Bs communication ploy ive noticed. A lot of men try to manage you down when you communicate a problem

They try to chokehold, redirect, deflect, control, subtly pressure you out of what you’re saying. Tactics are:

  1. Pretend to not understand what you’re talking about or to doubt it’s truth. Whaaaa?? That never happened. Make you overprove

  2. Extreme anger in response to what you’re saying to shut you down and stop/ intimidate you out of address into silence

  3. Purposefully smiling and acting polite to force you to go along with a script and play along with a reality in which the disrespect to you is ignored like it doesn’t exist and everyone can just go about their everyday lives. Because you don’t want to make a scene, be out of pocket, do you?

  4. Deflection. Pretending it’s not their fault or someone else is more responsible. Refusing to own their role and blaming/ choosing to focus on the minuscule role of someone else.

  5. Outright avoidance and running from you when you come to address an issue.

  6. Time shaming. Pretending your timing is constantly bad. It’s always an inappropriate or inconsiderate time to bring up disrespect to you. Cant you see they’re so busy with work? OR Pretending listening to you talk is too much a waste of their valuable time. You waste time talking about this and they’re important/ could be doing better things! All this is also used in the office where it may manifest as the person you’re bringing the complaint to boss etc being so important it’s implied it’s almost not appropriate for you to waste his time with this little shit, even if it directly impacts him

Another variation of this is him acting like he only has exactly 2 seconds to listen to you explain a truly complex situation and if you can’t condense it to his approval to fit in that time, he gets impatient and you’re jerked off the “floor” with one of those curved canes they used to dispatch with bad comedians in the 40s. Like this is an elevator business pitch that bombed or a particularly bad audition at the Apollo.

All of this is part of a larger plan to put you off and keep you at bay, long enough until the socially acceptable time frame to bring up the disrespect has “expired”. Then it becomes- You’re still on that crazy??? You’re thinking way too hard about that. But there is no time limit on disrespect and the disrespect to you has never been corrected. In this way a lot of disrespect can just pile up without them being held accountable or you having a voice on it and they keep sneakily getting away with shit by constant deferral

Whereas, you would be grabbed by the collar at the slightest sign of disrespect to them. Same thing can happen on jobs with bosses. Disrespect occurs. You’re gaslit, managed down, redirected. The situation isn’t really addressed but you’re put off until so much time has passed you almost have to just accept it or be labeled crazy, foolish, overly emotional, overly invested for bringing it up again or “hanging onto” it so long after it’s passed. If you ever manage to twist and turn and bring it up a second time youre negged as unstable, crazy and overly emotional, because “You’re still on THAT??!! Come on now. Move on.” Especially if you’re now (rightfully so) so upset from being constantly given the run around and having to swallow your feelings that you’re openly angry or annoyed.

If you’re at this point and pushing them to acknowledge the issue they never will. Instead they’ll begin to acknowledge your reaction, how upset you are and it’ll become. Wow, you’re really upset about this/ letting this upset you/ still thinking about this???!!! Well, you need mental help. Then the focus will become your mental state and what’s wrong with you. In this manner they jump straight from i can’t hear you/ you didn’t communicate/ i don’t see a problem, and leap right over to YOURE the problem. Wow, yeah what i see is that you’re real worked up- emotionally upset. Calm down crazy.

Something disrespectful to you happens, they hold you off from addressing it in one of those ways or a combo of all 6. The hope is that the reasonable time frame for address passes and you just let it go. Yes, they know you’re still bothered by it and are uncomfortably holding it in. They just don’t fucking care. They’ll look at you doing that and think to themselves- “good” because they feel they’re controlling you and their game has worked.

The underlying assumption whether youre in a relationship or on a job is that you’re not going anywhere. They’ve got you right where they want you and think you’ll continue to good girl your way through being patient and swallowing shit indefinitely. They also think you’re stupid enough to manipulate and too weak to really leave or throw the table

That’s why it’s best to bounce at the first sign of disrespect rather than trying to talk to them. The communication just becomes a way to manage you down and control you. It’s really a form of manipulation and control.

A lot of these ploys are also used by HR/ Office admin in offices when you have a complaint as well.

Of course when they get left (the guy or the job) it becomes- why didn’t she cOmMuNiCaTe???? I didn’t know!!! (They knew. They didnt want you addressing it and were content, even privately pleased, to have you uncomfortably swallow your feelings and eat crow/ shit for however long you would’ve allowed it). She could’ve talked to meeeeeee.

Edit: 7. Acting like things are too taboo to speak out loud and you’re rude and crude for being upfront. You can’t outright say your MIL bullies you or that his uncle makes sexual innuendos toward you or what would actually satisfy you during sex. Instead everything must be communicated by looks or inferences or side comments which pretend not to be about the actual subject you’re addressing. Like it’s too unbecoming and a smear on YOU, you’re respectability and lady likeness to actually speak about a messy problem so that it can be fixed