The Anger Series – 5: Passive Aggression and the Cost of Unspoken Resentment – Anger Series 1.5
These are the talks in this series on Anger
- Anger Is Not the Enemy “Anger is useful.”
- When the Past Walks Into the Room “Blast from the past”
- When Anger Becomes Rage “The nervous system becomes overwhelmed”
- The Volcano and the Iceberg “People protect themselves differently”
- The Hidden Anger “When anger cannot be spoken”
- Finding Your Voice “What healthy anger actually sounds like”
In the previous talks, we have explored different ways that anger appears in relationships. We have looked at healthy anger, which gives us information and helps us express what matters. We have explored how the past can influence the present, causing reactions that feel bigger than the moment itself. We have considered rage, when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed. And we have looked at the volcano and the iceberg, where people protect themselves through intensity or withdrawal. But there is another way anger can show up.
Sometimes anger does not explode. Sometimes it does not disappear. Sometimes it goes underground. This is passive aggression.
Passive aggression is a difficult pattern because the anger is there, but it is not spoken directly. Instead, it appears through behaviour.
It may look like:
Sarcasm.
Deliberate lateness.
Procrastination.
Forgetting things that matter.
Giving the silent treatment.
Saying, “Fine,” when things are clearly not fine.
The challenge is that passive aggression is often not about wanting to be hurtful. It is often about not knowing how to express anger safely. Many people who become passive aggressive have learned, somewhere along the way, that direct anger is dangerous. Perhaps, as children, disagreement was punished. Perhaps expressing a need led to criticism. Perhaps being angry meant risking rejection or losing connection.
So the person learns:
“I cannot say what I really feel.”
But emotions that cannot be spoken do not disappear.
They find another route.
I remember one couple who came for therapy. The wife repeatedly said, “It’s fine,” whenever her husband asked if something was wrong. But it wasn’t fine. Over time, he noticed that things he cared about were forgotten. Arrangements were not followed through. Small acts of resistance appeared. He felt confused. She felt increasingly resentful.
The difficulty was that neither person was talking about the real issue. Her behaviour was communicating something her words could not yet say.
Underneath the passive aggression was a much more vulnerable message:
“I feel unheard.”
“I feel unimportant.”
“I do not know how to tell you what I need.”
This is why passive aggression can be so damaging to relationships.
When someone says:
“I feel hurt when this happens,” their partner has something they can respond to. There is an invitation to repair.
But when the message comes through sarcasm, silence or subtle resistance, the other person often feels blamed without understanding why. They become defensive. The original hurt gets buried even deeper. The answer is not to remove anger. The answer is to make anger safer.
Learning to say:
“I am disappointed.”
“I wanted you to notice.”
“I feel taken for granted.”
“I need us to talk about this.”
These are vulnerable statements. They require courage. Healthy anger is not about making another person wrong. It is about allowing ourselves to be known. There is a profound difference between saying:
“You never care about me.”
and:
“I need to feel that I matter to you.”
The first creates defence. The second creates connection.
Perhaps the greatest challenge in relationships is not learning how to avoid conflict.
Conflict is inevitable.
The deeper challenge is learning how to bring our truth into the relationship without attacking, withdrawing or hiding. Because anger itself is not what damages love. Unspoken anger does.
And when we learn to give anger a safe voice, it no longer needs to whisper through resentment. It can become what it was always meant to be: a pathway towards honesty, understanding and deeper connection.
Juliet Grayson
August 2026
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