dealing with a passive aggressive mother in law dredging up the past

I felt hurt last night when you told me not to worry about my work troubles and that it was ‘all in my head.’.If you want to have a productive confrontation, force yourself to get specific about what’s behind the feeling: There’s nothing wrong with feelings, desires, and other impressions like this. I feel hurt about what you said last night.They have a vague notion or feeling of what the problem is, but have a hard time articulating the specifics: The biggest mistake people make with confrontations is that they lack clarity about the issue itself. Specificity is the key to success when it comes to confident and effective confrontations.

Clarify the issue for yourself (in writing!) In this guide, we’ll look at 15 practical ways to be more confident handling difficult confrontations.ġ. With the right habits and mindset shifts, you can train yourself to handle confrontations effectively and with confidence. Luckily, the tendency to avoid confrontations isn’t a personality trait or genetic curse.

It generates resentment and chronic irritability.

It fosters low self-esteem and poor self-confidence.

It leads to unhappy marriages with low intimacy and trust.

It’s a very common cause of chronic worry and anxiety.

Unfortunately, while avoiding confrontations might get you out of some anxiety or stress in the short-term, you’re almost always worse off for it in the long run:

Chalking up bad behavior on your spouse’s part to “well, that’s just who they are…”.Procrastinating on making a doctor’s appointment because you know your doc is going to confront you about one of your health issues.Being passive or keeping quiet about your true preferences for where to eat for dinner or what to watch on Netflix.People consistently rank public speaking as their worst fear, but I think the fear of confrontations might be the most common.Īs a psychologist, I see this fear of confrontation all the time, often expressed in little ways:

Dealing with a passive aggressive mother in law dredging up the past