Reply to Family annoyance - passive aggressive "niceness"

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[quote=Anonymous]I can see what you're saying OP, but this seems like entry level passive-aggression. Yes, annoying over time, but as someone who has 40+ years of family interactions with some Grade A Dysfunction that includes passive aggression, enmeshment, co-dependency, you name it, this doesn't strike me as a big deal. For example:

When I was pregnant, we didn't want to share baby names because we were struggling to decide. My mother declared to my father and to my sister (but not to me) that our refusal to share names was pushing her into a deep depression and she felt uninvolved in my pregnancy and like she was being pushed away. Instead of telling me this directly, my dad started texting me periodically to say my mom "seemed depressed" and "could use some cheering up" from me. Eventually these escalated to "I'm worried your mother might self-harm" even though I was absolutely calling and reaching out during this time, but my mom would sound totally happy on the phone with me (though then also randomly call me and sound sad so I had reason to believe what my dad was saying, but when I asked her point blank if she was doing okay, she'd tell me she was "great, thrilled, so excited about my grand baby!") I had no idea that he was implying her upset was related to my pregnancy or any of my actions. Meanwhile, my sister became obviously angry with me during this time but refused to say why, until after several months of clearly irritated behavior (rolling her eyes at me, glaring at me during meals, leaving rooms when I spoke), she finally blew up at me and said I was "ruining [our mother's] life" by selfishly refusing to tell my mom what baby names we were considering.

Keep in mind I was 4-9 months pregnant with my first child while all this was going on, AND my FIL had just been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and given 6 months to a year to live.

What you are describing sounds annoying, for sure. I get it. Especially when repeated all the time. It's like "Minnesota Nice" if you've ever encountered that. But it's manageable. Try to focus on your own communication and be as clear as possible, and learn to detach when they use passive aggression to try and make you responsible for their emotional state. Let them own their own feelings and simply focus on clear communication on your end.[/quote]

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