View Full Version : Conflicting dispositions
As a couple, how can you deal with having opposing personality traits/dispositions that affect everyday life?
One of us likes to (over?)plan ahead and figure possible setbacks/scenarios into plans, while the other is predominantly focused on here & now and is very laid back... at times this can be very useful, as we can pull one another into the appropriate mindset when necessary, but other times, ugh...
For example, an ongoing thing with my partner and I is that he leaves it to the last minute to make change for the bus, despite having known ALL DAY that we'll be going out by bus (how ridiculously trivial, I KNOW). This has resulted in us missing buses/being late and me getting extremely hacked off! Of course, nothing AWFUL came out of being late; but it does leave me feeling uneasy. He even did this before a job interview once... it's just in his nature. He says this sort of 'planning' things "just doesn't occur to him". So, while I'm anally over-organising and fretting over whether I'll get somewhere on time, he's not thinking about what he needs to do in order to carry out X, Y or Z until 5 minutes beforehand or until I ask him to do it .
We're both at opposing ends of the spectrum... I suppose my question is, how do I become more accepting/accommodating and less critical (or demanding?), and should I expect him to try and make changes? Can we meet in the middle? I don't like expecting him to conform to MY expectations - I want to be able to loosen my grip on these expectations! Anyone been in a similar situation?
Are you sure your partner is not displaying passive-aggressive behavior? Sounds like it to me. Just my thought.
It is passive-aggressive indicating.
DH is just like your partner except he will get to appointments well ahead of time.
We had a major confrontation when we had tickets to Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake. I like to allow about an hour extra to get there. It is a lovely drive going there but the lift bridge at the locks can delay travellers for about 45 minutes if you arrive at the wrong time. We did get delayed, were very late and were not allowed into the theatre auditorium until the intermission. We could only watch the show that I so wanted to see on a tiny monitor. We have never attended another show there together since that time. I go by myself or with friends. DH and I go to local theatre without difficulty and can be there in about 15 minutes and he is quite happy to get there early.
I finally concluded after some long discussions that he simply didn't want to go to the Shaw and was using passive-aggressive manipulation to get out of going rather than simply saying, "I don't want to go". It is dishonest and manipulative and destroys trust. Like alcoholism, you did not cause it, cannot control it or cure this behaviour. It probably has been going on a long time. Our family doctor alerted me to the reality of the problem.
I have found that this type of personality does seem to need to be left to face their own consequences and that you will not bail them out. I make no appointments for DH and if someone calls to make any changes, I hand over the phone.
If your partner is PA then find the best way for you to focus on yourself. State that you are leaving for your activity, have enough money for yourself for the bus and hope that he can make it somehow.
After 46 years of dealing with this behaviour, I can understand some severe frustration on your part. I now set deadlines for important decisions, detach when he gets into indecision mode and refuse to be manipulated into anger. If I do get angry, I step back, examine which of my values or principles of behaviour he has threatened, try to walk in his shoes to understand a different viewpoint and then tell him my thinking and let him live with it for a while. I then raise it again and unless there is a strong reason for thinking differently, I go my own way. I have had occasion to tell him that I simply cannot rely on him in certain situations and so had to make solitary decisions and that woke him up to the consequences of his behaviour.
Sorry if this is more info than you wanted but I really wished that someone could have helped me think it through years ago.
Good definition, I think:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/passive-aggressive-behavior/AN01563
http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellor-articles/what-is-passive-aggressive-behaviour
http://voices.yahoo.com/how-deal-passive-aggressive-people-3916008.html
I'd get my own bus change! And get on the bus when I needed to. I am not so sure I believe in the passive aggressive label any more. Mostly I see a systems dynamic of overfunctioning/underfunctioning reciprocity.
We have two bus passes, and that way if one is ready and anxious (DH) and the other is not (me), one can get on the bus without the other. And whomever has the kid at the time takes the kid, too. The kid gets upset if one of us gets left behind. He's usually able to cajole the bus driver to wait a minute or two. :)
loosechickens
5-2-12, 12:54am
That could describe us almost exactly. All I can tell you is that, at least for us, gradually, over the years, he learned that if something was really important to me, he made an effort to be on time, or be organized if that was necessary, and over the years, I learned that there weren't really that many things that were important.
After 35 years now, we've melded nicely somewhere in the middle.....he is much neater and more organized and with a better sense of time than he had years ago, and I am much more relaxed, much more able to "go with the flow", and both of us are better for it.
He is definitely definitely not passive-aggressive. Nowhere near. He just doesn't think ahead and has never really been the most motivated person in the world. I'll construct a better reply later on when I'm not supposed to be working (oops!).
Gardenarian
5-2-12, 3:59pm
Oh yes. My husband is a musician, mildly ADD. I am a librarian and whatever is the exact opposite of ADD. When we have conflicts, it's usually over those differences: he's always late, I'm frenetically punctual. He doesn't use lists; I get upset when dd hasn't completed everything on her list for the day. And so on.
The thing is, the conflicts are not really over these superficial things. Maybe I'm really angry because he has not been holding up his side of the parenting. Or he's mad because my health issues have taken precedence over his needs. Whatever. In my case, I find the trivial arguments are usually hiding something more important - and maybe that's okay. I've yet to meet two people who live in perfect harmony!
He is definitely definitely not passive-aggressive. Nowhere near. He just doesn't think ahead and has never really been the most motivated person in the world. I'll construct a better reply later on when I'm not supposed to be working (oops!).
I have a DH who is always late and it has nothing to do with passive-aggression either--far from it! He's very loud about his feelings. He just hates to wait. He HATES the idea that he might get to an airport and (GOD FORBID!) have to read a book for a half hour before boarding the plane. In his perfect world, he would walk into the airport, have no line in security, they would smile and say "Thank you, Mr. B---" and then they'd roll out the red carpet at the gate and he'd stride on and into his seat in first class where the flight attendant would promptly hand him a Grey Goose on the rocks.
He just doesn't understand that other rules and other realities apply.
Why is your husband the only one who can get change? You are a grown up, why not get your own change. Knowing that he doesn't think about these things then waiting till the last minute to find out he messed up and then getting mad about it seems a little passive aggressive to me.
Why not keep a jar in the bedroom that both of you put spare change in so that it isn't an issue.
My husband was the organized one for quite a long time. Always remembers where his keys are, always remembers the theater tickets/water bottles/map to the restaurant, etc. I used to drive him batty.
For a long time I whined "I can't change,that's just the way I am...." but really that was just a cop-out. I can be anything I put my mind to. Not only did I WANT to be more like him in that way, but I also learned that I really made him miserable by not making more of an effort. I love my husband and don't want him to be miserable, and so I re-taught myself how to be more like him. He also mellowed out a little bit so we met somewhere in the middle. All's well...and now I always know where my keys are.
I am glad that others are refuting the "passive-agressive" thing, that is an easy pop psych analysis. It may be true, but just as often it is not.
I have a DH who is always late and it has nothing to do with passive-aggression either--far from it! He's very loud about his feelings. He just hates to wait. He HATES the idea that he might get to an airport and (GOD FORBID!) have to read a book for a half hour before boarding the plane. In his perfect world, he would walk into the airport, have no line in security, they would smile and say "Thank you, Mr. B---" and then they'd roll out the red carpet at the gate and he'd stride on and into his seat in first class where the flight attendant would promptly hand him a Grey Goose on the rocks.
He just doesn't understand that other rules and other realities apply.
But this is the thing I don't understand about people like that: we live in a country of 350 million people, and yet they are surprised *every time* that someone else might be in line in front of them at the bank, movie theater, DMV, etc. If they're behind me I can feel their blood pressure rising and the mild snorting they do if someone else takes a few seconds extra collecting their change or whatever. They are pacing back and forth and jiggling their keys and every other annoying tic type of behavior til it's their turn.
So they finally get their turn and leave, and then the next day they're surprised *again* ... Wouldn't this roller-coaster of emotions be exhausting? Isn't it better to just behave like an adult and be patient and realize you'll get served at the same pace as everyone else and not get yourself so worked up?
I think of those types as "heart attacks on the hoof." Hell of a way to go through life, IMO.
I am glad that others are refuting the "passive-agressive" thing, that is an easy pop psych analysis. It may be true, but just as often it is not.
+1 to that comment. Why do people think they are competent to give a possible psychiatric diagnosis of a person they don't know, based only upon a few lines posted by another person in a web forum?
+1 to that comment. Why do people think they are competent to give a possible psychiatric diagnosis of a person they don't know, based only upon a few lines posted by another person in a web forum?
No one to my knowledge made a diagnosis, it was suggested as a possiblity or (my words) a possible inclination. That is NOT a diagnosis, at least from where I am sitting but such comments indicate that some posters may be able to decide what we all were all thinking and made their personal decision on our thoughts. Just saying...
But this is the thing I don't understand about people like that: we live in a country of 350 million people, and yet they are surprised *every time* that someone else might be in line in front of them at the bank, movie theater, DMV, etc. If they're behind me I can feel their blood pressure rising and the mild snorting they do if someone else takes a few seconds extra collecting their change or whatever. They are pacing back and forth and jiggling their keys and every other annoying tic type of behavior til it's their turn.
Garrison Keillor has a response I find useful at moments like those. He turns to the person exhibiting that behavior and says, "Someday, this will happen to you." Just wait until Mr. Can't-cool-his-jets is shuffling along on 80-year-old legs, or has had a long day (or a double-shift) and isn't functioning at 100% mentally, or has to find the coupon saved special for the event ...
That aside, yes, it does make me wonder how people can be surprised all the time like that. I also wonder why people with those kinds of issues (can't wait/always late, can't remember where they left the car keys, etc.) don't seem to want to fix them. But I guess that's my issue...
Why is your husband the only one who can get change? You are a grown up, why not get your own change. Knowing that he doesn't think about these things then waiting till the last minute to find out he messed up and then getting mad about it seems a little passive aggressive to me.
Why not keep a jar in the bedroom that both of you put spare change in so that it isn't an issue.
I don't need change. I have my trusty bus pass! So making change is his responsibility. Unfortunately it doesn't make financial sense for him to have a bus pass as he doesn't commute to work in the city like I do.
Puglogic - I don't accept the "that's just the way I am" schitck either. I had a boyfriend in my teens who routinely came out with that whenever I got annoyed at him for interrupting me so he could talk about whatever unrelated subject he wanted to talk about right then in that instant. Needless to say, that relationship didn't stand the test of time.
It's encouraging to hear that some of you have experienced something similar in one way or another. I assume that our behaviours will eventually move from extremes to more of a medium (this has happened slightly already; I'm far less pissy than I used to be!)
As for people getting their knickers in a twist over having to stand in line, etc... this used to be my dad! It's much easier to get him to calm down now though. It's the ol' emotional reaction before the rational one rearing it's ugly head again.
Sometimes people don't change until they HAVE to change, Mira. I think something may shift in him the first time you have your bus pass, and he didn't make time to gather his change, and you go without him. (You can meet up at the other end, or maybe he won't be able to come.....not a life or death situation) People sometimes don't learn anything by us constantly bailing them out of the repercussions of their choices.
I am very organized, a planner, very meticulous about details. My DH is the opposite and it has caused problems often in our almost 40 years together. In his defense though he is ADD and has had a difficult time managing the details of life. I have often felt like his Mother over the years, having to oversee his life as much as the children I was raising. It got real old at the time. Things are better now though as he has learned to cope by making daily lists of things he needs to accomplish each day. I still help him as needed, but he oversees his own life quite well these days. Of course, being retired his life now runs at a much slower pace and that is very helpful!
And I might add many years ago I thought he was being passive aggressive, but after he was finally diagnosed ADD it all made sense, which was a big relief for both of us and gave us something to work with. :)
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