Insight Editions · No. 214
No More Mr. Nice Guy!
A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life
Robert A. Glover
A self-help guide to recognizing Nice Guy patterns, addressing shame and unmet needs, setting boundaries, and building healthier relationships, sexuality, confidence, and purpose.
A study guide to No More Mr. Nice Guy! by Robert A. Glover. Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the authors or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
| # | Section | Theme |
|---|---|---|
| : | No More Mr. Nice Guy (title) | Syndrome map · recovery preview |
| : | Introduction | Five decades · approval strategy fails |
| 1 | The Nice Guy Syndrome | Traits · toxic shame · opposite of what works |
| 2 | The Making of a Nice Guy | Childhood survival · scripts |
| 3 | Please the Only Person Who Matters | Self-approval |
| 4 | Make Your Needs a Priority | Needs · receiving · asks |
| 5 | Reclaim Your Personal Power | Boundaries · integrity · rage |
| 6 | Reclaim Your Masculinity | Men · strength · father · models |
| 7 | Get The Love You Want | Enmesher/avoider · Second Date Rule |
| 8 | Get The Sex You Want | Shame · healthy masturbation · moratorium |
| 9 | Get the Life You Want | Fear · passion · 30 rules |
| : | Epilogue | Tools work · restart · freedom |
| : | Synthesis · Shame to Freedom | Portable stack |
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Introduction
Five decades of dramatic social change and shifts in the traditional family produced men conditioned to seek the approval of others. Glover calls them Nice Guys. They care about looking good and doing it "right." They are happiest when making others happy. They avoid conflict and go to great lengths not to upset anyone. They are often peaceful and generous. They are especially concerned with pleasing women and being different from other men. In a nutshell: if they are good, giving, and caring, they expect happiness, love, and fulfillment in return.
That bargain sounds too good to be true. It is. In his psychotherapy practice Glover met countless frustrated, resentful Nice Guys who struggle in vain for the happiness they believe they deserve. The failure comes from believing a myth. That myth is the essence of the Nice Guy Syndrome: be "good," and you will be loved, get your needs met, and live without serious problems.
When the strategy fails, as it often does, Nice Guys usually try harder at the same script. Helplessness and resentment follow. The result: Nice Guys are often anything but nice.
The concept grew from Glover's own frustration of trying to do it "right" and never getting what he believed he deserved. He was the typical "sensitive new age guy," proud of it, convinced he was one of the nicest men you would meet, and unhappy. As he examined his own behaviors (caretaking, giving to get, fixing, keeping the peace, avoiding conflict, seeking approval, hiding mistakes), he saw the same pattern in client after client. The script was not a private quirk; it was a social dynamic affecting countless adult males.
Until this book, he argues, no one had taken the problem seriously or offered an effective solution. That is why he wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy! The book shows Nice Guys how to stop seeking approval and start getting what they want in love and life. The plan is based on his own recovery and work with countless Nice Guys over roughly twenty years.
The book is unashamedly pro-male. Many women have supported it: readers often say it helps them understand a Nice Guy partner and gain insight about themselves. Glover claims the tools work. For a frustrated Nice Guy, the promised outcomes include:
- Needs met. Effective ways to get needs met without covert contracts.
- Power and confidence. Feeling more powerful and confident.
- Intimate relationships. Creating the intimate relationships actually wanted.
- Feelings. Learning to express feelings and emotions.
- Sex. A fulfilling and exciting sex life.
- Masculinity and men. Embracing masculinity and building meaningful relationships with men.
- Potential. Living up to potential; becoming creative and productive.
- Self-acceptance. Accepting yourself just as you are.
If those traits sound good, the journey of breaking free has begun. The closing charge of the introduction: stop seeking approval and start getting what you want in love and life.
Introduction map: the approval bargain collapses into try-harder resentment.
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The Nice Guy Syndrome
Opening case: Jason
Jason, a chiropractor in his mid-thirties, opened his first therapy session with: "I'm a Nice Guy. I'm one of the nicest guys you're ever going to meet." He described his life as "perfect" except for one major problem: his sex life. Months without sex with his wife Heather; no change in sight.
He wanted to be liked. He saw himself as generous and giving. He prided himself on few ups and downs and never losing his temper. He liked making people happy and hated conflict. To avoid rocking the boat he held back feelings and tried to do everything "right."
Then he unfolded a list. "I can never do it right." No matter how hard he tried, Heather found something wrong. He did not deserve that treatment. He tried to be a good husband and father; it was never good enough.
Morning example: he got baby Chelsie up, fed her, bathed her, dressed her. Heather walked in with "that look" and mimicked: why that outfit, that was a good outfit. After everything he did, it was still wrong. Kitchen example: he loaded the dishwasher, did pots and pans, swept; she asked why he had not wiped the counters; he was not even finished; she focused on the unfinished piece. Sex: both Christians; little premarital sex; sex important to him; Heather not interested. He thought marriage would fix it. After all he does for her, he thinks she should give him the one thing he really wants. He does more than most guys; he gives more than he gets. Looking like a little boy on the couch: "All I want is to be loved and appreciated. Is that too much to ask?"
Some of the nicest guys you will ever meet
Men like Jason walk into Glover's office regularly. Different shapes; same world view.
| Man | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Omar | Number-one goal: please girlfriend. She (and every prior girlfriend) says he is never emotionally available. He sees himself as a giver; carries a pager so friends can reach him. |
| Todd | Prides himself on honesty and respect toward women; believes that should attract them. Many female friends; rarely dates. Women call him a great listener and "catch"; he cannot understand why they choose "jerks." |
| Bill | "No" is not in his vocabulary. Fixes cars for church women; coaches son's little league; helps buddies move; looks after widowed mother every evening. Feels good to give; never seems to get as much. |
| Gary | Wife has frequent rage attacks; verbal shame. He avoids subjects that might anger her; always first to apologize; cannot recall her apologizing. Still says he loves her and would do anything to please her. |
| Rick | Gay man, early forties; committed relationship with alcoholic Jay. Came to counseling to help Jay get sober. Feels it is always up to him to hold everything together. |
| Jose | Business consultant, late thirties; five years with a woman he sees as needy. Thought of breaking up the day she moved in. Afraid she could not make it alone; aborted breakups when she becomes an "emotional basket case." Spends waking hours figuring how to leave without hurting her or looking like a jerk. |
| Lyle | Devout Christian; Sunday school; church elder. Since adolescence: pornography addiction; compulsive masturbation (often three to four times a day); hours on explicit sites. Terrified of exposure. Prayer and Bible study have not fixed it. |
Who are these men?
Unique men; common life script: if they are "good" and do everything "right," they will be loved, get their needs met, and have a problem-free life. Trying to be good typically means eliminating or hiding parts of themselves (mistakes, needs, emotions) and becoming what they believe others want (generous, helpful, peaceful). Glover calls them Nice Guys. The type is everywhere: the relative whose wife runs the show; the buddy who helps everyone while his own life is a shambles; the partner so afraid of conflict that nothing resolves; the boss who tells each person what they want to hear; the man who lets people walk on him; the dependable church or club man who never says no and never says he is imposed upon; the man whose life looks controlled until BOOM, he destroys it.
Characteristics of Nice Guys
Every Nice Guy is unique; they share a cluster of traits from a childhood-formed script. Other men may have one or two; Nice Guys show a significant number.
- Givers. Giving feels good; generosity is proof of goodness and a bid for love and appreciation.
- Fix and caretake. If someone has a problem, need, anger, depression, or sadness, they often try to solve it (usually unasked).
- Seek approval. Universal trait: almost everything is calculated to gain approval or avoid disapproval, especially with women.
- Avoid conflict. Keep the world smooth; do not rock the boat.
- Hide flaws and mistakes. Fear of anger, shame, or abandonment if shortcomings show.
- Seek the "right" way. Believe there is a key to a happy, problem-free life; figure out the right way and nothing should go wrong.
- Repress feelings. Analyze rather than feel; feelings as waste; keep an even keel.
- Different from father. Often unavailable, absent, passive, angry, philandering, or alcoholic fathers; decision to be 180 degrees different from Dad.
- More comfortable with women than men. Few male friends; convince themselves they are not selfish, angry, or abusive like "other" men.
- Needs not a priority. Putting own needs first feels selfish; virtue is others first.
- Partner as emotional center. Happy only if partner is happy; enormous energy into the intimate relationship.
What's wrong with being a Nice Guy?
Culture may minimize the problem or chuckle at milquetoast sitcom versions. Men are already easy targets; the "sensitive guy" can become amusement. Nice Guys themselves almost always ask: "What is wrong with being a Nice Guy?"
By "Nice Guy," Glover means a core belief system, not surface kindness. Conditioning: if you are "nice," you will be loved, get needs met, and have a smooth life. The label is a misnomer because Nice Guys are often anything but nice. Not-so-nice traits:
- Dishonest. Hide mistakes, avoid conflict, say what people want to hear, repress feelings.
- Secretive. Hide anything that might upset anyone. Motto: "If at first you don't succeed, hide the evidence."
- Compartmentalized. Harmonize contradictory facts by mental compartments (example: a married man redefines fidelity so an affair "did not count").
- Manipulative. Hard to prioritize needs or ask clearly; powerlessness → manipulation.
- Controlling. Smooth world requires controlling people and things around them.
- Give to get. Generosity with unconscious strings: appreciation, reciprocation, ending someone's anger. Frustration and resentment when the return never comes.
- Passive-aggressive. Indirect resentment: unavailable, forgetting, late, no follow-through, erection/climax problems, repeating annoying behaviors after promising never again.
- Full of rage. Often deny anger; lifetime of frustration builds a pressure cooker that erupts at unexpected times.
- Addictive. Relieve stress, alter mood, medicate pain; sexual compulsiveness is common.
- Poor boundaries. Hard to say "no," "stop," or "I'm going to"; feel like victims; see others as the cause.
- Isolated. Desire to be liked; behaviors keep people at a distance.
- Attracted to people and situations that need fixing. Childhood conditioning, looking good, approval quest; guarantees firefighting and crisis management.
- Intimate relationship problems. Terrible listeners (defending or fixing); dishonest from conflict fear; rarely finish hard conversations; pick "projects" / "diamonds in the rough," then blame the partner when polishing fails.
- Sexuality issues. Dissatisfaction, dysfunction (erection, premature climax), or acting out (affairs, prostitution, pornography, compulsive masturbation). Glover says he has yet to meet a Nice Guy without one of these.
- Only relatively successful. Talented and moderately successful; almost without exception fail to live up to full potential.
"But he seemed like such a nice guy"
Unsuspecting people mistake passive, pleasing generosity for health. Many women report that on first meeting he seemed different from other men: a real catch. Then the negative traits ooze out. Nice Guys swing between nice and not-so-nice. Partner voices (compressed):
- Wonderful extras (kids, dinner) then out-of-the-blue tantrum about sexual unavailability.
- Everyone thinks she is lucky; they do not see the private side; he helps others' cars but calls her nagging and controlling like his mother when she asks for something.
- He will do anything except really be there; shops while sulking; she wishes he would just say no.
- Never names what bothers him; pressure builds; explosion and a big fight; she wishes he would speak when upset.
- When she talks, he tries to fix; insists his way would solve her problems; calls her negative; she wants listening.
- After bad prior men she trusted him; five years in, discovered pornography and peep-show addiction; devastated; never had a clue.
- Wish: keep the good traits, erase the rest.
The Integrated Male
Gil, early fifties, joined a No More Mr. Nice Guy therapy group. Wife supportive; he secretly feared the name meant "how to stop being nice and become an S.O.B." Black-and-white Nice Guy logic: the only alternative to nice is bastard or jerk. Glover's line: the opposite of crazy is still crazy; becoming a jerk is not the answer.
Recovery is not swinging to the other extreme. It is becoming integrated: able to accept all aspects of oneself. An integrated man embraces what makes him uniquely male (power, assertiveness, courage, passion) and his imperfections, mistakes, and dark side. Attributes:
- Strong sense of self; likes himself as he is.
- Takes responsibility for getting his own needs met.
- Comfortable with masculinity and sexuality.
- Integrity: does what is right, not only what is expedient.
- Leader: willing to provide for and protect those he cares about.
- Clear, direct, expressive of feelings.
- Nurturing and giving without caretaking or problem-solving.
- Sets boundaries; not afraid to work through conflict.
He does not strive for perfection or approval. He accepts himself as perfectly imperfect. Transformation is not trying harder to be a good man; it demands a different personal paradigm.
Paradigms
A paradigm is the road map for life's journey. Everyone uses one and assumes theirs is accurate. Paradigms often run unconscious yet drive attitudes and behaviors. They filter experience: data that does not fit is screened out; data that fits is magnified. Outdated maps send you the wrong way or around the same neighborhood; you try harder and feel more frustrated. Behavior that makes sense inside a bad map looks irrational from outside.
Most paradigms form when we are young, naïve, and relatively powerless, often from inaccurate readings of childhood. Unconscious, rarely updated, assumed 100 percent accurate even when wrong.
The ineffective Nice Guy paradigm
IF I can hide my flaws and become what I think others want me to be THEN I will be loved, get my needs met, and have a problem-free life.
When the paradigm fails, Nice Guys see one alternative: try harder. They are slow learners and quick forgetters when challenged. Unworkable beliefs feel like heresy to question. Doing something different is hard even when the current plan does not work.
Jason again: controlling, perfectionist father ("one right way: his"); emotionally dependent mother who smothered when needy and was unavailable when the children had needs. Childhood paradigm pieces:
- Do everything right → father's approval, avoid criticism.
- Attend mother's neediness → she will be available when he has needs.
- Never be a moment's problem → love and approval.
- Hide mistakes → no one gets mad.
As a child he could not see that he would never meet father's expectations; that giving would not make mother available; that there was no way to do everything right; that people might still get angry. The map mostly distracted from fear, worthlessness, and inadequacy. In adulthood he applied the same map to Heather: cold/critical/unavailable like the parents; illusion that enough rightness would win constant approval, on-demand sex, and zero anger. The defective paradigm also hid that he might need her to be that way. Failure → try harder.
Doing something different
Glover cites a Seinfeld episode where George acts the opposite and gets a girlfriend and a Yankees job. Doing everything opposite is not the prescription; doing some things different is. Men who apply the book's principles have moved from resentful, frustrated, helpless Nice Guys toward assertive, empowered, happier lives. Observed shifts include: self-acceptance; mistakes as learning tools; stop approval-seeking; loving intimacy; needs as priority; finding people who help meet needs; giving without strings; facing fears; integrity and honesty; boundaries; male friendships; healthier relationships with women; feeling and expressing emotion; dealing with problems directly; intimate satisfying sex; peace with life's complexity.
Asking for help
Nice Guys believe they should do everything alone; asking for help exposes weakness. Recovery depends on revealing oneself and receiving support from safe people. Start with a therapist, therapy group, 12-step group, religious leader, or close friend. Because Nice Guys seek women's approval, Glover strongly encourages beginning with men. "Safe men" may sound like an oxymoron to them; he recommends it anyway. Men's therapy groups and 12-step contexts were central in his own recovery. Solo recovery may be possible; group is the most effective tool he knows.
Breaking Free activities and caution
Activity #1. Write three possible safe people or groups.
Two warnings before applying the book:
- This is not a few ideas to try on for size. It challenges everything Nice Guys believe about love, needs, and calm. Halfway effort produces needless suffering.
- Recovery will significantly affect personal relationships. If partnered, ask the partner to read along. Positive change can still frighten them at first; reading together can ease the transition.
Activity #2. Why would it seem rational to eliminate or hide parts of yourself and become something else unless there was a compelling reason? Why do people try to change who they really are? (Setup for Chapter Two's developmental answer.)
Chapter One map: covert approval bargain versus integrated self-acceptance.
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The Making Of A Nice Guy
Chapter One closed with Activity #2: why would a person hide parts of himself and try to become something else unless there was a compelling reason? After years examining the syndrome, Glover's answer: because it does not feel safe or acceptable for a boy or man to be just who he is. Becoming a Nice Guy is coping with that felt danger. The only thing that would make a child or adult sacrifice the self that way is a belief that being just who he is is bad and/or dangerous.
Premise of the book: during formative years, all Nice Guys received messages from families and the world that it was not safe, acceptable, or desirable to be who they were, just as they were. What follows is Glover's short course on how families and society turn perfect little boys into men who believe they must be "good" to be loved.
Coping with abandonment
Most impressionable window: birth to about five. Personality and paradigms form; parents and extended family dominate. Two facts about children:
- Totally helpless. Dependent on others to recognize and meet needs in a timely way. Greatest fear: abandonment. To children, abandonment means death.
- Ego-centered. Believe they are the center of the universe; therefore they believe they cause everything that happens to them.
Those two factors create a powerful dynamic: any abandonment experience is self-blamed. Examples Glover lists: hungry and unfed; cries and unheld; lonely and ignored; parent anger, neglect, unrealistic expectations, using the child for the parent's needs, shame, hitting, not wanting the child, leaving and not returning in time.
Every child is born into an imperfect world and imperfect family, so every child has abandonment experiences. The belief that they caused the pain is an inaccurate interpretation, but children have no other way to understand the world.
Toxic shame
Abandonment plus naïve ego-centered reading produces, in some children, the belief that it is not acceptable to be who they are. They conclude something is wrong with them that causes important people to abandon them. They cannot see that the cause sits with people who were supposed to meet needs.
That state is toxic shame: the belief that one is inherently bad, defective, different, or unlovable. Not merely "I do bad things," but a core belief: "I am bad."
Survival mechanisms
Children develop survival mechanisms to do three things:
- Cope with the emotional and physical distress of abandonment.
- Prevent similar events from happening again.
- Hide internalized toxic shame (perceived badness) from self and others.
Methods are creative, limited by insight and resources, often ineffective or seemingly illogical (e.g., misbehaving to get negative attention that still beats loneliness). Trying to be "good" (become what others want) is one of many possible scripts from abandonment and toxic shame.
Origin of the Nice Guy paradigm
Glover first explored his own patterns without seeing the whole map. He thought he came from a pretty good family. Other Nice Guys showed the same lack of insight. Asked about childhood, they often say "perfect," "great," "Leave It To Beaver," "All-American" families, yet they learned to hide flaws and become what others wanted: evidence that early circumstances were less than ideal.
Alan, Jason, and Jose differ in childhood and adult script details; each internalized "not OK just as I am" and built a paradigm of seeking approval and hiding flaws as the path to love, needs, and a problem-free life.
Alan
Oldest of three in a single-parent family. Prided himself on never causing mother a moment's pain. Strong in sports and school; believed that set him apart and made mother proud. First in family with a college degree. Father: abusive alcoholic who abandoned the family when Alan was seven. Early decision: be 180 degrees different from father (patient, giving, even-keeled; never angry or demeaning). Youth-group leader; no teen drinking or drugs. Mother: fundamentalist Christian; hellfire sect; Alan absorbed "sinner" for normal thoughts and impulses; constant fear of everlasting punishment. He saw mother as a saint; they commiserated about dad's "bad" acts. Mother said she was raising sons different from their father: giving, peaceful, respectful of women. As adult, Alan stays close and eases her life.
Jason
Believed in a "Leave It To Beaver" childhood; both parents lived through the children and used them to meet parental needs. Parents "perfect," strict, overprotective; he was sheltered, sexually naïve, possibly smothered. Father still directed adult life: shared chiropractic practice; father ran the business and told Jason which house, car, and church. Mother: "wonderful, loving," always involved; no friends of her own; turned to children for companionship and worth. Little parental affection or couple time. Adult Jason calculated looking like a good husband, father, Christian, professional; always felt inadequate and defective next to "perfect" parents.
Jose
Successful business consultant; afraid of intimacy; high-powered career; hundred-mile bike rides and mountains as recreation; repressed anger; drug of choice "recognition." Attracted to dependent women, often incest survivors; stayed from financial concern for girlfriend. Openly dysfunctional family: second of seven, lower class; around 14 took on parenting younger siblings; chaos; job was protecting siblings. Father: angry, controlling, abusive; explosive, demeaning to boys, sexually abusive to girls. Mother: manic-depressive; manic = spotless house, fantasies of entertaining elites, destructive sexual relationships; depressed = covered windows, wreck, suicide threats. At 15, Jose broke through a locked door and took a loaded gun from her while seven kids stood terrified. Life script: fix chaos (family, consulting, relationships); without chaos he would be out of a job. Intelligence, work ethic, problem-solving were his "saving grace"; without them he believed he would have become his parents.
Child Development 101 (eight principles)
- All children born totally helpless.
- Greatest fear is abandonment.
- All children ego-centered.
- All have numerous abandonment experiences (needs not met timely).
- In abandonment, child always believes he is the cause.
- Naïve misinterpretation creates toxic shame ("I am bad").
- Survival mechanisms: cope, prevent recurrence, hide badness.
- Those mechanisms reflect powerlessness and a naïve world view.
Progression for Nice Guys: Abandonment → toxic shame → survival mechanisms.
Abandonment (applied)
Alan and Jose: angry/critical parent signaling not OK. Alan's mother would not intervene when father lashed out (not worth protecting). Alan: must differ from father to be a good man and loved by mother. Alan and Jason: used/objectified; valued for doing it "right" and never being a problem (lovable only when meeting expectations). Jason vs "perfect" parents → chronic inadequacy. Jose: no guidance, nurturing, support → little value. Alan and Jason: fundamentalist churches reinforcing perfection or everlasting punishment. Jose: valuable only if different from crazy family. All three: someone else's needs more important than their own (common in Nice Guy families). All of that counts as abandonment because it said: you are not OK just as you are.
Shame (fill-in logic)
Whether abused, neglected, shamed, used, smothered, controlled, or objectified, Nice Guys internalized: it is bad or dangerous to be just who I am. Messages can be overt cruelty, indirect overwhelm from caring parents, or circumstances beyond control. Child-logic: "There must be something wrong with me because _____." Examples: when I cry no one comes; mom gets that look; dad left; mom has to do everything for me; dad yells; I'm not perfect like them; I can't make mom happy.
Also: "I'm only good enough and lovable when _____." Examples: different from dad; mom needs me; no mistakes; good grades; happy; not like my brother; cause no problems; make mom and dad happy.
Survival mechanisms (same paradigm)
Cope with pain/terror; prevent recurrence; hide toxic shame → the familiar IF/THEN map from Chapter One. Faulty childhood interpretations become the only adult road map. Ineffective → try harder.
Two kinds of Nice Guys
| Type | Conscious story | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| "I'm so bad" | Convinced everyone sees his badness; catalogs childhood/teen/adult evidence (broken windows, law, drugs, carousing). | Mask inherent badness; never really believes the persona will sell; sees no other choice. |
| "I'm so good" | Represses worthlessness; believes he is one of the nicest guys; flaws minor/correctable; childhood never a problem; adult follows rules to a "t". | Air-tight unconscious compartment; good deeds prove he is a good person. |
Both run the same paradigm: not OK as is → hide flaws → become what others want. Distinguishing them helps each see distortion: neither as bad nor as good as he thinks; both are wounded souls on inaccurate childhood maps.
Breaking Free Activity #3. Reread Alan/Jason/Jose; write or illustrate family messages that implied it was not OK to be who you were; share with a safe person; note feelings (sad, angry, lonely, numb). Purpose: name, rather than blame. Blaming keeps you stuck; naming lets you replace messages and change the script. Full excavation of every wound is not required.
The Baby Boom generation and the sensitive guy
Every child has abandonment experiences; Nice Guy is one of many responses. Family trauma alone, Glover argues, does not explain the numbers he sees. Nice Guys have always existed (Milquetoast, Mitty, mama's boys, henpecked husbands); some boys are born peaceful and stay that way. He is convinced a unique social stack over roughly the last five decades produced Nice Guys in historically unprecedented numbers.
Social dynamics (turn of century → post-WWII acceleration):
- Agrarian → industrial economy
- Rural → urban families
- Absence of fathers from the home
- Rise in divorce, single-parent and women-headed homes
- Educational system dominated by women
- Women's liberation and feminism
- Vietnam War
- Sexual revolution
Three profound dynamics for the boom generation:
- Boys separated from fathers and male role models → disconnected from men; confused about maleness.
- Boys left to be raised by women (mothers + female-dominated schools) → comfortable being defined by women; dependent on women's approval.
- Radical feminism implied men were bad and/or unnecessary → hide "bad man" traits; become what women supposedly want.
20th-century history notes (Glover's figures)
- 1910: one-third of families on farms → 1940: one in five → 1970: 96% urban.
- Agrarian boys worked beside fathers, grandfathers, uncles; daily male modeling. Urban dads left for work; sons rarely saw the work or spent time.
- Other father unavailability: work, TV, alcohol, sex addictions; divorce. Divorce among men tripled 1940-1970. Women-headed households: just over 5 million (1940) → over 13 million (1970).
- Clients rarely report close father bonds; more often controlling, rageful, absent, abusive, addictive, philandering; conscious decision to differ from dad is common.
- Mothers inherited de facto job of turning boys into men; even well-meaning mothers cannot do that alone. Glover attributes many Nice Guys of the '40s-'60s to mothers (not fathers) teaching masculinity → female perspective of manhood; comfort with women defining manhood.
Schools: Post-WWII schools female-dominated. Kindergarten through sixth: Glover had one male teacher, six females (matches national pattern he cites). Men: about one in four teachers nationwide; primary grades about 15% and dropping. Daycare to elementary: surrounded by women; few adult males. If already trained to please mother, school magnifies it.
Vietnam: Crystallized alienation between boom sons and WWII-veteran fathers; protest vs establishment; anti-war culture prized love, peace, conflict avoidance.
Women's liberation: Work outside home, birth control, early feminism. Some boom mothers prepared kids for new roles: daughters not to need a man; sons different from fathers (peaceful, giving, nurturing, attentive to women's needs). Radical feminism of '60s/'70s projected angry generalizations (men cause all problems; men unnecessary). Glover notes most women likely did not feel that way; enough vocal anger shaped a climate. Slogans he cites: "men are pigs," "all men are rapists," "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Men already approval-dependent were highly susceptible: figure out what women want and become that.
Soft males and boy-men
Robert Bly (Iron John): "soft males": lovely, not interested in harming earth or starting wars; gentle; many unhappy; lack of energy; life-preserving but not life-giving; often with strong women who radiate energy; ecologically superior to father yet little living energy to offer.
Camille Paglia: hard-driving woman must throttle back at home or "castrate everything in the domestic niche"; many white middle-class women find a "nice, malleable boy-man" who becomes another son in a subliminally matriarchal household.
Whether "soft males," "sensitive new age guys," or Nice Guys: post-war social events amplified family messages that the boy was not OK as is, and that love/needs/smooth life require hiding flaws and becoming what others (especially women) want.
Conditioning did not end with Boomers. Glover reports more men in their twenties and even teens with the full syndrome: same social stack plus single-parent homes or Nice Guy fathers. He expects a third generation of Nice Guys.
The habits of highly ineffective men
Shame plus bad survival maps block love and life.
- Seeking approval
- Hiding perceived flaws and mistakes
- Putting others' needs and wants first
- Sacrificing personal power; playing victim
- Disassociating from men and masculine energy
- Co-creating unsatisfying relationships
- Creating situations with little good sex
- Failing to live up to full potential
Next seven chapters (in the book book) are the plan to do something different.
Chapter Two causal chain: abandonment, toxic shame, Nice Guy survival paradigm.
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Learn To Please The Only Person Who Really Matters
Todd, 30, single: "I'm a chameleon." Smart friends get big vocabulary; mother gets perfect loving son; dad gets sports talk; work guys get cussing to look cool. Underneath he is unsure who he is or whether anyone would like the real him. If he cannot figure out what people want, he fears being alone; he feels alone most of the time anyway.
Nearly everything a Nice Guy does is consciously or unconsciously calculated to gain approval or avoid disapproval, including from strangers and people he dislikes. Toxic shame drives the chameleon metamorphosis as essential for love, needs, and a problem-free life. Seeking external validation is one way Nice Guys do the opposite of what works: try to please everyone → often please no one, including themselves.
Seeking approval and attachments
Because they do not believe they are OK as is, Nice Guys convince themselves and others they are lovable via focus on:
- Something about themselves (looks, talent, intellect)
- Something they do (act nice, dance well, work hard)
- Something external (attractive wife, cute child, nice car)
Glover's word: attachments. Identity and worth attach to these props. Without them, Nice Guys do not know what else would make anyone like them. Being a Nice Guy is the ultimate attachment: commitment to being "good" and doing it "right" compensates for the internalized belief that they are bad. They cannot grasp that people might love them as they are; if anyone really knew them, they assume the badness would be discovered. Attachments feel essential.
Breaking Free Activity #4. Survey-style attachment list from groups (note yours; add unique ones; write examples; ask others for feedback): hair just right; being smart; pleasant non-threatening voice; looking unselfish; different from other men; staying sober; good shape; great dancer; good lover; never angry; making others happy; good worker; clean car; dressing well; being nice; respecting women; never offending; looking like a good father.
How Nice Guys use attachments (Cal)
Cal seeks validation via good mood, nice car, dressing well, cute daughter, attractive wife. Example: dresses fourteen-month-old daughter cute, takes her to the park; from dressing onward he unconsciously attaches worth to being seen as a "good dad." Smiles, comments, age questions, "precious angel" gushes make him feel good. Irony: no one really values Cal for the attachments; dependency on external validation blocks knowing him as he is. The props are not who he is; he believes they are what give identity and value.
Seeking the approval of women
Approval quest peaks with women. A woman's approval = ultimate validation. Signs: desire for sex, flirtation, smile, touch, attentiveness. Depression, bad mood, or anger = she is not accepting him. Negative consequences:
- Possibility of availability. Subjective measure of a woman's sexual availability. Sex as ultimate acceptance; she must be in a good mood first → hypervigilance not to upset her; if angry/depressed/bad mood → lie, offer solutions, sacrifice self, manipulate to fix it fast. Extends beyond sex: conditioned never to upset women generally, including women he does not plan to sleep with.
- She sets the relationship tone. His mood tied to hers; anxious until she is "fixed"; many feel guilty if they are in a good mood when she is not.
- She defines him and his worth. If she says he is "wrong" or a "jerk," he tends to believe her. Even when he argues, at some level "she is the woman, she must be right." (Joke he quotes: if a man talks in the forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?)
- Rage toward women. Most claim to "love" women; Glover says most carry tremendous rage. Thesis: we eventually despise what we make into our god; when the god fails, we intensify worship or lash out. Pedestal → rage when expectations fail. Can swing from undying love to rageful slurs in moments.
Many gay Nice Guys, he finds, are equally susceptible to seeking women's approval; believing they are not sexually attracted to women can delude them that women have no power over them.
Breaking Free Activity #5. If you did not care what people thought, how would you live differently? If not concerned with women's approval, how would opposite-sex relationships differ?
Cover-up artists
Glover's son Steve, age nine, poked holes in the kitchen table with a pen and immediately showed his mother. Healthy shame: actions caused damage; take responsibility; he knew he was not bad. Glover as child (or adult) would have had toxic shame, hid or denied, feared anger and loss of love, lived with the secret. Every Nice Guy in groups who heard this said they would have covered it up.
Any mistake or perceived flaw = proof of badness and unlovability; exposure → hurt, shame, abandonment. So they hide or distract when they forget, are late, break something, do not understand, do wrong, are depressed, are in pain, or generally mess up. Hide is sharpest around ordinary humanity: sexuality, bodily functions, aging, hair loss, needs, imperfection.
Breaking Free Activity #6. Write examples of hiding from the lists above; how effective is the hide with people you love?
Hiding the evidence (toolkit)
- Lying. Pride themselves on honesty; are fundamentally dishonest: lies, partial truths, omissions to avoid negative focus.
- Drawing on their account. Good/giving/caring builds credit that should wipe wrongs; if most things are right, no one should notice the few wrongs.
- Fixing. Mature path: apologize, amend, repair. Nice Guy path: do whatever stops the other person being upset.
- DEER Response. Defend, Explain, Excuse, Rationalize. Fear-based distraction when wife, partner, or boss confronts and expresses feelings.
- Turning the tables (shame dumping). Shame triggered → dump onto other (blame, past, deflection, point out their flaws) to escape the spotlight.
- Walls. Block intimacy and discovery: addictions (food, sex, TV, alcohol, work), humor, sarcasm, intellectualism, perfectionism, isolation.
Teflon Men
Defenses keep people at arm's length; opposite of the craving for love. People are not drawn to perfection; they connect via shared interests, shared problems, and life energy. Humans connect with humans. Projected perfection = vague, slippery, lifeless. Teflon Men: so smooth nothing sticks, including closeness. Rough edges and imperfections are what others grip.
Breaking Free Activity #7. Do you believe people can see your imperfections and still love you? How would you differ if you knew caring people would never leave or stop loving you, no matter what?
Self-approval (the chapter's pivot)
Recovery changes the paradigm: stop living for external validation; seek approval of the only person who really matters: yourself. Irony: when they start pleasing themselves, they begin to get the intimacy they craved. Five facilitative moves:
- Identify how they seek approval
- Take good care of themselves
- Give themselves positive affirmations
- Spend extended time alone
- Reveal themselves to safe people
1) Identify approval-seeking → inside-out life
Practice being yourself by noticing impress/approval moves (extra hair time, door-holding, kitchen cleaning, park walk for praise). Awareness enables an inside-out life: turn inward; ask "What do I want?", "What feels right?", "What would make me happy?"
Cal listed two pages of attachments; focused one month on the car. Decision: no wash/vacuum for a month; watch feelings and others' responses. Seattle rain/grime haze; fought impulse to wash; sure strangers judged him; waited for shame at work or friends'; daughter's finger drawings in dirt almost unbearable. End of month: washed and waxed, relief. Surprise: no one commented on the dirty car; no one quit liking him. Washing also won no new friends.
Breaking Free Activity #8. Pick one approval behavior: (1) moratorium for a set time; tell people; if you slip, tell a safe person and learn why you needed approval then; or (2) consciously do more of it and observe the feeling (paradoxical intensify).
2) Take good care of the self
Self-care actions imply worth; if he believes he is worthless, treatment of self will match. Brainstorm list when stuck (water, floss → trip, dream car). Sample menu: exercise/walk; healthy food; sleep; relax/play; massage; buddies; new shoes; polish shoes; dental work; physical; music.
Expect discomfort: fear, anxiety, guilt, confusion = cognitive dissonance. Good-to-self clashes with worthlessness belief; keep going until new belief wins.
Todd (chameleon): rarely did things for himself. Group pushed self-care: new socks/underwear → exercise → biweekly massage (guilt) → $2,000 singles activity club. Occasional "not worth it" voice; still one of the most affirming acts. Months later: two dates with women who seemed to like him as he was.
Breaking Free Activity #9. Expand the self-care list; post it; do at least one item daily.
3) Affirming self
Affirmations replace inaccurate worth messages. Alone, effects are usually short-lived (clash with oldest beliefs). Effective only with other belief-changing processes.
Breaking Free Activity #10. Write affirmations on cards; place where seen; rotate; close eyes and embrace meaning; notice rejection toward old beliefs. Samples: "I am lovable just as I am"; "I am perfectly imperfect"; "My needs are important"; "I am a strong and powerful person"; "I can handle it"; "People love and accept me just as I am"; "It is OK to be human and make mistakes"; "I am the only person I have to please."
4) Spending time alone
Extended solitude: discover who you are, what you like, which rules govern you. Strong recommendation: trips/retreats alone where no one knows you → fewer approval games, less hide. Practice owning needs: bed/wake, food, where/what, without caretaking or fixing. Faces number-one fear: loneliness/isolation. Surviving alone shows you need not stay in bad relationships, tolerate the intolerable, or manipulate for needs. Watch addictive distraction (busy, sex, food, alcohol). Journal. Glover's own insight peaks: solo camping, week retreats, wife out of town.
Breaking Free Activity #11. Plan weekend mountains/beach; if possible week+ alone where unknown; foreign country alone if possible; journal; self-care; work Breaking Free exercises; on return, note how you differ and how fast old patterns return.
5) Revealing self
Hiding humanity reinforces "bad and unlovable." Change requires bringing humanity into the open, releasing toxic shame, receiving more accurate messages than childhood's: needs safe people. Cannot do this alone. Build trust: regular meeting; start by talking about self (already hard); then least-comfortable truths; then fear-and-shame material. Many move from secretive to deepest secrets with safe people.
Reid case: recovering alcoholic in a Nice Guy group; late, quiet, detached (withdrawal often = distress). Glover named it. Not affair: "worse." Broke through: after boss reprimand and fight with wife, bought a fifth of vodka, binge since; back to lying/manipulating; out of control. Clean since joining six months; AA; slips across 12 years recovery. Had not called sponsor (assumed no one would want him). Group: no judgment; respect for revealing; push to talk to wife, sponsor, meeting; call one member daily that week. Then "there's more": peep shows near work twice that week; feels worthless, does not want to live. Group walked him through shame: not bad; respected for revealing; support plan. Left shaken; also lighter. Feared judgment and abandonment; got neither. Message received: nothing he could do would make them stop liking or caring.
Shedding old skin
As shame releases and self-approval grows, truths land: not bad; need not win others' approval; need not hide flaws; people can love them as they are. Humanity (mistakes, poor judgment, inappropriate acts) does not make them unlovable. Imperfect humans connect with imperfect humans. Substance and self draw people; chameleons rarely get ovations. Shedding chameleon skin and pleasing self opens the door to intimacy, life energy, and charisma, and to getting what they want in love and life.
Chapter Three map: approval addiction and cover-up versus self-approval practices.
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Make Your Needs A Priority
Lars, anxiety-filled executive, opened session two: uncomfortable with "that thing we talked about last week." Wife had encouraged counseling. Long-term depression/unhappiness; recent insomnia and regular migraines. Life looked "fine" (job, home, family); he was never happy. Session one: constant fantasies of "chucking it all" and disappearing; guilt kept them secret. Asked what he did for himself: puzzled, then "Not much, I guess." Glover taught prioritizing needs and owning how to meet them; fear and resistance. Session two: "All of it... making my needs a priority really made me uptight." Why anxious? "Everything... that seems like that would make me selfish and self-centered." Glover: what's wrong with that? Lars amazed: selfish would make him like his old man; family suffered; he has wife, kids, job, mortgage, bills; no room to become a self-centered S.O.B. like dad.
Low-maintenance kinds of guys
Lars is typical: focus on everyone else's needs; try to be low maintenance themselves. Pattern from childhood: when needs were not met timely, child may believe he is "bad" for having needs, or that needs cause hurt/abandonment. Survival mechanisms:
- Appear needless and wantless
- Make it difficult for others to give to them
- Use covert contracts
- Caretake (focus on others' needs)
Childhood illusion of security; adult result: needs more unrecognized and unmet.
Needless / wantless
Peak abandonment felt when needs were highest → conclude needs drive people away. Eliminate/hide needs → no abandonment; if no needs, unmet needs hurt less. Survival seemed to depend on appearing not to need. Unsolvable bind: cannot fully repress needs and stay alive; cannot meet them alone → appear needless while meeting needs indirectly and covertly. Adult virtue myth: few needs/wants. Beneath facade: extremely needy → when seeking needs, often indirect, unclear, manipulative, controlling.
Terrible receivers
Getting needs met contradicts childhood maps → discomfort when they actually get what they want. Many are terrified of getting what they claim to want and arrange not to. Methods: choose needy/unavailable people; unspoken agendas; unclear/indirect asks; push people away; sabotage.
Sexual example (common in Glover's practice): heightened interest in sex; chronic frustration; actions guarantee failure. Uncanny knack for partners with childhood sexual abuse or other negative sex history who struggle to be sexually expressive. When partner becomes available: take control instead of letting it unfold; focus on her needs first so she never focuses on his; start a fight (weight comment, past unavailability). Strategies prevent facing fear/shame/anxiety of someone actually attending to his needs.
Breaking Free Activity #12. Is it OK for you to have needs? Do people want to help you meet them? Is the world a place of abundance?
Covert contracts
Dilemma: hide that you have needs, yet create hope of getting them met. Tool: covert contracts. Unconscious, unspoken; almost everything a Nice Guy does is some form of one.
- I will do this ______ for you, so that
- You will do this ______ for me.
- We both act as if we have no awareness of this contract.
Classic micro-example: whisper "I love you," wait for "I love you too." Giving to get. Asking for love is fine; using "I love you" as a lever for the echo is indirect and manipulative. The whole Nice Guy paradigm (be good → love, needs, ease) is one big covert contract with life.
Breaking Free Activity #13. Name at least one covert contract with a significant other: what you give, what you expect. Share with them; ask how unclear agendas feel to respond to.
Caretaking
Most common covert-contract vehicle. Nice Guys believe caretaking is loving and proves goodness. Glover: caretaking is neither loving nor good; it is an immature, indirect need-meeting attempt. Always two parts:
- Focus on another's problems, needs, or feelings in order to
- Feel valuable, get own needs met, or avoid own problems/feelings.
Reese, graphic designer, late twenties, gay: "Why can't I find a partner who gives as much back?" Boyfriends seem takers; he does all giving. In one year, three intense relationships; each began wonderful; each failed: he picked men who needed rescuing.
| Boyfriend | Pattern | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada, off drugs; lived with Reese; no work visa; struggle to stay clean. Reese supportive hoping for job + clean. | Sent home; later learned HIV+ (never told Reese); that was why no visa. |
| 2 | Different race; not at peace with homosexuality; parents/religion conflict; could not commit. | Reese supportive hoping he would straighten out and become available. |
| 3 | Military; 40 miles away; no car. Reese initiated, shuttled, paid, gifts, loans. | Transfer to another state; Reese quit job, sold car, moved; back in 3 months after partner ran around. |
Across 12 months: gave up job; alienated friends/family; stayed oblivious to own self-destruction while fixing others; never felt he got as much back.
Caring vs caretaking
| Caretaking | Caring | |
|---|---|---|
| Gives | What the giver needs to give | What the receiver needs |
| Source | Emptiness in giver | Abundance in giver |
| Strings | Always unconscious strings | No strings |
Even innocuous acts often have strings. They give as they wish others would give them (gifts, affection, back rubs, sex, surprises; urge partner to day off, new outfit, doctor, trip, quit job, school) while denying themselves the same permission.
Breaking Free Activity #14. Identify 2-3 caretaking examples. For one week: (1) caretaking moratorium (stop giving except to young dependent children; tell people; observe feelings/reactions), or (2) consciously caretake more and watch feeling/reactions.
The victim triangle
Covert contracts + caretaking → frustration and resentment → ugly spill. Giving-to-get cycle = victim triangle:
- Give hoping to get something back.
- Seem to get less than given / not what expected → frustration and resentment (he keeps score; not objective).
- Buildup spills: rage attacks, passive-aggression, pouting, tantrums, withdrawing, shaming, criticizing, blaming, even physical abuse. Then the cycle restarts.
Glover's wife calls episodes victim pukes: temper-tantrum style, or passive-aggressive (affair, hidden acting out), always with a sense of justification from victimization. Primary reason Nice Guys are not always nice.
Shane and girlfriend Racquel: pedestal; deep belief she can love him only if "good enough." Gifts, cards, messages, clothes, surprises, help with home/kids → her emotional indebtedness; she could never repay (he was buying love; contract unclear) → she pushed him away to cope. He devastated: he fulfilled his end; why not hers? Accusations; name-calling breakups; then fear/remorse; pursue and fix (resenting that she did not pursue/fix); restart caretaking. Cycle on loop.
Breaking Free Activity #15. Link caretaking to pukes; observe how you hurt people you love: cutting remarks/hurtful "jokes"; public embarrassment; lateness; "forgetting" asks; criticism; withdraw/threaten leave; build to blow-up. Ask significant others for feedback on caretaking and pukes (may trigger shame; still needed to exit the triangle).
Becoming truly selfish
Group member on early draft: whole book seems about focusing on self; selfish; as if Nice Guy should ignore everyone else. Glover had not consciously planned that theme; the comment was true: Nice Guys survived by self-sacrifice; recovery centers on putting self first and prioritizing needs.
Mature truth (often repeated until it sinks): it is healthy to have needs; mature people prioritize meeting them. For Nice Guys, "needs" = "needy" = ticket to abandonment. Teaching lines:
- You were not put here to meet anyone else's needs (except your children's).
Terrifying: putting self first feels like the fastest route to being disliked, unloved, alone. Predictable objections: people will get angry; think I'm selfish; I'll be alone; what if everyone lived this way?
Benefits when they put themselves first:
- Higher odds of getting what they need and want
- Can give judiciously (what people really need)
- Give without resentment and expectation
- Become less needy
- Become more attractive
Helpless, whiny, wimpy, needy is not attractive on a man; confidence and self-assurance are. People are drawn to a sense of self. Putting self first attracts rather than drives away; essential for love and life outcomes.
Paradigm shift for needs
- Having needs is part of being human
- Mature people prioritize meeting their own needs
- Can ask for help clearly and directly
- Others really do want to help
- The world is a place of abundance
Putting self first is not a try-on suggestion; essential for needs, personal power, feeling alive, love and intimacy. When they own needs, others benefit too: fewer covert contracts, guessing games, rage outbursts, passive-aggression, manipulation, control, resentment.
Personal vignette: holiday weekend, kids out of town; tried to plan with wife Elizabeth; she ambivalent; he frustrated, plans on hold. Friend urged put-self-first: make plans; invite her to join if inclined; do what he wanted including time with friends. She joined several times; Monday she said she thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and did not want it to end.
A challenge: one week putting self first
Group challenge: experiment ≥ one week. Anxiety high; all accepted. Three results:
Lars. Told wife needs would be priority that week; she initially resistant (more anxiety). Called group men for courage. Plan: daily gym (pre-kids he was active; job/home/kids ended it); alternate before/after work. Wife guilt: "not fair you get to work out and I don't." Impulse to solve for her too; instead reflected concern and went anyway. First days: guilt and anxiety; persevered. Day three: she asked how workout went. He slept better, more energy, liked gym crowd. After week: she said he inspired her; would drop kids at gym daycare and start aerobics.
Reese. Joined after last breakup; only gay man in group at first; accepted; building non-sexual male friendships. Habit: Fri/Sat/Sun gay bars with boyfriend → Monday exhausted → week of catch-up. Fear: if he did not go whenever boyfriend wanted, boyfriend would leave. Plan: one weekend put self first; told boyfriend in advance; go out one night, no drink, home by midnight; Saturday movie with group men; Sunday home for laundry/cleaning; bed by 10 p.m. Monday: rested, clear; boyfriend had not dropped him; productive week.
Shane. Impulse to do for Racquel → do for self instead: wash his car not hers; buy himself gifts; call group member instead of "just checking" on her. High anxiety. End of week: she felt less smothered; looked forward to time with him; one late evening after kids in bed invited him over to make love. Couples session: continue. Six months: no gifts/surprises for her (including birthday, Christmas, Valentine). He focused on self-care and his needs. She did not stop loving him; became more giving. One year later: he could give a gift without buying approval; less dependent/needy/fearful; both enjoyed the changes.
Making the decision
Myth: give up self, put others first → love and needs met. Only way to change the illogical map: put yourself first. Hardest part is the decision; doing it is relatively easy: one voice to consider; decisions by one person, not a committee; no mind-reading multiple conflicting agendas. Information needed is internal: "Is this what I want? Yes. Then that's what I'll do."
Breaking Free Activity #16. Decide to put yourself first for a weekend or a week. Tell people. Ask a friend to support. Watch initial anxiety and reversion. At end, ask others what it was like. You need not do it perfectly. Just do it.
Closing: others may cooperate but are not in charge of his needs. Prioritize needs and put self first → world as abundance; needs matter; willing people exist to help meet them.
Chapter Four map: give-to-get victim cycle versus clear ownership of needs.
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Reclaim Your Personal Power
One Saturday, Elizabeth and Glover argued; she felt helpless against his denial; he felt unjustly persecuted. At the crest she shouted: "You're nothing but a wimp!" She left; he retreated to the bathroom. Minutes later she knocked to apologize: calling him a wimp was unfair. He wiped a tear: "Actually, it was the most accurate thing you said all morning."
Nice Guys are wimps. Harsh, he says, but true: life paradigm and childhood survival require sacrificing personal power. Common denominator: needs unmet in childhood; helpless against abandonment, neglect, abuse, use, smothering. Victimhood becomes familiar. They see others as causing their problems → frustration, helplessness, resentment, rage. Body and voice: "It's not fair." "How come she gets to make the rules?" "I always give more than I get." "If she would just..."
A paradigm of powerlessness
Coping map again: if I am good, then love, needs met, problem-free life. That map produces the opposite and locks in powerlessness.
Two blockers to the smooth-life obsession:
- Impossible goal. Life is not smooth; human existence is chaotic; much is unpredictable and beyond control. Trying for total predictability is futility. Yet Nice Guys believe life can and should be smooth: childhood unpredictability of unmet needs felt life-threatening. Coping illusion: do everything right → everything goes right; sometimes also rewrite childhood as ideal/problem-free (opposite of reality).
- Opposite of what works. Adult situations met with naïve, powerless childhood tools → little stability. Vicious cycle: more fear → more childhood mechanisms → less success with complexity → more fear.
Breaking Free Activity #17. For each coping mechanism, write a childhood example and an adult example; note how it keeps you a powerless victim; share with a safe person:
- Doing it right
- Playing it safe
- Anticipating and fixing
- Trying not to rock the boat
- Being charming and helpful
- Never being a moment's problem
- Using covert contracts
- Controlling and manipulating
- Caretaking and pleasing
- Withholding information
- Repressing feelings
- Making sure other people don't have feelings
- Avoiding problems and difficult situations
Overcoming the wimp factor: reclaiming personal power
Personal power defined: a state of mind in which a person is confident he can handle whatever may come. Not only deals with problems, challenges, adversity: welcomes them, meets them head on, is thankful for them. Not absence of fear; even powerful people fear. Power = feel fear, do not give in to it.
Recovery embraces personal power as birthright. Six practices:
- Surrendering
- Dwelling in reality
- Expressing feelings
- Facing fears
- Developing integrity
- Setting boundaries
1) Surrendering
Most important irony: reclaiming power and getting what you want starts with surrender. Not giving up: letting go of what you cannot change and changing what you can. Letting go ≠ not caring/not trying; letting go = letting be. Clenched fist that wants to re-clench; hand must be retrained to open.
Surrender lets men respond to life's complex beauty instead of controlling it; see life as laboratory for learning, growth, creativity; treat experiences as "gifts" that stimulate growth. Shift from "Why is this happening to me?" to "What do I need to learn from this situation?"
Gil and girlfriend Barb (early fifties, eight years together): couples counseling started to "fix" her (depressed, angry, no sex interest); he walked on eggshells. After months he saw not all problems were about Barb: his caretaking/control; few outside interests; no male friends. Joined a Nice Guy men's group. Still hunted the "key" to make Barb better; slowly saw he could not change her; must focus on self. Detaching → anxiety; fear of "getting in trouble"; belief she could not handle problems without him. With group support he surrendered: he would be OK whether or not they made it. Relationship improved; fewer frustrations; Barb became a "gift" for working through issues with his angry father. A year later: wedding date set; turning point was deciding he did not care whether they made it: conscious release of control; ironically received what he wanted.
Breaking Free Activity #18. Name one "gift" you initially resisted that later stimulated growth. Any similar gifts now that need surrender? Share with a safe person.
2) Dwelling in reality
Nice Guys control via belief systems about people/situations not based in reality, then act as if accurate → behavior looks illogical from outside.
Les, late thirties: brief affair with co-worker. Why? "I guess I just wanted some attention." Anger toward wife? "I never get angry at Sarah." Ten-year marriage, pedestal: yet specifics: she gained 60 pounds, refused to cook, depressed, no sex, contempt, rage without provocation. Still "woman of his dreams." Therapy held a reality mirror; slow because fear of being alone; dwelling in reality might force frightening action. Facing abandonment fear → saw wife more accurately → ask for wants, set boundaries, express resentment/anger. Sarah had no desire to look at her role or change. Painful: he moved out and filed for divorce. Reality let him see the system he co-created, make hard decisions, access inner power, open to someone available for the relationship he wanted.
Breaking Free Activity #19. Pick one area of chronic frustration/out-of-control. Step back: are you projecting the reality you want onto it? If you had to accept the actual reality, how would your response change?
3) Expressing feelings
Terrified of two kinds of feelings: their own and everyone else's. Intensity = out of control. Childhood: intense feeling invited negative attention or none → safer to clamp the lid. Early marriage: Elizabeth frustrated at his inability to share feelings; after 30+ years conditioning he had no clue what she wanted. Even when aware, he delayed: "I'm doing better... it only took me two weeks to tell you."
Rationalization: "don't want to hurt anyone." Truth: covering their own butts; avoid recreating childhood; keep world smooth. Line he uses: "Your feelings are just feelings, they won't kill you." Goal is not soft touchy-feely; men in touch with feelings are powerful, assertive, energized. They need not become more like women; learn feelings from other men. Groups model the slow process; like a family where help with feelings is available; safe place to feel briefly out of control; learn they will not drown if they rock the boat, or die if someone else has a feeling.
Car vignette: Elizabeth backed into a parked car; waited to be scolded; began walling off. He got angry not about the car but about her pushing him away. Clear and direct, without shame: "Stop." Intensity: not pushing her away and would not accept her pushing him away; feelings about the car, stronger feelings about how she was acting; "Just let me have my feelings about the car, and then we'll work it out." Later she told him (and friends) she felt safer when he had his feelings: upset about car ≠ she is bad ≠ abandonment. Intensity about connection made her feel secure; brought them closer; reference point for powerful direct emotion.
Breaking Free Activity #20. Guidelines for expressing feelings:
- Do not focus on the other: "You are making me mad." Own it: "I am feeling angry."
- Do not use feeling words for thoughts: "I feel like Joe was trying to take advantage of me." Body: "I'm feeling helpless and frightened."
- Begin feeling statements with "I" rather than "you."
- Avoid the crutch "I feel like..." (e.g., "I feel like you are being mean to me").
4) Facing fears
Healthy fear warns of approaching danger. Nice Guy daily fear is Memory Fear: cellular record of seemingly life-threatening experiences; born in absolute dependency; unmet needs; fearful systems that discouraged risk and rewarded conservatism; heightened by messy chaotic life where change = unknown. Approach world as dangerous → hunker down, play it safe → needless suffering: avoid new situations; stay with familiar; procrastinate/avoid/fail to finish; worsen bad situations by more of what never worked; expend energy controlling the uncontrollable.
Nolan: separated a year; "confused" about divorce; guilt; endless what-ifs (mistake, mess up kids, kids never talk, friends think bad, God sends to hell). Confusion = paralysis. Glover: not confused, afraid. Childhood: mistakes seemed to have everlasting consequences. Behind each consequence: belief he could not handle it. Homework: list fears + accurate statement: no matter what happens, he will handle it. Next week: contacted an attorney; mantra "I can handle it."
Facing present fears is the only way to overcome memory fear. Each confrontation builds belief he can handle it → outside world less threatening → more confidence → less threat.
Breaking Free Activity #21. List one fear controlling your life. Decide to confront it; repeat: "I can handle it. No matter what happens, I will handle it." Until action and fear drops.
5) Developing integrity
Pride themselves on honesty; are fundamentally dishonest: can lie or withhold and still believe they are honest. Dishonesty is fear-based and robs personal power. Lying = anything less than the truth. "Pretty honest" / "honest most of the time" / "I didn't lie, I just didn't tell everything" are contradictions.
Joel, construction company owner: left early for afternoon movies; feared wife's disapproval; cover stories if she called; never crossed his mind that hiding was lying; fear-based marriage; robbed power.
Practice: notice what you least want others to know; those are what you hold back and most need to tell; may need several tellings until all pieces out. Sometimes truth brings anger; truth is not a magic smooth-life formula; integrity is still easier than deceit.
Integrity defined: "deciding what feels right and doing it." Alternative: committee approach (guess what everyone else would think is right) → confusion, fear, powerlessness, dishonesty. Two ways out of integrity, one way in: never ask what you think is right / use committee = out; ask but do not do = out; ask and do = in.
Breaking Free Activity #22. Choose one out-of-integrity area; name the fear; reveal to safe person; go tell the truth or make it right; tell yourself you can handle it; have faith everyone involved will survive the crisis truth may create.
6) Setting boundaries
Essential for survival; stops helpless-victim stance. Shoestring exercise: line on ground; he will cross and push backward; stop when uncomfortable. Typical: stand well back; allow several violating steps before responding; once pushed, several steps more; sometimes all the way to the wall. Graphic: Nice Guys prefer back-pedaling, giving in, keeping peace; one more step back and the other will quit pushing.
Early recovery: Kamikaze boundary setters (sledge hammer/machete); learn to use only as much resistance as needed. Boundary setting is not about getting others different; about getting yourself different. If someone crosses your boundary, it is your problem to address. Memory fear often unconsciously reinforces intolerable behavior; teach others they can violate. Own how you let people treat you → stop reinforcing → others get a chance to behave differently → relationships can survive and grow.
Jake (enlisted, mid-twenties) and Kisha: before marriage she had an affair; he forgave and promised never to bring it up → pattern: she does what she wants; he withholds feelings, walks on eggshells. Drunk night: demeaning remarks, slow dancing with other men; he finally said time to go; she swore; he called her a bitch and drove home. Next day silent treatment; he apologized for "bitch." Group confronted lovingly: tolerating intolerable gave her license; problem was him until he changed; by not setting boundaries he robbed the marriage of a chance. Next day he confronted: owned his role; no longer tolerate dancing/flirting with other men or demeaning him; if stay married, treatment for drinking. She packed and left. He miserable but did not beg; called group. Three nights later she called: initially wanted to tell him to go to hell; knew he was right; first time she felt respect; wanted to save marriage; entered treatment the following week.
Breaking Free Activity #23. For one week observe backing up from your line: say yes when you mean no; agree to avoid conflict; avoid action lest someone upset; tolerate the intolerable hoping it goes away. Write and share with a safe person.
Take a walk on the wild side
No "key" to a smooth life. Being good/right does not insulate from chaos. The Nice Guy paradigm creates wimpy men who let bullies kick sand or shame them for loading the dishwasher "wrong." As they surrender, dwell in reality, feel, face fear, live integrity, set boundaries, they access power to welcome life's challenges and gifts. Life is a roller coaster, not a merry-go-round. Not always smooth or pretty; an adventure not to be missed.
Chapter Five stack: six practices that replace wimp survival with handle-it power.
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Reclaim Your Masculinity
Men born after WWII grew up in the only recent Western era when being male was not always a good thing, Glover argues: (1) disconnect from fathers and healthy male role models; (2) forced to seek women's approval and accept a female definition of maleness. Strategy: hide/eliminate negative male traits (like dad or other "bad" men); become what women supposedly want → love, needs, smooth life. Not limited to Boomers: thirties, twenties, teens show Nice Guy traits; each generation more passive.
Effects:
- Disconnected from other men
- Disconnected from own masculinity
- Monogamous to their mothers
- Dependent on women's approval
Disconnected from other men
Common lines: uncomfortable with men / nothing to talk about; most men are jerks; wife made male hangouts a hassle so he gave up; loner. Limited positive male contact in childhood → never learned male friendship skills. Belief they are different from (better than) other men, begun by differing from "bad"/unavailable dad. Self-flattering list: not controlling; not angry/rageful; not violent; attentive to women's needs; good lovers; good fathers. Disconnect cuts them off from male companionship and masculine community power.
Breaking Free Activity #24. Note ways you tried to be different from father and/or other men. How does "I'm different" keep you disconnected?
Disconnected from masculinity
Masculinity defined: that part of a man that equips him to survive as individual, clan, and species. Without it, extinction. Empowers create/produce; provide/protect. Traits: strength, discipline, courage, passion, persistence, integrity. Also potential for aggressiveness, destructiveness, brutality: frightens Nice Guys (and most women) → hard repression.
Repress dark side to win women's approval (logical under anti-male climate since 1960s). Irony: they complain women prefer "jerks." Women tell Glover: Nice Guys lack discernible life energy, little to attract; "jerks" have more masculine edge. Avoiding dark side also represses sexual assertiveness, competitiveness, creativity, ego, thirst for experience, boisterousness, exhibitionism, power (watch playground boys). Visible consequence: lack of family leadership. Fear of upsetting partner or seeming like controlling/abusive dad → leadership falls to wives by default; most women he talks to do not want that job.
Monogamous to their mothers
Normal developmental stage gone awry: little boys fall in love with mother and want her exclusively; healthy parents help individuation → bond with men → available for adult intimacy with another woman. Mother: give enough without creating dependency; get own needs met so not using son as void-filler. Father: present, healthy bond; helps move from mother's lap to men's world.
Most Nice Guys lacked close father bond → unhealthy mother bond: please angry/critical/controlling mother, or become mother's little partner (needy/dependent/smothering). Without dad, impossible negotiation alone → unconscious monogamy to mother; failed individuation. Adult partner senses he is not fully available (may not consciously link to mother).
Anita, late fifties: suspected husband Dutton of affair with secretary; he denied; "too much evidence." Context: work pressure, tight money, mother died last year; he was very close. Infatuation with secretary seemed to start after mother's death: fill a hole. She always felt more connected to mother than to her; jealous of mother-in-law. His "great" family = mother the saint; harsh father; kids turned to mom. Dutton paid for parents' carpet and recliners; drove mom places dad would not; treated mom special to make up for dad. When Anita once said he treated his mother better than her, he blew up, silent two weeks; she learned not to bring it up. Question: connection between mom dying and affair?
Seek women's approval (and fail)
Even while becoming what women want, frustration: in general women view men who try to please them as weak and hold them in contempt. Most women want a man who knows how to please himself, not a passive pleasing wimp: "someone with his balls still intact."
Getting your testicles back
Avoiding men + seeking women's approval blocks love and life. Reclaim masculinity: believe it is good to be a man; embrace all masculine traits. Involves:
- Connecting with other men
- Getting strong
- Finding healthy male role models
- Reexamining relationship with father
Connect with men
Essential; requires conscious effort: commitment, time, risk, vulnerability. Time is the big blocker (neighbor chat, call friend, ballgame) especially when enmeshed with wife/family/work. Guy things: team, sports events, prayer/discussion group, poker, volunteer, fishing, run, hang out. No single right way.
Alan: hard to do things for self especially with men; joined men's therapy group; >1 year before outside hangouts; feedback on isolating defenses; support changing how he related to wife. Health club volleyball/racquetball; started softball team; hard to take time from family. Years later: close male friends; yearly cross-country golf road trip as highlight. He and wife Marie believe male connection saved the marriage: she had been his emotional center; covert contracts → resentment/PA; men met emotional/social needs → pressure off her; masculine energy made him more attractive; she respected him going out with friends; respect rekindled early feelings.
Benefits Glover stresses: best thing for relationship with girlfriend/wife is male friends. Needs met with men → less dependent, needy, manipulative, resentful with women; less defined by her anger ("buddies think I'm OK"); less peacekeeping/fixing.
Breaking mother monogamy: boys pulled into unhealthy mother bonds when fathers allow it; reverse via healthy male relationships. Daughter Jamie, 18: boyfriend monogamous to smothering mom; traveling/rigid dad. Jamie competed with mom for attention; mom usually won. Dinner talk: classic Nice Guy; will never fully bond until mother bond breaks; hope = connect with men as he could not with father. Marines boot camp helped; at graduation he set boundaries with possessive mother; Jamie saw boot-camp male bonds and embraced masculinity.
Breaking Free Activity #25. List three men to know better; activity with each; date; commit to contact by that day.
Get strong
Masculinity denotes strength/power; Nice Guys fear these → emotionally and physically soft; some pride in softness; some work out/martial arts yet still fear strength. Embrace body, power, spaciousness: stop junk food; train for male physical demands; healthy food; eliminate drugs/alcohol; work out; water; play; relax; rest. Running, swimming, weights, martial arts, basketball, volleyball, tennis → confidence and power spill into life.
Travis, attorney, early fifties: marital issues; Nice Guy + drug/alcohol problem. Boundary: drug/alcohol assessment, quit drinking, AA, or no work together. Complied; joined Nice Guy group. Marriage yo-yo; lifestyle: fast food, chain smoke, lots of coffee, long hours, zero exercise. Changes: AA and recovering men; long-delayed surgery → quit smoking; lunch walks; more water, less coffee/soda; week fishing in Alaska with friends. ~10 months: filing divorce; combative marriage was last bad habit. Wife blamed the group for killing the marriage. Travis: "Thanks to this group, I feel strong... This group didn't kill my marriage, it saved my life."
Breaking Free Activity #26. Three ways you neglect your body; three ways to start better care.
Healthy role models
Visualize healthy male; list traits to develop; find men (church, company, softball, even TV/movie characters); observe and assimilate. Glover used a committee: one good at guy things; one hard worker; one comfortable revealing feelings; one risk-taker/challenger.
Breaking Free Activity #27. Visualize healthy male; personality traits; write them; know anyone with many? How use as model?
Reexamine father
Most lacked close childhood father bond (passive, unavailable, absent, or negatively defined). Reclaim requires adult-eyed look.
Matthew, computer programmer, mid-forties: once said he would not attend father's funeral. After group work, called and confronted dad for exclusion from family function. Mother had cast dad as villain, herself as victim. Talking to father: dad had problems but was not "bad" as mother painted. Matthew saw he had recreated villain/victim with his wife. Phone call shifted both father and wife relationships.
Reexamine = see dads as they are; off gutter and pedestal; hold accountable including rage/anger (even if dead); presence optional; embrace shared male heritage. Accept fathers as wounded humans → accept self → reclaim masculinity.
Breaking Free Activity #28. List father's characteristics on left; opposite on right; mark where you sit on each spectrum. Discoveries often: father as caricature; self as reactive caricature ("opposite of crazy is still crazy"); if life is reaction to Dad, Dad still controls; can differ without being opposite; more shared traits than admitted.
Passing benefits: Part 1 snakes and snails
Sons grow in a world still disconnecting boys from men and tying them to women's approval. PTA open house: K-5 only one male classroom teacher (~20-to-1). Culture has few rituals moving boys from female-ruled nursery (home/preschool/school) into adult manhood. Robert Bly (Iron John): "primitive" societies: women raise boys until early adolescence; men stage a raid in war paint; women weep/protest on cue; afterward women ask "Was I believable?"; men and women cooperate on initiation.
Today boys try the transition alone. Theory: adolescent sloppiness, aggression, loud music, swearing, spitting partly aim to become so repulsive mother cannot stand them (break symbiotic bond); still need adult males to pull away without guilt/shame/self-destruction. Recovering Nice Guys can teach what only men can teach: handle aggression and libido; relate to women; bond with men; embrace masculinity. By example and interaction: hunting, fishing, cars, work, coaching, ballgames, workouts, business trips, tag along with the guys. Also nephews, scouts, teams, school, Big Brothers.
Trey, single, late thirties: nephew raised by single-mother sister; nephew repeating Trey's teen rebellion/alcohol. Group: reach out. Next week beaming: hardware store + built workbench together; nephew thrilled; Trey felt he changed a struggling boy's direction.
Breaking Free Activity #29. How provide healthy male support for boys you know? Three boys + activity with each.
Passing benefits: Part 2 sugar and spice
Daughters benefit too. LeMar's 12-year-old daughter with bone cancer (leg removed, chemo/radiation, hospital nights). Friday: men's group showed up at hospital to take him to dinner. Unexpected dividend: daughter sat up, hugged each guy; that night less medication, better sleep in weeks; next day talked about "her guys." Recovering Nice Guys show daughters a real man: boundaries, clear asks, hard work, create/produce, male friends, own needs prioritized. Modeling shapes future partner choice.
No-lose situation
Reclaimed masculine energy: deeper bonds with men; better relationships with women; next generation sees what a healthy male looks like. Everyone wins.
Chapter Six reclaim stack: men, strength, models, father work.
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Get The Love You Want: Success Strategies For Intimate Relationships
Karl, successful mid-thirties businessman: "I'm a victim of her dysfunction." Over six-two in suit and tie, looked like a little boy on the sofa. Intimidated by wife Danita: "angry all the time," "relentless," "steamroller." Fear → lies and avoidance. "Danita is just like my mother... no pleasing Mom... avoid and tune out... lying and hiding... still pretty good at that." Every other area of life great; if not for Danita, perfect; she just does not know how to be happy.
Intimate strangers
Two typical entry paths to Glover's office: hidden behavior blows up (affair, porn, pot), or dissatisfaction in the intimate relationship (sex frequency, depression, anger, unavailability, unfaithfulness). Men want a simple answer: stop the one thing that angers her, or get her to change. Note: mostly heterosexual examples; similar issues with gay men; "she/her" used for partner.
Conclusion after years of observation: deep desire for connection, yet toxic shame and childhood survival make intimacy difficult.
Why Nice Guys struggle (six reasons)
- Toxic shame
- Dysfunctional relationships they co-create
- Enmeshment and avoidance patterns
- Familiar childhood dynamics recreated
- Unconscious need to remain monogamous to mother
- They are "bad enders"
Toxic shame. Intimacy defined: "knowing the self, being known by another, and knowing another." Requires looking inward and becoming visible. Shame makes exposure feel life-threatening. Being known = being found out; intimacy is everything they fear most.
Co-create dysfunction. Balancing act: fear of vulnerability (found out → hurt/shame/abandon) vs fear of isolation (childhood abandonment). Solution: find equally wounded partners; co-create bonds that frustrate everyone while protecting against being found out. Partner's baggage is not "the" problem; the co-created system is. Projects (single moms, money problems, anger, addiction, depression, overweight, non-sexual, unfaithful) divert attention from his shame. Closest relationship often least intimate.
Enmesher vs avoider.
| Type | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Enmesher ("table dog") | Partner = emotional center; world revolves around her; gifts, fix, rearrange schedule; sacrifice wants; tolerate bad moods/rage/addiction/sexual unavailability because he "loves her so much." Hover for scraps of sex, time, mood, attention. Illusion of availability; actually trying to hook an emotional hose to suck life into his empty place; she unconsciously blocks the hose and looks like the blocker. |
| Avoider | Job, hobby, parents, everything before primary relationship; nice to everyone but her; others' cars, mom's roof, 2-3 jobs, coaching kids. Still runs covert contract: since he is Nice, she should be available even if he is not. |
Both inhibit real intimacy; feel safe, not loved.
Breaking Free Activity #30. Enmesher or avoider now? How would partner see you? Does pattern change? Roles in past relationships?
Recreate childhood. Attracted to familiar. Examples: listening to mother's problems = intimacy → pick partner with problems; caretake/fix as trained; meet others first then self; abandoned → unavailable/unfaithful partners; angry/demeaning/controlling parent → similar partner. If she is not that way at start, he may help her become it: project parental traits; act as if; force dysfunctional response. Glover: never knew dad's mood coming home (often bad) → arrived home prepared for Elizabeth's anger; defensiveness triggered confrontation even when she was fine; she looked like angry dad.
Breaking Free Activity #31. Identify how partner helps recreate childhood patterns (not blame); share with partner.
Mother monogamy. Creative blocks to bonding with any woman but mother.
Breaking Free Activity #32. Note which keep you monogamous to mother; share with safe person:
- Over-involvement with work or hobbies
- Relationships with people who need fixing
- Drug/alcohol addictions
- Sexual addictions (porn, masturbation, fantasy, chat lines, hookers)
- Affairs
- Sexual dysfunction (low desire, erection problems, premature ejaculation)
- Partners who are angry, sick, depressive, compulsive, addicted, unfaithful, unavailable
- Avoiding intercourse or vows of celibacy
Bad enders. Spend too long making bad relationships work; looking for love in wrong places. Healthy people leave a bad fit; Nice Guys try harder to make the unworkable work. When they end, often late, indirect, blaming, deceitful; typically multiple attempts. Joke: average about nine attempts (not far from truth).
Strategies for successful relationships
No perfect partners/relationships; chaos is normal. Strategy = do what works by living differently. Full recovery stack applied to intimacy:
Approve of self · Put self first · Reveal to safe people · Eliminate covert contracts · Own needs · Surrender · Dwell in reality · Express feelings · Integrity · Boundaries · Embrace masculinity
Warning. If partnered, recovery will seriously affect both. One of two outcomes: (1) relationship grows in exciting unpredictable ways; or (2) it goes to a long overdue grave.
Approve of self → love
Essence: live as you desire; be who you are without reservation; decide what is right and be that with energy for the world to see. People who like that stay; others leave. Only way to healthy relationship. Common Nice Guy dynamic: false self to get/keep love.
George and Susan: five years giving up hunting/fishing, friends, financial control to her, supporting her quitting work; gradual please-Susan project. She rarely happy; he helpless/resentful, ready to leave; blamed her. Group confronted victim role. Shift: quit trying to make her happy. One weekend/month hunting or fishing (held through guilt/manipulation); allowance from paycheck instead of handing all to her; budget + if she wants more income control she returns to full-time work. Results: less victim feeling; more positive toward Susan; she took charge of her life, less dependent. ~1 year: more content; marriage improved; credit to group courage.
Breaking Free Activity #33. List ways you please partner. What would change if you did not have to make her happy?
Boundaries → love
Nowhere more important than intimate relationships. Boundaries create safety for vulnerability. Partners have applauded shoestring demos: "You mean you want me to stand up to you?" "Of course... I don't want to be married to someone I can walk all over." Catch: she must test trust; first boundary may meet intensity, pushback, "you're wrong," pressure to see if real.
When she feels secure she feels loved; stand up to her implies stand up for her; respect: failing to set boundaries says he does not honor himself, so why should she?
Two decision tools:
- Second Date Rule. If this behavior occurred on the second date, would there have been a third? Reveals what you should not be putting up with.
- Healthy Male Rule. How would a healthy male handle this? Connects intuitive wisdom and power to respond.
Once he knows he can set a boundary anytime, he can let people close, feel, be sexual: confidence he can say stop/no/slow down or remove himself.
Breaking Free Activity #34. Areas you avoid appropriate boundaries? Tolerate intolerable; avoid conflict; not ask for wants; sacrifice to keep peace. Apply Second Date / Healthy Male: how would behavior change?
Additional strategies
- Focus on the relationship, not the partner
- Do not reinforce undesirable behaviors
- Do something different (new relationships)
Focus on relationship. Wounded attract wounded. Choosing a "sicker" partner creates illusion one is healthier. Rule: if one obviously wounded person in a relationship, you always have two. No exception. Glover/Elizabeth: she cast as broken, he as healthy until her therapy: she announced he was as messed up; he replied she was discovering she was as healthy as he. Victim-to-sick-partner illusion keeps patterns stuck.
Use partner to touch childhood abandonment/neglect/abuse/smothering; understand why this system; change. Replace "if she would just..." with:
- Why did I need to co-create this relationship?
- How does it let me play familiar roles?
- How does it meet unconscious needs?
- Why did I invite this person into my life?
Partner as partner in healing. Karl shift: Danita as "gift" to clean out fear of angry/critical people → grief for childhood; stand up rather than withdraw; her anger seen as her wounding → she looked less angry; more loving; marked improvement.
Breaking Free Activity #35. When frustrated/resentful/rageful at partner ask: Why invite this person? What learn? How change if seen as gift?
Stop reinforcing undesirable behavior. Dog-obedience analogy: owners train bad behavior. Humans similar. Irony: jumping in to fix her unhappiness/depression/anger reinforces the very pattern (treat for pissing on carpet). Joe: wife silent rage from work; he asks what's wrong, hours of venting, helpful suggestions → reinforced. Group pointed it out. Next time: silence, dinner, garage; intense anxiety; resisted fix. Night of deafening silence. Morning: one-word answers. Evening "miracle": good mood, walk; she had resolved it; liked space to work it out; did not want him fixing.
Do something different in new relationships. Healthy agenda, not unconscious dysfunctional one. Choose different partner: fixer-uppers are terrible partner strategy; insecurity → diamond-in-the-rough (troubled childhood, sexual abuse survivor, bad relationship string, depressed, money problems, overweight, struggling single mom) + covert contract to polish. Rarely works. Prefer people already taking responsibility for their lives (not "perfect"). Group trait list (no order):
- Passion
- Integrity
- Happiness
- Intelligence
- Sexual assertiveness
- Financial responsibility
- Commitment to personal growth
If current partner scores poorly: do not immediately jump ship; address own patterns and why this relationship was needed. New partner will not fix if same relationship need remains. Own work often changes the bond (reevaluate exit urge or confirm it). List is not magic formula.
Also: refrain from sex early. Stay out of bed until you really know her; once sex begins, learning stops; powerful bond blocks accurate evaluation and ending.
Embrace the challenge
Fulfilling intimate relationships are possible. Life and relationships are challenges. Recovery strategies put Nice Guys in position to embrace them and get the love they want.
Chapter Seven: intimacy traps versus relationship recovery moves.
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Get The Sex You Want: Success Strategies For Satisfying Sex
Common sexual problems: not getting enough (most common; blame inhibited partner); settling for less than satisfying; dysfunction (erection, premature ejaculation); repression (claim little interest while hiding activity); compulsive behavior (masturbation, porn, affairs, peep shows, 900 numbers, cybersex, prostitution). Sum: little sex and/or little good sex. Masters at ensuring unsatisfying sex lives; external blame is usually wrong.
Shame and fear
All Nice Guys have shame and fear about being sexual and about being sexual beings. Repeat for emphasis. Unconscious stack when sexual: childhood "bad" memories; unmet needs pain; sexually wounded parents; societal distortions; missing accurate info; religious guilt/shame; mother's covert sexual bonds; sexual violation trauma; early sex wrapped in secrecy; porn's unrealistic images; shame of hidden compulsion; past sexual failures/rejections. Every sexual feeling negotiates this baggage.
Avoidance/distraction mechanisms (block good sex):
- Avoid sexual situations and opportunities
- Try to be a good lover
- Hide compulsive sexual behaviors
- Repress life energy
- Settle for bad sex
Vagiphobia (avoidance)
Coined term: penis tries to stay out of vaginas or gets out quickly; protects from shame/fear; guarantees little sex. Alan poster child: sexualized relationships outside marriage, some overt, none consummated with intercourse; wife's girlfriend + incriminating note. Liked women's attention; childhood: mother monogamy, different from dad, fundamentalist religion → "flirting without fucking" (exchange sexual energy without intercourse; convince self nothing wrong). Business trip: flirt, drinks, slow dance; hot tub string bikini, lap, passionate kiss; declined room to "not jeopardize working relationship." High school: broke up when girls wanted beyond petting. Never directly initiated with wife (women think sex bad; direct = he is bad). Flirted with unlikely-available women; if wrong, found reason not to follow through.
Trying to be a good lover
Pride as attachment/value; "different from other men"; distract from own shame/inadequacy/smother fear by focusing on her arousal. Terrance, mid-thirties: "premature ejaculation"; first wife left; engaged to sensual woman; works hard: oral for her 2-3 orgasms before penetration, then try for one more vaginally; often ejaculates first; said he did not care if he never orgasm if she satisfied. "30 percent missing"; she postponing wedding. Recipe for boring sex: routine do-what-worked-last-time; blocks passionate, reciprocal, spontaneous, intimate sex.
Hiding compulsive sex
Sex as pill for loneliness, boredom, worthlessness, conflict, "feeling loved," stress. Childhood arousal as security blanket → adult intimacy blocker. Theory: the nicer the guy, the darker the sexual secrets (consistently true). Sexuality goes underground under approval dependence. Lyle, mid-forties computer programmer, devout Christian, Sunday school, no rough edges: secret porn addiction from age nine (tree fort, never alone); expanded to videos, peep shows, strip bars, 900 numbers, cybersex chat; months without couple sex blamed on work/family stress; repeated quit-and-return cycles. Energy spent underground left little for person-to-person sex.
Repressing life energy
Adolescent strategy: be "nice" to get noticed/approved when not star/athlete/affluent. Carried to adulthood: believe woman would be lucky to have them while wondering why any would want them. Seeking approval clamps lid on attracting energy → women not drawn. Partners initially like pleasing demeanor; hard to get sexually excited later; she may feel defective; little about Nice Guy persona to flip a switch. Opposite of what works.
Settling for bad sex
Wife late twenties: partner "pesters"; no → pout/withdraw; yes → focus on her arousal, little reciprocation. "I could tell him it would turn me on if he set himself on fire. He would gladly do it and think he was getting good sex." Aaron/Hannah bedroom: weeks without sex; he indirectly arouses (back rub → buttocks → breast) while tuning out own resentment and her unreceptive body; hopes slow/non-alarming works; focuses on her arousal 20 minutes to orgasm; disconnects from own body; fantasies about secretary to climax; checks her emotional state; sleeps empty and resentful.
Breaking Free Activity #36. How's your love life? Ready for good sex? Read on.
Getting good sex (four moves)
- Come out of the closet
- Take matters into own hands
- Say "no" to bad sex
- Follow the bull moose
Come out of the closet
Cannot skip. Books/videos on technique fail while shame/fear stay. Requires accepting non-judgmental people; expose every aspect of sexual self; release energy spent hiding; receive messages: not bad for being sexual.
Pop Quiz (denial check). If anything but A on any item → sexual shame and fear:
- First sexual experience: (A) joyous, shareable with family/friends; (B) hidden, rushed, guilt-ridden, less than ideal; (C) painful, abusive, frightening.
- Masturbation: (A) open comfortable talk with partner; (B) crisis if "caught"; (C) compulsive or secret.
- Sexual experiences/thoughts/impulses: (A) comfortable revealing everything to partner; (B) never-shared secrets; (C) aspect caused intimate crisis; (D) tried to eliminate/limit problematic sexual behavior.
Lyle path: wife found phone bill → tip of iceberg; denial then gradual tell-all; individual therapy → 12-step for sexual addicts (terrified then relieved); secrets shared → less interest in hidden compulsion; more open intimacy and physical closeness with wife.
Group practice: talk explicitly; act-out ways; sexual history; bring arousing porn samples (release shame + info); feel shame/guilt/fear/arousal while getting supportive OK messages against cultural negative conditioning.
Breaking Free Activity #37. Safe place to talk: (1) sexual history (earliest memory, childhood, violation/trauma, family sexual issues, first experience, adult history); (2) acting out (affairs, prostitution, peep shows, 900 numbers, porn, exhibitionism, fetishes, etc.); (3) dark side (hard-to-look-at fantasies, rage, offending behavior).
Take matters into own hands
"No one was put into this world to meet your needs but you." Change smallest components of the sex pattern, not "try to have more sex." Before exciting sex with others: same with self via healthy masturbation.
Logic chain:
- Sexual with self without shame → with another without shame
- Comfortable giving self pleasure → can receive from someone
- Own arousal/pleasure alone → own it with someone
- Sexual with self without porn/fantasy distraction → same with partner
Healthy masturbation: let sexual energy unfold; no goal/destination; not just orgasms; no porn outside stimulation; no trance/fantasy to dodge shame/fear; pay attention to what feels good; sole responsibility for pleasure/expression. Initially uncomfortable (oxymoron feel; partner/religion reinforce shame; compulsive fear of Pandora's box). Without fantasy/porn, behavior cannot become compulsive; sharing with non-judgmental men shrinks shame fast.
Note on pornography (not legal/moral opposition; practical harms): unrealistic expectations; addicts to bodies/parts; substitutes for real sex; trance distracting from shame/fear; compounds shame via secrecy. If using porn: do it openly (breaks trance, kills buzz).
Note on fantasy: dissociation (mind leaves body). Some therapists advocate; Glover: best way to kill a sex life. Like thinking about a Big Mac during a gourmet meal. Distracts from shame/fear or covers bad sex.
Benefits of healthy masturbation: remove shame/fear; charge of own needs; less dependency on unavailable partners/porn; please self first; permission for as much good sex as wanted; charge of own pleasure.
Terrance application: first non-sexual self-priority (more attractive, not less); then healthy masturbation undisturbed, no climax goal, no fantasy/porn; observe distractions. First try: "not much of anything"; weekly practice → enjoy + shame fear fiancée mad. Couples session: focus off her multi-orgasms onto himself; she relieved (felt burden; had been faking). Talk during sex about likes/dislikes; he shared masturbation learnings; she interested in reciprocal pleasure. Married as planned; discarded old pattern for intimate connecting sex.
Breaking Free Activity #38. Set aside undisturbed time; look/touch without porn/fantasy; no orgasm agenda; observe distractions (fantasy, goal-orientation, thoughts, loss of sensation) as shame/fear info.
Say "no" to bad sex
Bottom feeders: porn scraps, faceless 900/chat, persuading unavailable people, quick compulsive masturbation, passionless mechanical lovemaking, trances/fantasy. "You have to be willing to let go of what you've got to get what you want." Good sex only after stop settling.
Good sex defined: two people fully responsible for own needs; no goal; free of agendas/expectations; not performance but unfolding energy; reveal in most intimate/vulnerable way; each focuses on own pleasure/passion/arousal while staying connected to same in partner; unpredictable, spontaneous, memorable.
Decisions: drop "great lover"; clear and direct; choose available partners; no scraps; bad sex is not better than no sex.
Aaron six-month sexual moratorium: stop pursuing Hannah; reclaim hobbies given up; tell her feelings (including anger); no need to protect availability. Goal: reclaim his key, stop victimhood (not "get her to want more"). She initially angry then more loving in months. He: guy friends, honesty, not always listening to her problems. She made advances: freer when not pursued; liked sexual energy without mandatory intercourse. After six months: less resentful, closer; needs/feelings direct not via sex; when sex resumed, more connected.
Breaking Free Activity #39. Consider sexual moratorium (predetermined period). Benefits: break dysfunction cycles; end pursue/distance; release resentment; live without sex; own the key; see settling; end fear of withhold; ask "Why am I feeling sexual?" on impulse; break addictive patterns; address avoided feelings. Discuss with partner; set specific time (3-6 months suggested); define parameters; watch slips/sabotage from both; learning experience, not perfection.
Follow the bull moose
Alpha/bull moose: not figuring what girls like; fierce, strong, competitive, sexually proud; mates attracted. Greatest aphrodisiac: self-confidence. Self-respect, courage, integrity look good. Client: 14 months without sex with wife; told her first time in 15 years he was too tired to listen to work complaints; initially angry; later that night she asked to make love.
A force of nature
Sex is powerful, chaotic, wild; cosmic energy; moth to flame. Release shame/fear + own pleasure + refuse bad sex + be who you are → embrace without reservation. That is when sex gets good.
Chapter Eight recovery stack for satisfying sex.
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Get The Life You Want: Discover Your Passion And Purpose In Life, Work, And Career
Tragedy of the Syndrome: talented men wallowing in mediocrity. Relationship problems often mask equal dissatisfaction with job/career/direction; same dynamics that freeze love freeze vocation.
Why Nice Guys fall short (seven blockers)
- Fear (core of every Nice Guy problem; thoughts and interactions ruled by it): demand promised raise; return to school; quit despised job; start dream business; live/do what they want. Afraid of mistake, wrong, failure, losing it all; paradoxical fear of success: found out as fraud; cannot live up to expectations; criticized; cannot handle increased expectations; lose control; mess everything up. Settle for a fraction of potential.
- Trying to do it right. Life = evolution/change; requires letting go of control for creative chaos. Obsession with smooth/uneventful via "rules" lids creative energy and passion. Costs: creativity/productivity; perfection focus on imperfections; external validation → mediocrity; hide flaws → no risks; rules → rigid/cautious/fearful. Result: bored, dissatisfied vocation.
- Do everything themselves. Childhood: needs unmet → needs bad/dangerous → "up to me." Terrible receivers; terrified to ask help; miserable when given to; poor at delegating. Jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none; cannot succeed alone yet believe they should.
- Self-sabotage (fear of success): waste time; excuses; unfinished projects; caretaking others; too many projects at once; chaotic relationships; procrastination; no boundaries. Look just good enough; real greatness invites scrutiny of "cracks."
- Distorted self-image. Needs unimportant → self unimportant (toxic shame core). Double dose if tasked to please critical / fix depressed / meet smothering parent and failed → deep inadequacy. Compensate by doing everything right, or give up before trying. Invisible glass ceiling: bump head rising, tumble to familiar territory. Others see talent; childhood lenses do not.
- Deprivation thinking. Childhood scarcity lenses → hang on, few chances, resent those who have more, think small, settle for scraps, rationalize why desire never arrives; self-fulfilling.
- Stuck in familiar dysfunctional systems. Same as love: recreate childhood roles/rules at work; feel victim; rarely see why they need the system or that they can leave. Bad enders at jobs too.
Realizing passion and potential
Group goal joke: leave a millionaire (not mainly money: passion and potential). Self-acceptance → embrace passions, face fears → abundance flows (money, love, sex, fame, or all).
Face fears (Charlie)
Charlie: engineering degree, still at pre-college job; promised promotion never came; stifled resentment. Passion: flying; mother disaster warnings; could not finish license requirements. Website mortified him; six months to first email, two more to second; knew he needed men's group, terrified. Decision: if something frightens that much, face it and do it.
~18 months credo: confront fear; crawl then walk; baby steps then run:
- Active in group: reveal, confront peers
- Look at neglect and fear-based family messages
- Father to counseling; confront unavailability/lack of concern
- Stop blaming girlfriend for flying-lesson money
- Change flying schools for needed instruction/equipment
- Interview for engineering-degree jobs
- Confront inadequacy, play-it-safe messages, qualification beliefs
- Confront girlfriend on household participation (initially terrified of her)
- Solo flight + pilot's license
- Birthday dinner with group: face center-of-attention fear
- Job with firm that saw him as capable/talented
Metamorphosis: introverted/frightened/passive → evolving man with passion and purpose.
Charlie's formula (email): (1) stop being a victim first; (2) set boundaries (small then grow); (3) boundaries respected → believe in self; (4) honesty along the way; (5) believe adult + educated + qualified as Industrial Engineer; (6) previous employer dysfunctional and comfortable for a reason; accept no longer need that system to survive → move on.
Breaking Free Activity #40. Pick one; name tangible fear; write how to confront; small step; ask someone to support (not alone); remember: no matter what happens, you will handle it.
- Ask for raise or promotion
- Quit unsatisfying job
- Start own business
- Go back to school
- Confront a conflict
- Promote an idea or creation
- Pursue lifelong goal
- Spend more time on hobby/interest
Chart own path
Most people accept where they are. Visualize: do what you love and get paid; often dismissed as fairy tale / "lucky like you." Glover: Ph.D., practice, therapy skills, book/website/publishing = decision, persistence, fear-facing, sacrifice, second job, poverty stretch, trial and error, personal therapy investment. Not luck. Ordinary guy, ordinary talents, same fears. Difference: conscious decide to face fears; not settle for mediocrity; make own rules. Affirmation: What one man can do, another man can do. Only thing stopping you is you.
Breaking Free Activity #41. What really want? What prevents? Three things to make happen; personal affirmation posted where visible; share dreams + affirmation with safe person.
Let go of do-it-right
Book began as notes for first group; effortless until "bestseller / Oprah / get rich" entered → had to be perfect → six years, three+ major revisions; kids predicted never finish; wife half-seriously threatened to leave. Breakthrough: permission to never publish → relief; return to original aim (help a few clients); one question: "Will this help my clients?" Clients cannot benefit from unfinished book. After good-enough: finished; clients changed; therapists requested copies; media; agent; publishers pursued. Perfection sucked life out; good enough freed passion and lasting value.
Breaking Free Activity #42. How does perfectionism block passion/potential? Pick one wanted endeavor (book, hobby→business, move, school, talent). If you knew ahead it would succeed: hesitate? free from perfect? motivate start/finish? what risks if no way to fail? Let go of perfect and just do it.
Ask for help
Phil: goal = rich; good-looking, intelligent, outgoing, funny; short of dreams via shortcuts, procrastination, deserve-doubt. Core: does not deserve; needs unimportant to others; surest way not to get needs met is ask clear/direct. Group: lament no sex; never asked wife; did not believe she wanted to. Suggested: change sexual-need beliefs as entry to bigger need beliefs. Next week grinning: "I asked." She fine; liked sex with him; he had not asked so she assumed disinterest. Later: dreaded asking father-in-law for window money; group offered help; hard to ask; barn-raising month later. New paradigm → landscaping business plan (seasonal → teach snowboarding winters, lifelong dream); family friend start help; old friend financial backer; wife look for insured job; group: business plan + bookkeeping. Alone = struggle; asking = turnaround.
Breaking Free Activity #43. Believe needs important? Others want to help? List current helpers (friends, family, doctors, lawyers, therapists, CPAs). Then: what helpers still need? how use more effectively? how prevent them helping? Seek chances to ask; build networks; before asking affirm: This person wants to help me get my needs met.
Identify self-sabotage
Sal: passive father, schizophrenic mother; cared for younger brother; hunker and trudge. Ran uncle's body shop: cheap, shortsighted uncle; limited resources, dissatisfied employees; assumed impossible feat doable. Weekly Tylenol for stress headache. Group options felt like root canal / Gestapo: talk to uncle (doesn't care); profit sharing (too cheap); assistant (tried, failed); leave management for painting (toxic); leave auto body (mortgage/wife/kids, start over?); passion = teach martial arts (evenings/weekends; wife/kids wouldn't go). "Reamed by the group." Not victim to others: self-victimizes. Familiar/comfortable to stay in no-win. Recovery requires conscious decision to stop sabotaging / get out of own way. Mortgage, wife, no degree, debt, kids = often excuses; change = small steps, not chuck everything (e.g. teach martial arts one evening/week; pay down debt; cut trivial time).
Breaking Free Activity #44. Identify sabotage patterns; what do differently. Review and pick specific behaviors:
- Focus
- Do it now
- Accept "good enough" rather than "perfect"
- Finish what you start
- Don't start new projects until old ones completely finished
- Don't make excuses
- Detach from other people's problems
Share strategy with safe person; check in regularly (skipping this = sabotage).
Accurate (abundance) world view
Envy/resent others' money/job/car/partner; wonder when your turn. Deprivation: limited pie; hang tight; control/manipulate; play safe. Russell: six-figure salesman; 40% savings; $30k minimum checking; would not let wife buy $9 Costco video if not in budget. Father miserly/rigid; favored brothers; cut Russell from will, gave share to church. Abundance: plenty for everyone; goodies flowing; get out of small thinking. Material wealth visible; what one man can do... If one can make a million / start dream business / drive Mercedes / quit crummy job / teach snowboarding, why not you? World cannot give what you are not ready to receive; tight grip blocks receptivity. Ask + expect → comes one way or another (Phil).
Breaking Free Activity #45. Set book down; deep breaths; clear mind; visualize abundant world, no restraints; good things flowing; desired car/home/friends/love/joy/wealth/success/peace/challenge; surround yourself. Repeat several times/day until feels real; open arms/heart/mind; get out of the way.
Thirty rules that work
Nice Guys believe hidden rules govern life; obey → smooth; fail → dire consequences. Passion/purpose: figure what works; mature people make own rules; only standard: Do they work? Group-discovered rules:
Breaking Free Activity #46. Try some on; add personal rules; note cards where seen daily.
- If it frightens you, do it.
- Don't settle. Every time you settle, you get exactly what you settled for.
- Put yourself first.
- No matter what happens, you will handle it.
- Whatever you do, do it 100%.
- You are the only person on this planet responsible for your needs, wants, and happiness.
- Ask for what you want.
- If what you are doing isn't working, try something different.
- Be clear and direct.
- Learn to say "no."
- Don't make excuses.
- If you are an adult, you are old enough to make your own rules.
- Let people help you.
- Be honest with yourself.
- Do not let anyone treat you badly. No one. Ever.
- Remove yourself from a bad situation instead of waiting for the situation to change.
- Don't tolerate the intolerable, ever.
- Stop blaming. Victims never succeed.
- Live with integrity. Decide what feels right to you, then do it.
- Accept the consequences of your actions.
- Be good to yourself.
- Think "abundance."
- Face difficult situations and conflict head on.
- Don't do anything in secret.
- Do it now.
- Be willing to let go of what you have so you can get what you want.
- Have fun. If you are not having fun, something is wrong.
- Give yourself room to fail. There are no mistakes, only learning experiences.
- Control is an illusion. Let go; let life happen.
Time to get what you want. Breaking free discovers passion and potential. Responsibility for the life you want → become what you were meant to be.
Chapter Nine: from mediocrity blockers to passion stack.
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Epilogue
Six years writing; countless Nice Guys and partners; averaged three No More Mr. Nice Guy! men's groups per week → over 1,800 hours group time alone. Observed: men from helpless/passive/controlling/resentful victims to empowered integrated males; numerous relationships dramatically improve; just as many die overdue deaths; unsolicited testimonials and gratitude letters; worldwide website recognition of self or loved one in the Nice Guy description.
Greatest discovery: the tools and insights work.
Reader charge: start again at the beginning; do Breaking Free exercises; find safe person or group for recovery; if partnered, ask them to read; share discoveries. Working the program is one of the greatest gifts to self and loved ones. Approve of self → unimaginable ability to love and accept love and live life to its fullest; expansiveness initially frightening; essence of who you are and are meant to be. Discovery of true self → unlimited freedom: be just who you are; stop seeking approval; start getting what you want.
Resources (era of publication)
Dr. Glover resources at www.NoMoreMrNiceGuy.com (availability may have changed since 2000/2001 edition): printed materials and audio; free online support groups; therapy groups for men; long-distance counseling by phone and email; seminars/workshops/classes; calendar of events; Q&A column.
About the author (source bio)
Dr. Robert Glover: leading voice on the Nice Guy Syndrome (from his own search for answers); thousands of hours with hundreds of Nice Guys and partners; individual/couples therapy; No More Mr. Nice Guy! groups; seminars on Breaking Free From The Nice Guy Syndrome; radio guest; featured in publications including Esquire. Certified Marriage and Family Therapist; doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy; married to Elizabeth Oreskovich (psychotherapist); co-direct Center For Healing And Recovery; four children; Tacoma, Washington (as of source edition).
Source edition note: Copyright © 2000 Robert A. Glover; Barnes & Noble Digital 2001, ISBN 1-4014-0001-9. People described are real; names/circumstances changed for confidentiality.
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Shame to Freedom
Portable stack
| Layer | Gist | Chapter anchors |
|---|---|---|
| Shame map | Syndrome traits; opposite of what works; covert contracts | Intro-Ch2 |
| Self first | Approve of self; prioritize needs; receive; ask clear | Ch3-4 |
| Power + masculinity | Boundaries; integrity; male friends; strength; father work | Ch5-6 |
| Love + sex | Enmesher/avoider; Second Date / Healthy Male rules; closet + healthy masturbation + moratorium | Ch7-8 |
| Life | Face fear; good enough; ask help; stop sabotage; 30 rules | Ch9 + Epilogue |
Carry the stack with a safe person; synthesis is a checklist, not a substitute for the activities.
Recovery operating loop
- Name one Nice Guy pattern (covert contract, caretaking, avoid conflict).
- Approve of yourself in one concrete choice this week.
- Make one clear ask; receive without deflecting.
- Set one boundary (Second Date Rule / Healthy Male Rule).
- Contact one man; schedule body care; one father-spectrum note.
- If intimacy stuck: stop reinforcing; focus on the co-created system.
- If sex stuck: reveal to safe people; practice healthy self-sex; consider moratorium.
- If life stuck: face one fear; ship good enough; ask for help; pick five of the thirty rules.
About this book
No More Mr. Nice Guy!: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life by Robert A. Glover, 2003. This is a chapter-by-chapter study of the book, with summaries, maps, tables and diagrams; short quotations keep their page references. It is shared free for personal study, is not for sale, and is not endorsed by the author or publisher. Please read and buy the original.
Insight Editions · rajeshrmahapatra.com/insight-editions