The Best Way to Respond to Passive-Aggressive Comments

That ambiguity puts you in an awkward position: Do you respond to what was said or what you think the other person meant—or give in to the urge to snip right back? We asked experts what to say when someone seems to be taking a dig at you but won’t quite say what they mean.

Sometimes it feels safer to hint at a feeling than to say it directly. Admitting you feel some sort of way calls for a kind of vulnerability that a sarcastic remark does not. “Some people just haven’t learned how to say or don’t feel comfortable saying, ‘I’m hurt. You hurt my feelings,’” says Melissa Gluck, a psychologist in New York City. If you grew up around people who rarely said what they meant, the indirect approach might even feel normal.

There can also be something more specific behind a partner’s pointed comment. In research on romantic relationships, Levi R. Baker, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, found that people sometimes express displeasure indirectly because they’re unsure how much their partner cares. “People are really doing this to kind of test their partner,” he says. They’re signaling, “I’m upset with you, I’ve got some hurt feelings,” then waiting to see whether their partner notices and tries to find out what’s wrong. Underneath it all, Baker says, they may be wondering: “Do they care about me? Do they value me?”