How To Deal With Difficult People Part 3 – The

How To Deal With Difficult People Part 3 – The Passive Aggressive

Thirty-three year old Roberto had promised his wife Tina that he would be home after work in time for her to attend her weekly “women’s group” at her church. Having only one automobile, Tina was completely at the mercy of Roberto’s promise.

You guessed it! Roberto did not show up until 8:45 PM-way too late for Tina to attend her meeting. Rather than being apologetic, however, Roberto explained to Tina (who was outraged at this point) that he “couldn’t help it” because “I had to help a friend out who’s car had broken down.” He lamented “How could I let Michael down? He was best man at our wedding.”

Was Tina being unreasonable in her anger? After all, Roberto was helping out a mutual friend. Yet, looking deeper into this situation, turns out that Roberto really didn’t want Tina to attend those meetings because it was “putting ideas into her head.”

Yet, he couldn’t just forbid Tina from attending, so he handled the situation in an underhanded way-sabotaging her attendance in a way that...