Passive Aggression Is Not a Personality Trait. It’s a Nervous System Strategy
Thursday, December 18, 2025. This is for Brian and the actuary.
As a passive-aggressive man in recovery, I want to say this plainly: passive aggression has been badly misbranded.
It’s usually described as immaturity, manipulation, or a failure of character—something vaguely petty that emotionally competent adults are supposed to outgrow. Which is convenient, moralizing, and mostly wrong.
Passive aggression isn’t passive. It’s what protest looks like under constraint.
What we call passive aggression is not a flaw in communication.
It is a constrained form of emotional protest that emerges when the nervous system perceives direct expression as unsafe, ineffective, or destabilizing to attachment.
Once you understand the system behind it, the behavior stops looking childish and starts looking exhausted.
Definition
Passive aggression is a nervous-system–mediated strategy of indirect emotional protest that occurs when direct expression is perceived as unsafe, futile, or threatening to relational stability.
This is not a rebrand.
It is a shift in explanatory priority.
Passive aggression should be understood first as a neurological mechanism, not a moral failing.
The Constrained Protest Model (CPM)
In what I call the Constrained Protest Model (CPM), passive aggression arises when emotional protest is activated but direct expression is neurologically inhibited.
The system wants to signal distress.
It simply cannot do so openly—at least not without risk.
What follows is indirect discharge: tone, omission, delay, sarcasm, forgetfulness, or the quiet withdrawal that insists nothing is wrong while communicating that something very much is.
This is not indecision.
It is adaptation.
Why the Classic Definition of Passive Aggression Fails Couples
Traditional definitions assume:
intention where there is often inhibition.
manipulation where there is frequently fear.
avoidance where there is learned restraint.
Most partners labeled “passive-aggressive” are not refusing to communicate. They are communicating under constraint.
Often, they learned early that naming disappointment escalated conflict, triggered retaliation, or destabilized attachment. Their nervous system adjusted accordingly.
Passive aggression is what communication looks like after directness stops working.
The Neurology of Indirect Protest
From a nervous-system perspective, passive aggression is best understood as a freeze-adjacent or dorsal-leaning strategy.
The sequence is straightforward:
Anger or protest activates.
Direct action is inhibited due to perceived relational threat.
Expression discharges indirectly to preserve connection.
This is why the behavior is paradoxical. It both seeks connection and avoids exposure.
It wants to be felt—without being confronted.
Passive Aggression vs. Stonewalling vs. Withdrawal
These behaviors are often conflated. They are not the same.
Passive aggression maintains engagement through indirect protest.
Stonewalling shuts down interaction entirely.
Withdrawal reduces contact to stabilize the system.
Passive aggression is the most relational of the three. It still hopes to be understood—just not challenged.
What Passive Aggression Is Not
Passive aggression is not:
simple avoidance.
always manipulative.
a lack of insight.
solved by “better communication skills”
It is not the absence of courage.
It is the presence of constraint.
Why High-Functioning Adults Use Passive Aggression
This pattern is especially common among:
high achievers.
caretakers.
people socialized to prioritize harmony.
neurodivergent individuals in asymmetric emotional systems.
partners with less relational power.
These are not low-awareness people.
They are often over-regulated, highly attuned to consequences, and deeply invested in preserving stability.
They did not fail to learn directness.
They over-learned when not to use it.
A Brief Clinical Vignette
A partner insists they are “fine,” stops initiating conversation, and forgets small agreements. When asked directly, they deny being upset.
This is not deception.
Their system has learned that naming disappointment leads nowhere good. Protest still needs expression, so it leaks out sideways—quietly, inefficiently, but safely.
That is constrained emotional protest.
When Passive Aggression Is Adaptive—and When It Becomes Toxic
Early on, passive aggression can be protective.
It preserves attachment, limits escalation, and allows emotional discharge without relational rupture.
Over time, however, the cost accumulates.
The receiving partner feels punished without explanation.
The expressing partner feels unseen without safety.
Resentment grows silently. Which is, unfortunately, the point.
Why “Just Say What You Feel” Is Neurologically Illiterate Advice
This advice skips the only question that matters:
What happened the last time you did?
For many people, direct expression once resulted in dismissal, ridicule, retaliation, overwhelm, or abandonment.
The nervous system remembers that.
Before communication can change, felt safety must change.
What Actually Helps Passive-Aggressive Patterns Resolve
Not confrontation.
Not lectures.
Not accountability speeches disguised as concern.
What helps is:
slowing the interaction.
identifying and reducing threat cues.
validating the function before addressing the cost.
increasing tolerance for direct expression gradually.
When safety increases, indirectness becomes unnecessary.
The pattern resolves not through pressure, but through agency, permission, and practice.
A Therapist’s Reframe for Couples Stuck in the Loop
Passive aggression is not the problem.
It is the compromise the nervous system settled for when directness felt too expensive.
Therapeutic progress begins when couples stop arguing about tone and start asking what made direct expression feel unsafe.
If this is a wiring problem rather than a motivation problem, I’m your electrician.
FAQ — Passive Aggression, Clarified
Is passive aggression manipulative?
Sometimes—but more often it is protective rather than strategic.
Is passive aggression intentional?
Usually not in the conscious sense people mean. It is a way of being in the world.
Is passive aggression abuse?
Not inherently, though it can become harmful or abusive when left unexamined.
Does neurodivergence increase passive-aggressive patterns?
Yes, particularly when direct communication has repeatedly failed.
Can passive aggression change?
Yes—when the conditions that require it change. Neuroplasticity matters here.
Key Takeaways:
Passive aggression is constrained emotional protest, not immaturity.
It reflects nervous-system inhibition, not lack of insight.
Safety—not pressure—is what resolves the pattern.
Final Thoughts
Passive aggression isn’t always a sign of moral failure.
It is a strategy that worked once—and hasn’t been updated.
And once you understand the system behind it, you can stop arguing with the behavior and start addressing the conditions that made it necessary.
Therapist’s Note
If this description feels uncomfortably accurate, it’s likely because your nervous system learned how to preserve connection long before it learned how to speak freely.
That isn’t pathology.
It’s information.
If you want help translating indirect protest into direct connection—without destabilizing the relationship—that is precisely the work I do.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Porges, S. W. (2011).
The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
Schore, A. N. (2012).
The science of the art of psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Siegel, D. J. (2020).
The developing mind (3rd ed.).Guilford Press.