Passive/Agressive resistance

How does one handle passive/agressive resistance?

You know the kind, the silent kind. The one that you're not quite sure
just happened, because you're not quite sure anything happened. The
one where making the leap to concluding that someone is being
passive/agressive seems to be a just-a-bit-too-much-reaching
conclusion because you're getting too little feedback to be able to
ascertain their motives, let alone label them agressive or
not-agressive.

The example I'm thinking of is an email conversation where the replies
continue to have neutral-to-positive content but the frequency of
replies slows down, and direct questions are unanswered.

One strategy would be to just give up (which I think is the desired
outcome for truly passive/agressive people "I want you to go away, but
I can't ask you to go away, for that would show that I want to be rid
of you which would be bad, and I can't be bad, so I'll be nothing.")

Another strategy would be to ignore it. ("I see you're not replying,
but I don't want conflict either, so I'm not going to mention your
lack of reply for fear of making you even more angry than I hope you
aren't already.")

A direct approach ("You seem to be avoiding my direct questions, and
not replying very quickly. Is there a problem?"), just triggers the
behavior I'm concerned about (no answer at all).

Does anyone have a suggestion of an orthogonal approach that may be
more effective, because it doesn't trigger the primary response of
silence?



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