Imagine the characters in a separation or divorce, amid overt and covert problems. How people end a marriage, who chatters to whom, what they think and do, and how they resolve differences all lead to a healthy restart or misery.
Quickly recognizable, external anger presents as shouting, pushing and shoving, throwing, or destroying. Less obvious is purposeful inactivity, defiance, defamation, obstruction—passive-aggression.
While one spouse might prepare for the end, others sit shocked. literally, staring into space, physically drained, losing weight in disbelief. One spouse, and often the children, may fit this description. Hidden anger has the capacity to envelop multiple players.
Why Some Dish Out Pent-Up Anger
Unbalanced or dysfunctional patterns ultimately cause explosive or implosive marital moments. A last straw occurs. That aha-moment bolsters one spouse. With sudden energy to live differently, he or she plans to leave or actually does. Some find a sudden voice while others still stonewall on important matters.
When little to no good communication evolves, rumination and plotted revenge simmer. It creates an angry stew that swirls around affected parties with sarcasm, name-calling, entitlement, false starts, and stalls on a forward focus.
Sound familiar? If domestic violence or rage forces one into silence for safety, these behaviors serve as a red flag, a signal that it’s time to engage effective helping professionals.
Otherwise, register some awareness that you’re dishing out passive-aggressive behavior. That underground fight hurts you (and children) far more than any gain you’ll extract from your target. Curb bitterness, too.
“Research shows that even when both parties try to comprehend their own roles in the divorce process, they nevertheless view one another through a defensive mechanism-distorted lens,” write Jolanta Sondaite and Lina Butkute, who studied a two-year divorce process.1 Passive aggression has been described as an immature defense from its earliest research.2
Vent your anger to a therapist experienced with separation or divorce. Trained professionals help you to transform the snide remarks and obstinance into problem-solving.
Divorce drives many to go temporarily bonkers. Most want to show their newfound might, but that doesn’t mean the behavior is right. “When you hate the other parent more than you love your child, expect big problems,” I wrote in my co-authored book Overcoming Passive Aggression.2 Keep reading for tips that merit all parties’ attention.
When You’re the Recipient of Passive Aggression
You’re in shock. A person you loved has gone into full-bore underground battle. How dare they? You’re ready to pounce. But…hold off.
Prioritize true needs, beginning with food, clothing, housing, sleep, safety, healthcare, and building a community. Add in counseling with healthy coping.
When you replicate undermining, life steadily spirals. Limit how much negativity you allow to infiltrate your brain. Try to envision a different future, trusting that time and healthy steps will make it brighter.
When blame and projection get lobbed, resist taking the bait. Bait equals a secondary gain for lobbers. Now, they experience anger vicariously, without taking responsibility, because you externalize what they cannot. That’s their objective—to hold something over you.
Instead, ignore and be brief, using “I-statements.” Avoid “why” questions or the accusatory “you this/that…” which puts others on defense.
Helpful Realities to Accept
Realize first that one person can drive a divorce that will indeed happen. Fighting every single step proves useless.
Second, all parties must move on with dignity, even your estranged spouse. Someday, especially when raising children, you’ll need cooperation. Don’t undermine today when it may lead to worse results later. Sabotage comes right back at you.
Another reality: Don’t expect to fix now what you couldn’t manage within your marriage. Alter your expectations of a passive-aggressive spouse, either a woe-is-me or selfish subtype. Expect very little change or none. This wards off disappointment.
It’s possible that new responsibility might nudge spouses to grow, participate, or do more. Any behavior tweaks, however, will result from their efforts, not your pushing, which leads to resistance.
Questions that may pull someone in from payback mode and set the focus where it belongs:
- What do I value most?
- How much can I truly manage on my own?
- What do I want my new life to look like?
I wrote about the importance of values for Psychology Today.3 Think of future scenes playing out like graduations, weddings, considering how you’ll coexist in a room together. When you’re older, is nastiness worth tarnishing your reputation and legacy? Grandchildren pick up on a lot of subtlety.
Rather than resenting selling a large marital home, reframe it as creating a manageable environment that’s totally yours. Be proud of that. Turn negative energy into a positive force to explore solo dreams.
Who Else Dishes Passive Aggression?
Definitely lawyers do with accusatory letters and nonstarter proposals, creating underhanded tension and protracted back and forth. Lawyers promise a lot to procure your case in an industry where your affairs are just a deposit (or several) to the firm’s bank balance while draining yours.
Lawyers work for you. Tell them you want your spouse to save face, find a home, restart a career, or otherwise land well. That doesn’t mean lavishly but respectfully. Take the high ground.
Unlikely side characters, say extended family, also dish proportionally. Sadly, relatives in unhappy marriages derive secondary gain, foisting angry acts onto others. In-laws may harass or create reputational damage on or off social media, risking legal trouble for you and them.
Children are sideline victims, but occasionally their anger runs afoul of a parent, when they take sides, often without evidence for knee-jerk thoughts. No child should feel triangulated, for it leads to anxiety and depression. Still, some cut off communication, badmouth, or purposefully embarrass a parent. If kids don’t heal from divorce, they, too, risk their own success in intimate relationships.
With adult children, in remarriages or gray divorce where there’s inheritance at stake, destroying one side preserves assets for the other. At play here are far more than passive-aggressive traits. Working out problems without outside influence or unnecessary triangles leads to better outcomes.
Remember: Repeated divorce drama doesn’t pay royalties. It keeps everyone stuck in a simmering cauldron.
© 2026 by Loriann Oberlin, MS, LCPC
