Passive-aggressive behavior can be incredibly confusing.

Someone says, “I’m fine,” but their tone says otherwise. They agree to something, but then suddenly become unavailable. They insist everything is okay while their behavior communicates that it absolutely is not.

And if you’ve experienced covert narcissistic abuse, that confusion can feel especially triggering.

But here’s something important: passive-aggressive behavior isn’t always narcissistic.

Sometimes it comes from fear. Sometimes it comes from an attempt to protect someone’s feelings. And sometimes, yes, it’s a control tactic.

The behavior may look exactly the same on the outside. The difference is often found in what happens when you gently address it.

Have you ever asked someone, “Are you okay?” and gotten a four-syllable “I’m fine” that clearly meant the opposite?

You can hear it in their tone. You can see it in their body language. Something is wrong—but they aren't actually telling you what it is.

So now you're left wondering:

Do I push? Do I let it go? Did I do something wrong? Am I imagining this?

That is one of the most frustrating things about passive-aggressive behavior. It rarely announces itself. There may be no yelling, no slammed doors, and no obvious confrontation.

Instead, it's the sigh.

The “Whatever you want.”

The compliment that somehow leaves you feeling worse.

The sudden silence.

And when you try to address it, there is often an escape hatch:

“I was just joking.”
“I'm fine.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“That wasn't about you.”

That's what makes passive aggression so difficult to name. It's often built around deniability.

You can learn to manage the fight-or-flight spike, catch yourself mid-reaction, and stay regulated during difficult interactions—and still find yourself lying awake at night with your jaw clenched, shoulders tense, and mind racing.

That’s because managing the spike isn’t the same as lowering your baseline.

After years of walking on eggshells, dealing with gaslighting, circular arguments, unpredictable moods, and chronic emotional tension, your nervous system can learn to stay on high alert even when nothing is actively happening. You may find yourself constantly braced, rehearsing conversations in your head, or waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

This is the chronic side of hypervigilance.

Have you ever felt your chest tighten before your phone even finishes ringing?

Maybe you see his name on your screen and immediately feel your body change.

Or maybe a friend invites you to dinner, and before you’ve even told your partner, you’re already rehearsing how you’re going to explain yourself.

Maybe you’re taking a class, going to work, meeting a friend, or simply doing something ordinary—and instead of enjoying it, part of your mind is already thinking:

How is he going to react?

What mood will he be in when I get home?

Is this going to become a problem?

These moments may look insignificant from the outside. But when you’ve spent years experiencing unpredictable reactions, criticism, withdrawal, guilt, or conflict around ordinary parts of your life, your body can learn to anticipate danger before anything actually happens.

That is hypervigilance.

And it can be exhausting.

“So it’s okay, Mom.”

Those four words came out of my young teenage son’s mouth after his dad handed him a cherry slushie from Sonic.

A peace offering.

A reset button.

A way to make the hurt disappear without ever naming it, acknowledging it, or taking responsibility for it.

And in that moment, something in me screamed:

No. It isn’t. This is NOT okay.

That moment in my kitchen nearly ten years ago is where my book started.

Not the writing of it—that came later.

But the seeing of it.

It was the moment the fog cleared just long enough for me to recognize what I had been living inside for years.

And I knew: This is not okay.

Today, I finally get to tell you something I’ve been sitting on for a long time.

My book, This Is Not Okay: Escaping the Invisible Grip of Covert Narcissistic Abuse, is coming this fall.

And I cannot wait to share it with you.

When I first started learning about covert narcissism, I was terrified.

Not just because of what I was reading—but because of what I began to recognize.

I hid the books. I deleted my browser history. I worried about what would happen if my husband discovered I was trying to understand our relationship. But eventually, another fear took hold.

What if I was wrong?

What if I had read so much about covert narcissism that I had convinced myself it was happening? What if I had taken a flawed, difficult, imperfect human being and unknowingly forced him into a label that didn't belong?

If you've ever had that thought, you are far from alone.

If you had asked me years ago to describe my marriage, I would not have used words like covert narcissism, coercive control, gaslighting, or passive-aggressive behavior.

I didn't have the language for what was happening.

I didn't even have the awareness.

For a long time, I thought my husband and I simply had different expectations. Different ways of communicating. Different ideas about marriage, parenting, respect, and what it meant to be a family.

But eventually, I began to see something I had been living inside for years.

Our expectations weren't simply different.

They were fundamentally different kinds of expectations.

What if two of Disney’s most beloved love stories actually reveal two very different patterns of narcissistic control?

Both Beauty and the Beast and Tangled appear, on the surface, to be love stories. Both end with a rescue, a transformation, and a happy ending set to music.

But look more closely, and these stories reveal two very different ways control can operate.

One is loud.

There is rage, intimidation, imprisonment, and an explosive temper. There are moments you can point to and say, “There. That’s when something went terribly wrong.”

The other is quiet.

There is no screaming. No obvious locked door. No dramatic moment that immediately looks like abuse. Instead, control is wrapped in concern, affection, guilt, and protection.

And yet, by the end, a young woman has spent her entire life trapped in a tower believing that her cage is love.

These two stories offer a fascinating way to understand the difference between overt abuse and covert control—and why covert narcissistic abuse can be so difficult to recognize.

Sometimes control looks like rage. Sometimes it looks like a warm smile and a locked tower door.

When you are co-parenting with someone who refuses accountability, the hardest part is often not the custody schedule, the communication, or the logistics.

It is watching your children experience the same emotional confusion that you spent years trying to understand yourself.

Recently, I received a message from a listener in her early 50s. She had filed for divorce a year ago, and her husband had finally moved out. She was now navigating shared custody with two teenage daughters, ages 13 and 15.

The schedule was split: four nights with her, three nights with him.

She described her ex as someone who “presents as the nice, generous guy.” When her daughters expressed hurt or frustration, his response was often to buy them something instead of addressing the emotion underneath. No repair. No accountability. No real conversation.

Then she said something that stayed with me:

“His crown is on, and no one can ever penetrate his self-defense system.”

If you listened to the episode about the covert narcissist’s mask, you understand what she meant by “crown.”

It is that protective structure some people build around themselves. A place where vulnerability, accountability, and genuine connection cannot get through.

Instead of hearing:

“I hurt you. I’m sorry. Let’s talk about what happened.”

Children may experience:

“You’re too sensitive.”
“That didn’t happen.”
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

Or sometimes, an apology is replaced with a gift, a distraction, or an attempt to move on without ever addressing the wound.

And over time, children can start learning the same lesson many survivors learned:

Maybe my feelings aren’t trustworthy.

That is the part we need to change.

I was 17 years into my marriage when I first read the words covert narcissism.

Those words didn’t mean anything to me at first. But the rest of it certainly did.

If you’ve lived it, you know what I mean.

• Circular conversations from hell

• Walking on eggshells in your own home

• Apologizing for things you don’t understand

• Gaslit until you doubt your own memory

• Twisting your words until you don’t recognize them

• Walking away more confused than you walked in

And then there’s the image vs. reality:

• Living two versions of the same person—the one the world sees, and the one you live with

• The relationship that looks fine from the outside and feels like drowning from the inside

And the emotional toll:

• Loneliness inside your own marriage

• Being unseen even when you’re being looked right at

• Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix

And the control, obligation, and guilt:

• Feeling guilty for having needs

• Never measuring up, never being enough

• Feeling responsible for emotions that were never yours to carry

• Working overtime for basic decency

• Love that feels like a performance review

• Conversations that end with you comforting them for hurting you

When you read words like this, something in you knows. They don’t just land—they resonate. They feel like they’ve been inside you the whole time.

And that’s often the beginning.

Not of confusion—but of clarity.