Why Passive-Aggressive People Exhaust Everyone Around Them

The Historical Roots of Passive-Aggressive Behavior

The term “passive aggression” did not emerge from clinical observation of relationships or workplaces. It was coined in a military context. According to research published by the EBSCO Research database and corroborated by historians of psychiatry, the phrase was first used in a 1945 U.S. War Department technical bulletin to describe soldiers who expressed opposition to authority not through open defiance, but through procrastination, deliberate inefficiency, and passive obstruction. The Veterans’ Administration adopted the concept in 1949 as a type of “immaturity reaction,” and by 1952 it had been formally included in the first edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The diagnosis evolved and contracted over subsequent decades. It appeared in the DSM through the DSM-III-R in 1987, was moved to an appendix for further study in the DSM-IV in 1994, and was removed entirely from the DSM-5 in 2013, according to ScienceInsights. The decision to drop it reflected ongoing debate about whether the behavior pattern constituted a standalone personality disorder or was better understood as a symptom of other conditions. Despite losing its official diagnostic status, the behavioral pattern it described remains widely recognized among clinicians and researchers as a significant source of interpersonal conflict.

The removal from diagnostic manuals did not mean the behavior disappeared or became less relevant. Research continued to document its prevalence across relationships, families, and workplace settings, and the concept retained its utility as a descriptive category even without formal disorder status.

Why People Develop Passive-Aggressive Communication Patterns

The causes of passive-aggressive behavior are not fully understood, but multiple theoretical frameworks converge on a common thread: the behavior develops when direct emotional expression is learned to be unsafe or unacceptable. According to a research overview published by EBSCO, contributing theories include psychodynamic defense mechanisms, learned behaviors, genetic predisposition, inconsistent parenting, and specific developmental phases. In practical terms, this often means growing up in an environment where honest emotional communication carried social or physical consequences.

Research has specifically linked the development of persistent passive-aggressive traits to ineffective parenting, harsh or punitive discipline, and childhood abuse or neglect. Mental health professionals at Charlie Health note that people may also learn behaviors such as bitterness, cynicism, and blame-shifting from the family systems they are raised in. When a child observes or experiences that expressing anger or disagreement leads to punishment, rejection, or conflict escalation, they may adapt by learning to channel those feelings through indirect means — a pattern that can solidify into a default communication style by adulthood.

There is also a situational dimension to the behavior. Research published by Psychology Today notes that the workplace is particularly fertile ground for passive aggression because formal hierarchies make direct emotional expression professionally risky. An employee who feels frustrated by a manager’s decision cannot always say so openly without jeopardizing their position. The result is that indirect resistance — foot-dragging, deliberate forgetfulness, backhanded compliance — becomes a way to express dissatisfaction while maintaining plausible deniability.

Common Signs of Indirect Hostility That Others Easily Miss

Passive aggression is, by design, difficult to identify in the moment. It relies on deniability — the ability of the person engaging in it to credibly claim they did nothing wrong. Researchers at Simply Psychology describe the behavior as a covert expression of anger or hostility directed through actions rather than words, and note that this indirectness is precisely what makes it so resistant to direct challenge. When confronted, the passive-aggressive individual can point to each individual act and argue it was innocent. The pattern, however, tells a different story.

Common manifestations documented in the clinical and research literature include the silent treatment — defined by relational psychologist John Gottman as “stonewalling” — in which one person withdraws communicatively as a punitive measure. Related behaviors include deliberate procrastination, intentional underperformance, backhanded compliments, forgetting obligations that the person would rather not fulfill, sulking, and chronic lateness. The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV definition described the pattern as including “sullenness, stubbornness, and negative attitudes in response to requirements for normal performance levels expected by others.”

Perhaps the most disorienting aspect of passive aggression for those on the receiving end is the gap between what is said and what is communicated. Agreement that is never followed through on, enthusiasm that curdles into quiet sabotage, and support that is conspicuously absent when most needed all function to destabilize the other person’s sense of reality. Over time, recipients of this behavior may begin to doubt their own perceptions — wondering whether they are imagining slights that are, in fact, carefully constructed.

The Emotional and Cognitive Toll on People Close to Passive-Aggressive Individuals

The experience of being around a passive-aggressive person is consistently described in psychological literature as exhausting, and the research literature provides some structural explanation for why. A study published in the American Journal of Engineering Research, drawing on findings by Liu and Rolof (2015) involving 395 participants, found that passive-aggressive behavior — specifically through stonewalling and the silent treatment — was associated with a 23.4% occurrence rate of emotional exhaustion in those on the receiving end. The mechanism, according to the researchers, involves rumination: when complaints are withheld and hostility is expressed indirectly, recipients are left to process the interaction on their own without resolution, a cycle that depletes emotional resources over time.

Simply Psychology’s editorial team notes that navigating passive aggression requires constant vigilance — reading between lines, bracing for subtle jabs, and interpreting silences. This ongoing interpretive labor imposes a significant cognitive burden. Research into affect regulation by psychologist Eliot Halperin (2014), cited in a leadership analysis published by author Andi Roberts, found that emotional arousal in conflict situations narrows perspective and increases the likelihood of hostile attributions. In other words, the chronic low-grade tension generated by passive aggression keeps the nervous system in a heightened state that interferes with clear thinking.

HelpGuide, a mental health resource reviewed by clinical professionals, describes recipients of passive-aggressive behavior as often feeling like they are “constantly walking on eggshells” — a phrase that captures the sustained vigilance required. This heightened alertness is not a metaphor but a physiological state. When a relationship consistently produces uncertainty about whether things are fine or not, the brain allocates energy to monitoring for threat signals, leaving fewer resources available for other cognitive and emotional tasks.

Why Passive-Aggressive Behavior Is So Difficult to Confront Directly

One of the central reasons passive aggression is so draining is that it is structurally resistant to resolution. Confronting the behavior directly invites denial — “I was just busy,” “I didn’t mean it that way,” “you’re too sensitive” — and the very act of raising it can be made to seem like an overreaction. Psychology Today contributor Signe Whitson, who has written extensively on passive aggression for the platform, describes the behavior as a “perfect crime” in workplace settings because it evades Human Resources’ disciplinary action while still undermining authority and disrupting workflow.

Research on face-threat and dignity preservation by linguists Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1987), cited in academic analyses of workplace conflict, found that public confrontations heighten the risk of defensive escalation, particularly when power dynamics are involved. This is one reason passive aggression often thrives in group settings — meetings, group email chains, family gatherings — where calling it out would require the recipient to appear confrontational in a way the passive aggressor never did. The social calculus consistently favors the person who communicates indirectly.

Psychologist George Vaillant, in research published in 1998, classified passive aggression as a defense mechanism rather than a personality disorder — a distinction that has clinical implications. Defense mechanisms are not easily abandoned because they serve a psychological protective function for the person using them. Asking someone to give up passive aggression without addressing the underlying anxiety about direct expression is asking them to surrender a psychological tool without providing a replacement.

Long-Term Consequences for Relationships and Emotional Health

Psychology Today has documented several long-term consequences associated with chronic passive aggression in close relationships. Withholding honest communication breeds accumulated grievances — a stockpile of unresolved resentments that grows heavier over time. Without the safety valve of direct expression, those grievances fester and tend to express themselves through increasingly corrosive indirect behavior. The person on the receiving end, meanwhile, may find themselves unable to trust the sincerity of positive interactions, perpetually waiting for the inevitable withdrawal or sabotage.

WebMD notes that passive aggression, while not a mental illness itself, is frequently associated with anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, narcissistic personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder — all conditions that can complicate the relational dynamic further. When the behavior is embedded in a broader clinical picture, its impact on those close to the individual can be compounded and harder to disentangle. Relationships in which passive aggression goes unaddressed may deteriorate gradually rather than breaking down at an identifiable moment, leaving partners, family members, or colleagues feeling a low-grade unhappiness they struggle to articulate.

Simply Psychology emphasizes that passive aggression responds to deliberate changes in communication environment — specifically, when expressing disagreement directly becomes less costly than hiding it. This suggests that relationships and workplaces that actively create psychological safety, where honest negative feelings can be expressed without disproportionate social consequences, reduce the functional value of passive aggression. When the indirect route is no longer more rewarding than the direct one, the behavior tends to diminish.

Evidence-Based Strategies for Managing Passive-Aggressive People Around You

Mental health professionals consistently advise that attempting to match or mirror passive aggression — responding to withdrawal with withdrawal, to sarcasm with sarcasm — tends to entrench the pattern rather than interrupt it. HelpGuide recommends that those dealing with passive-aggressive individuals begin by calmly identifying the behavior without attributing malicious intent, creating a low-defensiveness opening for the person to express what they are actually feeling. The goal is to make direct communication a more viable option than it was previously.

Research into affect regulation, cited in leadership analysis by Andi Roberts, suggests that even brief self-regulation steps — pausing before responding, choosing written over spoken communication in high-tension situations — can shift the cognitive frame of a conflict and reduce the likelihood of hostile escalation. Timing is also significant: addressing passive-aggressive behavior in private rather than in public settings preserves dignity on both sides and reduces face-threat, making a productive exchange more likely.

For individuals who recognize passive-aggressive patterns in their own communication, therapeutic approaches have shown documented effectiveness. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is frequently cited by mental health professionals as useful for identifying and restructuring the thought patterns that maintain conflict-avoidant behavior. Simply Psychology notes that individuals willing to examine their passive aggression may benefit from therapy addressing conflict avoidance, fear of direct expression, and emotional regulation difficulties — all of which underlie the behavior. Tolerating passive aggression without response, as Psychology Today has noted, tends to reinforce the behavior rather than extinguish it.

Frequently Asked Questions About Passive-Aggressive Behavior

The Hidden Weight of Indirect Hostility

What makes passive-aggressive people so uniquely draining is not the presence of conflict but its deliberate concealment — a dynamic that leaves those on the receiving end perpetually off-balance, emotionally depleted, and unable to resolve what they cannot clearly name. The behavior is not arbitrary: it develops in response to environments where honest expression was once unsafe, and it persists because indirectness has been reliably more rewarding than directness. Understanding that origin does not excuse the pattern, but it does point toward where change is possible — in the careful construction of communication environments where disagreement can be expressed without disproportionate cost, and where the long, exhausting labor of decoding someone else’s anger can finally come to an end.