Passive Aggression within families... What's your story?
A discussion I was having in another group got me thinking about the horrors that can be family dynamics. I'm sure many of you have relatives that you can't stand. Family members that are just oil to your water. Often in families it's whole families, brother's family vs sister's family etc... Quite often there are very basic differences in world view at play, liberal vs conservative for example.
So often these clashes come to a head at family gatherings. This is often where the passive aggression comes out. Let's face it, as family we "have" to love each other. So instead of just coming out and saying I hate your views, we turn passive aggressive which in many ways is a lot worse.
Family is one of the few places where a phrases like "you look wonderful", "and how are you doing?", "well I'll never, that sounds fantastic"... can have vicious undertones.
I have a ditsy aunt who is always strange and passive aggressive toward us. They are a wealthy conservative family and she plays the roll of the "stupid" wife. She's actually VERY intelligent but the role of stupid wife allows her to get away with saying shit that no one else would. She feigns ignorance about things that everyone else knows about and then proceeds to ask questions about them for the 100th time. For example she is very fluent in french, having grown up in France this isn't surprising, and horribly proud of the fact that she raised her daughters bilingual and that she does french translation as a hobby. Now my father LOVES languages and has spent much of his life learning and now teaching Chinese. He's also passionately studied other languages for fun. But of course being a second language learned later in his life he's not as fluent as she is in French. So what question do you think comes up at family gatherings time and time again? "Are you 100% fluent in Chinese"? Now this is a purposefully targeted question cause she knows very well that he isn't and that he HATES being asked this all the time. Usually my father will just brush it off with a "no of course not" (though in reality he is almost). After which my aunt will walk away with a smug superior smile on her face. She will of course conveniently forget the answer at the next family gathering. She does something similar with me. At 31 now and still living at home with my parents, with all of my failed attempts at a degree it's been rather hard to keep my depression and anxiety a secret. One question that inevitably arises is "how are you doing, have you gotten a job etc etc.." which will sometimes be mixed in with stories of the astounding success of her own children.
One of my nieces does something similar. Also from the same conservative family as the aunt above. She treats me like a 5 year old despite us being the same age, because of my difficulties getting launched. Once we went out to a dinner and I talked about the job I was doing 7-11 at the time. I can't remember the details but I think I said something along the lines of not really being worried about the future all that much and if I HAD to stay in that job it was OK. To which she replied that she couldn't do that because she was always worried about "the bigger picture", by which she meant money and success (something she has ample amounts of now). She has also proudly paraded such things as having coauthored a book on business. We of course got a complementary copy. Upon attempting to read it, it quickly became obvious she had the writing skills of a 16 year old. Which I would NEVER dare mention except for the horribly in your face way she goes about showing off.
I have another aunt and uncle living out east who is even more conservative and even more wealthy. We hardly ever talk anymore after a huge blowout over money and how to treat my grandparents. They wanted each of the children of the grandparents to fork over $500 a month so that they could put my grandparents in a grand retirement home. When we said we couldn't afford that they just hit the ceiling with talk of us not loving them enough and not doing "our duty". We mentioned that they made like 5x the income we did so maybe JUST MAYBE they should pay more, well that didn't go over well. They thought we were communists or something. At a recent family gathering I was talking with my uncle from this family and even though this rift had closed years ago he managed to steer the topic of conversation from photography, which we were both interested in, to some kind of conservative allegory about why we should all tow our own weight, shades of Ayn Rand.
What stories do you have about passive aggressive family feuds?
= new reply since forum marked as read
just the aggression!
The latest incident happened between my brother and myself last night. He came in from work and made three different digs towards me about being unemployed. I ignored them since I know that he sometimes has an attitude when he gets off of work. I'm currently receiving two bills each month (cell phone and Internet) and he opened up my Internet bill and saw that it included a past due amount (which I had already paid). He started to lay into me about the bill and advising that he wasn't going to help any more with the cell phone bill. Since I may end up being homeless later this year, if I am going to make a choice of keeping the Internet or the cell phone then I'll choose the cell phone because I can't lug the computer around in my back pack due to the size and weight. Of course, he wants to keep the Internet connected because he wants to look for another job in the future (rather he wants for me to look for another job for him since he is computer illiterate).
We had another nasty fight (which happen about twice a month) with accusations that I won't take any job. He wants me to serve tables at $2.50/hour with tips or probably about $40-$50 a day when I used to make a salary close to $60K. Considering that I'm in a small town with college students and that I'm nearly 48 with no server experience, my chances of getting hired by any employers locally is zero. However, if a job was offered to me then I would accept it. The insults, verbal abuse and physical abuse leave me with a hangover depression that takes me a couple of days to shrug off so it is detrimental to the task of finding employment.
The odd thing is that for the 23 years that I was employed I had a larger salary than him and I never rubbed my financial situation in his face. On the other hand, he is being a complete jerk and treats me like I'm his slave. I doubt that I'll find a job making the same income as I did previously, but if I find a job with an income that takes care of the necessities then I plan on cutting off contact with him and the rest of my family also.
I've been both wealthy and poor at different times in my life and I have been happy and depressed in both circumstances. From those experiences I have learned that I would prefer to stand by my principles and beliefs rather than be obsessed with finances. All I want from life at this point is enough money to pay the bills and have friends that accept me as the quirky person that I am since I still have plenty to offer to others. It's not like I'll be able to take the money with me after my time on this world. 
... my mother-in-law. Very conservative. Used to make snide remarks to me every chance she got. After a few years, I just stopped going to the family gatherings. Hubby and children went on, though, as I knew she wouldn't live forever and they needed to spend time with her. She always griped about Tiger Woods. She was a golfer, and a hoity-toity, and bigoted. One time, not long before she passed, she was at our house for Thanksgiving dinner. While I was putting the final touches on my dinner, I heard her complaining in the den about the Salvation Army advertisements and how she hated being nagged for donations when she went shopping during the holiday season. She thought it was entirely too early for those damn bells at the grocery store. I have many, more personal, examples of her barbs that would curl your toes, but will stop.
When I did have to be in her presence, I did not return her condescending vibes, for the sake of peace, hubby and children. And this woman was supposedly a "devout" Catholic. Go figure. If God gave her a break, she's probably floating around in purgatory up there somewhere. She requested cremation before she passed. They had a Memorial at the Church, while her body laid at the Funeral Home on a table, all alone. As soon as the service was over, I grabbed my sons and we drove over to the FH and asked to see her body. They led us back to a beautiful room where she laid in a white gown and slippers. We didn't stay long, but each of said something, touched her cold body. Then we each kissed her forehead and said goodbye. To my knowledge, no one else in the family went over there to see her. Straaaaange family. Though she was cranky, even she deserved better. She lived a long life and raised 4 kids on her own after her hubby died when he was only 51. Her children at that time ranged from 13 to 18. And she was a nurse, a fantastic gourmet cook and her needlepoint was out of this world.
So what you have to endure is much worse than what I went through. I wish you luck in dealing with your relations... 
