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This is long overdue. So sorry! They blocked my blog at work! Twas’ a sad day when that happened. Anywho, part I is about taking care of yourself so you feel better and thus are in a better mood.

Part II? It’s about getting rid of Miss Passive Aggressive.

Because when Joe Blow says nothing is wrong,

Joe Blow means nothing is wrong.

But when Miss Passive Aggressive says nothing wrong, she really means

something is wrong but I’m too much of people pleaser to open up my mouth!

(until of course things have been shoved under the rug too long and she loses it over something oh-so-insignificant.)

You know, for the majority of women, conflict resolution is a learned skill. Growing up, we are taught to be pleasant. I think this is where it stems from.

And the fact that we just want everyone to like us.

And everyone to just get along.

Guys tend to have less of a problem with just saying exactly what they mean. Maybe cuz as little boys they were off with play guns blasting things and creating mock wars. They weren’t afraid of conflict…

this was going on while little girls went off in a little corner with their next door neighbor and had tea parties in an effort to be proper and pleasant.

Here’s what I learned:

It’s better to be honest than to be pleasant.

Whenever I say something that might have a negative ring to it, my boyfriend always says, “Thank you for being honest. Thank you for being open and letting me in.”

He’d rather I open up than keep things inside even if it’s hard for him to hear.

Because let’s face it, everything comes out eventually! And the later you wait, the more dramatic it is when it comes out.

and the men… they don’t like the drama.

But there’s a pleasant way to be honest. It’s just a lot easier to be honest and pleasant when we deal with the issue right away.

It takes constantly being aware so that I can be proactive about making sure what I say is exactly what I mean.

Guys would rather not have to read between the lines, I’ve realized.

And..they want to please us. That’s the good news.

But if we don’t tell them what we need or literally what’s wrong, can we really blame them when they don’t do anything?

Instead we go gripe to our girlfriends so they can blow it out of proportion. We leave even more riled up and angry. And we leave them with a distorted view of our significant other. Why do we go to them??? They can’t fix the problem!

There’s one way to make it easier to not be passive aggressive and to be honest:

Make a pact with your significant other that you will never bring your issues to a third party.

You will deal with the problem together.

You’re the team.

You’re in the huddle.

It’s both of your jobs to keep the team united as one. Read more stuff about this here.