his is called stonewalling, and it's generally considered one of the most destructive forms of passive aggression in the douche bag manual. Why? Because it's used to manipulate and control the emotions and actions of a partner, by the giving and refusing of love - as expressed through the maintenance of his sole, tyrannical hold over the channels of communication.

 

So yes. Your desire to return to him smacks of a desire to regain approval - to reopen the love conduit (so to speak) by appeasing his need to be placated and supplicated. This is a learned behaviour. You're playing into the manipulation. The problem is, there's nothing in this relationship for you - there never was. The relationship was controlled wholly by him. He held the reins, and decided when there would be communication, and when there would not. He decided when you would receive affection, or understanding, and when you would not. The relationship was designed and run (by him) to cater wholly to himself, his needs, and at the pace with which he was most comfortable.

 

I would suggest you want to return to him because you miss the feeling of love that you most recently associate with him. I strongly caution you against this, for all the reasons I have listed. He only ever provided you with enough love/kindness/affection to keep you compliant; your needs were never his concern. If they were, he would not have maintained such an indomitable arrogance in the face of every conflict, and discarded your own attempts to communicate so utterly, and with such single-minded conviction.

 

Have you heard the expression "running on fumes"? In reference to driving a car with so little petrol that the fumes alone power the vehicle? That's what his attitude towards you reminds me of. He kept you running on fumes - the smell of love. The memory of it. Those brief moments where he was all that you wanted. That to-ing and fro-ing (from kind to cold and back again, endlessly) is another CLASSIC sign of an abuser. It's all an effort to control, or manage, that other person's emotions - manipulate them just enough to keep them compliant of their own (seeming) volition. It's sickening, yes, but that's how it goes with some.

 

As I say, take some time to think about why a return to him would even be an option for you - why your standards are so low. I counsel you to repair your self-esteem and self-respect; you can (and will) do much better than him. Indeed; you could practically walk outside now, close your eyes, spin, and throw a rock randomly into the street - you'd STILL likely hit a more mature man than he.

 

Good luck.

[nazdaq30]

He avoids confratation and holds his anger in, instead of telling you. That needs to change before anything will work...

[exback]

@lucius: you described perectly what was going on. Every time I thought about breaking up with him he got so nice and caring and he was THAT boyfriend I always wanted and I gave up on my plans to break up - as if he knew when to be nice and caring to keep me with him. From kind to cold - you never knew. It felt like a roller coaster ride to me -4 years long. The main reason I want him back is because I want to be back "in". I feel somehow excluded now not beeing allowed to be part of his life...

[Lucius]

@lucius: you described perectly what was going on. Every time I thought about breaking up with him he got so nice and caring and he was THAT boyfriend I always wanted and I gave up on my plans to break up - as if he knew when to be nice and caring to keep me with him. From kind to cold - you never knew. It felt like a roller coaster ride to me -4 years long. The main reason I want him back is because I want to be back "in". I feel somehow excluded now not beeing allowed to be part of his life...

 

That happens when we make someone (other than ourselves) the centre of our lives...

 

If you make someone your life, and if they leave you, it is only natural to feel as though your life has left also. It is fortunate indeed that this feeling is an illusion. An illusion based on a learned lie. The lie is that your life was ever PRIMARILY about someone other than yourself. Your life is always yours, and you are always the centre. It can feel otherwise, however, when (for whatever variety of reasons) we allow another personality to subsume our identity. The solution to the dilemma that this illusion poses, of course, is to recreate our lives; and to become our own centre. Do that, and I predict you will feel less and less inclined to cede your happiness and love - not to mention your life and your identity - to him and to his controlling, dysfunctional ways. I do hope so.