 Hey, what's up men? A couple of weeks ago I got to do a talk at the 21 convention in Orlando and if you're curious the topic of my discussion was how high achieving men like the kind of men who go to the 21 convention are prone to certain blind spots around women and those Blind spots allow them to bring the wrong women into their lives But after the talk we had a quick Q&A and one of the questions I got was how do you deal with a passive aggressive girlfriend? And I had one of those moments where the instant I answered the question And I knew that it wasn't what I wanted to say and worse than that it wasn't useful So I want to take another shot at it today and hopefully if I'm lucky this video will make it back to the man who actually asked the question So let's define terms first Passive aggressiveness is any indirect expression of anger or disagreement so things like procrastination sabotaging plans with holding affection Backbiting there's that old joke about the kid who has a passive aggressive father and the two of them go fishing out On the boat one day and as the kid is swimming back to shore later He's thinking to himself. I don't the old man really likes me because clearly there was some indirect expression of disapproval there I think the most common form of this that you see out in public is the passive aggressive joke sort of like Elizabeth Taylor in Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf? It's a great old movie and the way it works is that the woman has something that's bothering her about her man And she wants to bring it up But rather than bringing it up in private and directly she brings it up indirectly in public as a joke And it's all jolly good fun except that it isn't jolly and it isn't fun. She's actually trying to convey a message So if you are on the receiving end of this kind of behavior the first thing you might want to try is Apologizing to her if you have failed to set a tone of direct kind communication in the relationship Because usually where this behavior comes from is that somebody in her life a mother a previous boyfriend Maybe you has shown her that Conflict is not acceptable and they've punished her when she's tried to bring up legitimate concerns So the last thing you want to do is react to her passive aggressiveness with anger or frustration because that's probably Exactly what got her in this position you want her to know that it's okay for her to bring you her Concerns and that you're going to meet her with an open mind and with empathy and Curiosity because there's probably something that she's trying to tell you and there may be something about you That she needs you to know Now if the two of you decide to make changes in this department you can expect that there's going to be relapse because that's what happens When people try to make change so she's going to go back to her old passive aggressive ways And you're going to go back to whatever you were doing to encourage that passive aggressiveness And that's okay because each time you relapse It's just an opportunity to practice bringing that indirect communication up to the level of direct verbal communication But in spite of the relapses you should see progress over time if what you're getting instead is a lot of conflict and drama And nothing is changing or things are getting worse And you're essentially getting a passive aggressive response to your attempt to make her comfortable speaking to you Then maybe you've got a different question on your hand Maybe it's a question of character and a question of how much time and energy you have in your life for this kind of costly indirect inefficient communication We have this silly notion in Western culture that women are the only ones who know how to communicate and that us big dumb guys Should just follow their lead and that's particularly silly when you're dealing with somebody who's clearly struggling to handle just Basic friction in a relationship. So when you experience this passive aggressive behavior take it as an opportunity It's an opportunity for each of you to perform better in the relationships and cross all of your relationships And it's especially an opportunity for you to show her what it's like to be with a man who knows how to lead All right guys, I hope this was helpful if you didn't make it to the 21 convention this year I highly recommend that you make it happen next year because it's a kick in the ass You will connect with a lot of great guys and it will make you more effective in life So I think that's all I got for now got another video on the work set Hopefully we'll put out in the next week or two and we'll talk to you soon. Take care