When Bad Behavior Happens to Good People

Learn to spot some not-so-great conduct. Then steer things back onto a healthy and harmonious track.

- NAOMI BARR

WE MAY THINK of toxic behavior as tossing insults or hurling plates. Often, though, it's much more subtle. Those little white lies you tell to avoid owning up to mistakes? A kind of gaslighting. Letting out a loud sigh when cleaning up a mess your spouse left? A wee bit passive-aggressive. Sometimes these actions are intentional. Sometimes they happen without much thought. Either way, they're not great. And they can erode the bonds of a relationship, warns Robin Stern, PhD, cofounder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and senior adviser to its director. "That's why it's so important to identify and talk through what's happening," she adds. The first step is understanding toxicity so you can spot it in yourself and others. The next is dealing with it, and that can be hard. Confronting your own or a loved one's icky behavior and tackling the "why" is serious work. So we asked experts how to overcome three common negative ways of relating in a relationship.

Passive Aggression

This is when someone says, "Hey, I'm upset with you," without actually verbalizing it, explains psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis, PhD, author of Healing from Toxic Relationships. Examples include loading the dishwasher and slamming the door shut because no one helped you, "forgetting" (but not really) to do something necessary, or the classic move: giving someone the silent treatment. Passive aggression is first in our list of bad behavior because, well, it's just such a thing. Many people, particularly women, develop passive-aggressive habits at a young age to cope with internalized anger or frustration, says Lisa Marie Bobby, PhD, founder of Growing Self Counseling & Coaching in Denver. "So many of us have been trained to be nonconfrontational," she says. Instead of voicing our grievances, we bottle them up, then lash out in subtle ways.

WHEN YOU'RE THE CULPRIT