I was enjoying reading through these accounts of behavior exhibiting narcissism, manipulation, hostile aggression, etc, but I see very few examples of what I believed actual PA behavior, or maybe I am confused about what PA behavior actually is? As an example, a poster wrote about how her father openly did not want to walk her down the aisle when she got married, but eventually agreed. It seemed to me he was expressing open hostility and disagreement to the request.
Now I would have said that was not passive aggressive behavior..... rather if he had agreed to walk her down the aisle and then was "accidentally" late to the ceremony, or "forgot" to pick up his tux too late to showup etc, etc, that would be passive aggressive behavior.
He was PA before the event whereas your examples are PA after the event.
But that is where I am confused, as by definition, a passive aggressive person does not openly express aggression , thus the "passive"part...OP said her father was open hostile to, and refusing the idea of walking her down the aisle, that' s just being a difficult pain in the posterior, IMO
As one who has occaisionally dealt with passive aggressive behavior on the part of my spouse, I would RATHER have someone tell me where they stand, say no, be defiant, etc right up front, rather than pretending to agree, or remaining silent while secretly disagreeing and undermining or sabatoging.
He did want to walk her down the aisle, he just wanted her to think that it was a big imposition to him and by him giving in to do so (with her begging) he was such a nice person and it was such a kind thing for him to do for her, how nice of him, isn't he great?! It's a passive and aggressive way to try to control people on top of trying to make them think you're kind for doing it.
Hmm..certainly controlling and manipulative, but still not sure it fits into "passive aggressive" by the definitions I find online
it seemed more to me, albeit we don't know this person , that he really did not want to do the task but was not willing for anyone else to usurp his position.
Suppose we came up with a similar but hypothetical situation..Sally asks boyfriend Joe to go with her to a dance. Joe hates dancing and says upfront he does not wish to go. Sally nicely says, that's not a problem, Other guy Ed likes dancing I'll go with him instead. Joe, scared he will lose her,not wanting her to go with other guy says, he will go...so who is the manipulator?
Without more details (which of course don't exist in a hypothetical), I don't know whether anyone is a manipulator.
If I were in Sally's shoes, and said "that's okay, I'll do that with someone else" I wouldn't be trying to manipulate my partner into doing it, and I wouldn't be thinking "if Joe doesn't go to the dance with me, I'll break up with him." If dancing was that important to me, I would want either a partner who actively enjoyed it, or one who was comfortable with me dancing with other people, knowing I'd come home to him or her at the end of the night. Not someone who would reluctantly come to a dance with me, sit out as many dances as possible, and look grumpy when he did stand up with me.
That said, I know there are people whose motivation would be as you imply, to pressure their "Joe" to go to the dance even though he didn't want to. But I still wouldn't call either party PA. Sally isn't PA unless she has no intention of going to the dance with Ed even if Joe still says no. (Taking an evening to figure out whether you'd rather go out with Ed than Joe, given that Joe doesn't share one of your interests that Ed does, isn't passive-aggressive.) And Joe isn't being PA unless he refused Sally's invitation so he could wait until she said "OK, I guess I'll stay home" to propose something he knew she wouldn't consider a first choice. (The non-PA way of doing that would be "No thanks, you know I don't like dancing. How about we go see a movie that night instead?" or even "no thanks, you know I don't like dancing, and besides there are some chores I need to take care of."