P.A. (Part 2) Situation One

Think it, say it, do it.

So I am an introvert, passive aggressive, a thinker, emotional, compassionate, a compulsive spender, over-eater, argumentative, sweet, humble, coy, giving, confused, indecisive, strong willed, offended easily, poetic, private, open, impatient, happy for the most part, jovial, competitive, friendly…I could say more, there’s much more, but for the sake of this blog post, you’ve read some facets of my personality. Now, here’s the thing, some parts of me conflict with others. I’m a classic passive aggressive, Passive-aggressive behavior refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to following through with expectations in interpersonal or occupational situations. It can manifest itself as learned helplessness, procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible. It is a defense mechanism, and (more often than not) only partly conscious.

Situation One.
My friend’s brother came into town, he’d been living here for about 6 months prior to me seeing him for the first time. When I first bumped into him we exchanged formalities and was relatively happy to see each other again. We were never close, we’d just spent some time together with his sister and family growing up when they all lived in Columbus. Back in December we re-aquainted and hit it off pretty well. Things happened fast, and one day he hit me with it. The question, the question I’ve been asked several times but hate to be asked. Let me backtrack, He’d been staying with his mom for the duration of his stay here, he didn’t mention her much. Until this one day, when I saw him he seemed upset, he told me he and his mom had been in an argument and she put him out, out on the streets. We’d had a long, long conversation about his life since we were adolescents and to “make a long story short” he’d been married and divorced (since ’03), was working in a nearby city, made $26.00 and hour, was laid off, lost his car and apartment, came back here to start anew. He’d never been without work, and so on and so forth. I felt bad, que the violins. Impulsive and gullable, I offer for him to stay for a few weeks until he can find somewhere else to go (he does have other family here), and he’s very thankful in the beginning, he also said he had a job lined up for January. It goes downhill from there. Fast forward today, he’s been here for a month and two weeks, we barely talk, he doesn’t clean, only bathes once a week, eats a lot, doesn’t flush the toilet or lock the door, smokes in the house (despite me telling him not to) still doesn’t have a job, and relies on me for transportation (I put a stop to that a few weeks ago) and things have soured quickly. I should probably mention that the job that was supposed to be lined up for January was a fluke a bold faced lie. Now the issue at hand is putting him put, letting him know it isn’t working. Here’s the psssive aggressive part, I’ve known it wasn’t going to work for about 2 and a half weeks now and instead of telling him he has to go, I just make it extremely uncomfortable for him to stay, and rather agressively push him out with my actions. I know that the proper thing for me to do is tell it like it is but…that doesn’t come easy to me. I dodge unpleasant situations by avoiding confrontation, there! I said it. To put it in technical terms, When the behaviors are part of a person's personality style, repercussions are not usually immediate, but instead accumulate over time as the individuals affected by the person come to recognize the disavowed aggression coming from that person. People with this personality style are often quite unconscious of their impact on others, and thus may be genuinely dismayed when held to account for the inconvenience or discomfort caused by their passive-aggressive behaviors. In that context, they fail to see how they might have provoked a negative response, so they feel misunderstood, held to unreasonable standards, and/or put-upon. Remedying this behavior can be difficult: efforts to convince the subject (ME) that their unconscious feelings are being expressed passively, and that the passive expression of those feelings (their behavior) invokes other people's anger or disappointment with the person, are often met with resistance. To me, most importantly, Anger turned inwards that has no other way to heal or express itself will either turn into depression, or passive aggression. In short, because this is my personality type, I’m having a problem going to him and telling him he has to go. It seems no easy way to say it, I hate conflict and I’ve got a feeling it’s coming. Any suggestions on how to approach this situation?