Good communication is the foundation of any healthy relationship. From spouses and romantic partners to supervisors and co-workers. Poor communication can absolutely damage a relationship. In particular, there are 3 types of toxic communication styles we can easily fall into — and if we’re not careful, they can poison even the healthiest of relationships.
Sometimes people get too addicted to TV soaps, a learnt way of getting along superficially with in families (which might differ from community to community), with neighbors and the society, at large. On introspection, you will realize that such learnt behaviors promote dishonesty and disrespect, which in turn, do practically nothing towards building real relationships. These learnt behaviors need to be replaced with healthier styles of communication, that might not necessarily make for a deep relationship but at the bare minimum, keep it real.
I’ll walk you through the three types of unhealthy communication — passive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive communication — so you can learn to identify them in your own relationships and eliminate them before they do too much damage. Then we’ll end on a high note by discussing assertiveness — the one communication style that is always healthy and productive no matter what the situation or relationship.
1. Passive Communication
As the youngest child in a large joint family, “A” learnt from an early age that playing nice and letting people have what they wanted kept him out of the limelight, and as a result, made his life less stressful and overwhelming. Unfortunately, while this strategy worked as a child, it was wreaking havoc on his relationships as an adult. A came to see me because he was feeling surges of anger and resentment toward his partner and didn’t know what to do. When I asked A to describe his relationship with his partner, it quickly became clear that he was a classic passive communicator — always deferring what he wanted and preferred in order to “be nice” to keep things running smoothly.
Passive communication is when you ignore or mask the truth about how you feel or what you want, usually as a way to avoid conflict. While passive communication often feels good in the moment because it makes you look self-sacrificing and generous (at least to yourself), it always fails in the long run because it’s fundamentally dishonest.
The key to overcoming a passive communication style is to learn that your fear of conflict is overstated. You need to learn on a deep level that you can be honest about what you want and need and things will be okay. Start small. Try expressing a preference in little things where you would normally just defer to someone else: Being honest with yourself and your own wants and needs doesn’t have to mean conflict or disrespect to others. Train yourself to communicate confidently and your relationships will flourish.
2. Aggressive Communication
“B” was a corporate consultant who came to see me because his wife was at her wit’s end and threatening to divorce him unless he got help. He knew he had some problems in his life, most of which were interpersonal: in addition to his marriage being perpetually rocky, he frequently was in disputes with the partners at his firm and constantly in stressful disagreements with his brother.
But to B, all these problems were external, the result of stressful circumstances, incompetence in other people, or sheer bad luck. It rarely, if ever, occurred to B that some of his problems could be the result of his own conditioning, fixed mindset, choices and actions. B didn’t see it this way, but it became clear to us, as we progressed in our sessions, that he was sometimes either manipulative or a bully, and had been so, all his life. He was savvy enough to never be so abusive that he lost a job or got arrested. But the fact was, that he was mean, manipulative and aggressive with people and what’s more is that he felt justified about it. As we went through the sessions, he could see for himself, how he carried a certain misplaced sense of righteousness about behaving uncourteously to people, either in order to get what he wanted, or on account of reacting and jumping to conclusions, without understanding where the other person is coming from..
Aggressive communication is when you express your own wants and needs without regard for the rights and preferences of others. Importantly, aggression is usually not the result of pure malice or a psychopathic lack of empathy; instead, it’s a reaction to fear and insecurity. Despite how it appears on the surface, anger is actually a positive emotion in the sense that it feels good to be angry. When we’re angry, the underlying assessment is that someone or something is wrong, and by extension, we’re right. This boosts our ego. People with a chronically aggressive communication style have learned to use anger and aggression as a way to deal with their insecurities and fears. Unfortunately, because it’s so harmful to others, they end up even more insecure and fearful that when they started because all of their relationships are strained.
The key to working through an aggressive communication style is self-awareness. Specifically, you must begin to notice the initial fear and helplessness that precedes anger and cultivate healthier ways to address it. Aggressive communication doesn’t mean someone is evil. Like all bullies, it means they’re afraid and don’t know how to help themselves. And the best way to help yourself or someone else with an aggressive communication style is to do things that you can be proud of, in a healthy way. When you build the confidence to acknowledge your fears, you won’t need aggression to cover them up.
3. Passive-Aggressive Communication
“C” came to see me because his girlfriend of 5 years had left him recently and he was feeling depressed. And while his grief and depression were obvious, what I noticed almost immediately — and what he couldn’t seem to acknowledge — was how angry he was. He explained that he felt sad and depressed, but he spent most of our sessions describing all manner of frustrations and spats with his former girlfriend. When I asked him about how he addressed these frustrations with his girlfriend, it was clear that he simply didn’t address them, not directly anyway. Instead, he frequently suppressed his feelings or resorted to sarcastic “jokes” and veiled statements or off-handed remarks to express his dissatisfaction.
His conflict resolution strategy — if you could call it that — was extremely indirect. Once, after his girlfriend hurt his feelings, he explained how he decided to give her “the silent treatment” for three straight days to show her how much she hurt him. The passive-aggressive person is too afraid to be honest and too angry to be quiet, so they resort to veiled threats and sarcastic humor to express themselves.
Passive-aggressive communication is when you’re too angry to keep quiet and too afraid to be honest. Recall that passive communication involves being overly deferential to other people and dishonest with yourself, whereas aggressive communication is the opposite, being honest about your own wishes but in a way that’s disrespectful to others. The third toxic form of communication, passive-aggressive, is the worst of both worlds: dishonest to yourself and disrespectful to others.
The key to working undoing a passive-aggressive communication style is to address both your anger and fears in more productive ways. The most practical thing you can do to eliminate passive-aggressive communication is to simply stop using sarcasm and veiled statements. Sarcasm is a indirect form of communication and a crutch that prevents us from speaking our minds honestly and directly, and at the same time, an instrument for trying to make others do what we want. It’s not necessarily easy, but cut the sarcasm out of your life and your relationships will improve dramatically.
Assertive Communication: Honesty + Respect
The three toxic communication styles — passive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive — never work in the long-run. While each gives a fleeting benefit initially, they end up leading to broken relationships, poor self-esteem, and ultimately, loneliness. If you can’t connect with other people in an honest and respectful way, you are never going to have satisfying relationships. Assertive communication means having the courage to speak your mind and express your wants, and to do it in a way that’s respectful of others:
“Actually, I’d rather not go to the party this evening and prefer to just stay in.
What you said in the meeting this morning really hurt. Please don’t call me out like that in public again. It really bothers me when you don’t respect my mother”, are some examples of assertive communication. Happy relationships are built on trust. And trust is built on honesty and respect — both of which come from the ability to communicate assertively.