No More Mr. Nice Guy! (17 page)

2) Your present relationship will be sent to a long overdue grave.

Learning To Approve Of Themselves Helps Nice Guys Get The Love They Want
The essence of recovery from the Nice Guy Syndrome is the conscious decision to live one's life just as one desires. I frequently encourage recovering Nice Guys to be
just who they are, without reservation
. I support them in deciding what is right for them and being that with all of their energy for the whole world to see. The people who like them just as they are will hang around. The people who don't, won't.

This is the only way to have a healthy relationship. No one really wants to believe that they have to be false or hide who they really are to get someone to love them or stay with them. Yet, this is a common dynamic in the intimate relationships Nice Guys create.

George is a good example of what can happen when a recovering Nice Guy decides to start pleasing himself and stop pleasing his partner. Throughout his relationship with his wife Susan, George's primary goal was to make her happy. Over a period of five years George gave up hunting and fishing (two of his passions), quit hanging out with his friends, turned the control of his finances over to Susan, and supported her in quitting her job because she was unhappy at work. These changes occurred gradually.

All were an attempt on George's part to please Susan.

Nevertheless, Susan was rarely happy. By the time George joined a No More Mr. Nice Guy! group, he felt helpless and resentful and was ready to leave his wife. George saw Susan as the cause of the frustration he was feeling. George spent the first few weeks in our group complaining about his wife.

Eventually, the group members began to confront George on his victim role and challenged him to do something different instead of blaming Susan.

It took a few more months, but George began to change. The most significant change was a conscious decision to quit trying to make Susan happy. He realized that his attempts to please her weren't working and were causing him to feel resentful.

George began by setting aside one weekend a month to go hunting or fishing. When Susan tried several different methods to manipulate him or guilt him out of his decision, he held fast. Next, instead of handing his paycheck over to Susan to control, he began giving himself an allowance to spend how he wanted. This too drew resistance from his wife. Perhaps the most frightening step was when George set up a budget and told Susan that if she wanted more control over the income, she would have to go back to working full time.

Ironically, two things began to happen. George felt less like a victim and actually started having more positive feelings toward Susan. Second, Susan began taking charge of her own life and became less dependent on George. After about a year in group, George shared how much more content he was and how much his marriage had improved. He gave credit to the group members who supported him in finding the courage to start pleasing himself and stop trying to make Susan happy.

Breaking Free Activity #33

List some of the ways you try to please your partner. What changes would you make if you did not
have to worry about making her happy?

Setting Boundaries Helps Nice Guys Get The Love They Want

The subject of boundaries was presented in Chapter Five. Nowhere is the issue of boundary setting more important for Nice Guys than in their most intimate relationships. By setting healthy boundaries with their partners, Nice Guys create situations in which both they and their partner can feel safe to be vulnerable and experience true intimacy.

I show Nice Guys, often with their partners watching, how to step up to their line and set boundaries. On more than one occasion, I have had the partner of a Nice Guy applaud during the demonstration. The Nice Guy will turn, slack-jawed, and say, "You mean you want me to stand up to you, dear?"

"Of course I do," she will respond, "I don't want to be married to someone I can walk all over."

Then I warn him. "Your wife is telling you the truth. She doesn't feel safe knowing she can push you around. She wants to know that you will stand up to her. That is how she will feel secure in the relationship. But, here's the catch. She has to test to see if she can trust you. The first time you set a boundary with her she may react intensely. She will push against it. She will tell you that you are wrong for setting that boundary. She will do her best to find out if your boundary is for real."

When a recovering Nice Guy sets boundaries with his partner, it makes her feel secure. In general, when women feel secure, they feel loved. She will also come to know that if her partner will stand up to her, he is also likely to stand up for her. Setting boundaries also creates respect. When a Nice Guy fails to set boundaries it communicates to his partner that he doesn't really honor himself, so why should she?

To help Nice Guys decide if they need to set a boundary with a particular behavior, I have them apply the
Second Date Rule.
Using the second date rule, Nice Guys ask themselves, "If this behavior had occurred on the second date, would there have been a third?" This question helps them see if they have been putting up with something that they shouldn't.

When trying to decide how to deal with a behavior they have deemed unacceptable, I encourage Nice Guys to apply the
Healthy Male Rule.
Following this rule of thumb, they simply ask themselves, "How would a healthy male handle this situation?" For some reason, just asking this question connects them with their intuitive wisdom and helps them access the power they need to respond appropriately.

Once the Nice Guy knows he can set a boundary any time he needs to, he can let people move toward him, get close, have feelings, be sexual, and so on. He can let these things happen because he is confident that at any point, if he begins to feel uncomfortable, he can say "stop," "no," or "slow down,"

or can remove himself. He can do whatever he needs to do to take care of himself.

Breaking Free Activity #34

Are there any areas in your personal relationships in which you avoid setting appropriate
boundaries? Do you:

●
Tolerate intolerable behavior.

●
Avoid dealing with a situation because it might cause conflict.

●
Not ask for what you want.

●
Sacrifice yourself to keep the peace.

If you applied the Second Date rule or the Healthy Male rule to these situations, how might you
change your behavior?

Additional Strategies For Happy, Healthy Relationships

In addition to the program of recovery presented in previous chapters of
No More Mr. Nice Guy!,
there are a few additional strategies that will help Nice Guys get the love they want. These include:

● Focusing on their relationship, not their partner.

● Not reinforcing undesirable behaviors.

● Doing something different.

Focusing On Their Relationship, Not Their Partner Helps Nice Guys Get The Love They
Want

Wounded people are attracted to wounded people. When Nice Guys enter a relationship, they frequently choose partners who look more dysfunctional than they do. This creates a dangerous illusion that one of them is sicker than the other. This is a distortion, because healthy people are not attracted to unhealthy people — and vice versa. I frequently tell couples that if you have one obviously wounded person in a relationship, you always have two. No exception.

When my wife Elizabeth and I first got together, we created a system in which she was identified as the broken one while I was designated the healthy one. These scripts worked well for both of us until she started going to counseling. One day, she came home from a therapy session and announced that she had discovered that I was just as messed up as she was. Because I couldn't entertain the idea that I was

"messed up," I responded, "No, you are really finding out that you are just as healthy as I am."

The relationship system we had created together allowed both of us to play familiar, yet dysfunctional roles. Unfortunately, it also prevented any kind of real intimacy until Elizabeth began to challenge the status quo. I've listened to countless Nice Guys who have formed relationships like the one Elizabeth and I initially created. These men have the belief that they are victims to their "sick" partner's dysfunction. This illusion keeps everyone involved stuck in repetitive, ineffective patterns.

By focusing on their relationship instead of their partner, recovering Nice Guys are able to use their partner to get in touch with their childhood experiences of abandonment, neglect, abuse, and smothering.

They can use this information to better understand why they have created the kind of relationship system they have. This process enables them to make changes that allow them to get what they want in their intimate relationships.

Instead of saying "if she would just. . .", the recovering Nice Guy has to ask,

"Why did I need to co-create this relationship?"

"How does this relationship let me play familiar roles?"

"How does this relationship let me meet unconscious needs?"

"Why did I invite this person into my life?"

When the recovering Nice Guy begins asking these kinds of questions, he can begin to see his significant other as a partner in healing. This not only shifts how he views his partner, but also allows him to address childhood issues that prevent him from having a truly intimate relationship.

In the beginning of this chapter, we met Karl — whose wife Danita seemed as hard to please as his cold, critical mother. Karl never knew when his mom might get angry, criticize, or shame him. In adulthood, Karl co-created a similar dynamic with Danita. When she got angry, Karl would use all of his childhood survival mechanisms, like avoidance and withdrawal, to try to cope. Karl would accuse Danita of "being angry all the time" and would walk on eggshells to avoid upsetting her. Karl would tell himself, "I don't deserve this." He would then retreat and create escape scenarios in his head.

The relationship began to shift when Karl came to see Danita as a "gift" whom he invited into his life to help him clean out his old issues around his fear of angry and critical people. As Karl made this shift several things began to happen. He began to have grief for what he went through as a child. He began standing up to Danita rather than avoiding and withdrawing. As he came to see Danita's anger as a result of her own childhood wounding, Danita began to look less and less angry to him. As his view of his wife began to shift, Karl began to feel more loving toward Danita and their relationship began to show marked improvement.

Breaking Free Activity #35

The next time you find yourself feeling frustrated, resentful, or rageful at your partner, ask
yourself these questions:

"Why have I invited this person into my life?"

"What do I need to learn from this situation?"

"How would my view of this situation change if I saw it as a
gift?
"

Not Reinforcing Undesirable Behaviors Helps Nice Guys Get The Love They Want
A couple of years ago we bought a Weimaraner puppy. We decided that if we were going to have a big dog in the house, we should take him to obedience school. One of the first lessons we learned was that we were the ones who needed obedience training. Most dogs that behave badly, we found out, have been conditioned to do so by ignorant or inconsistent owners.

In many ways, humans aren't much different from pets. People often behave the way they have been trained to behave. For example, if a person gives his dog a treat when he pisses on the carpet, the dog will keep pissing on the carpet. The same is true for humans. If the Nice Guy reinforces his partner's undesirable behaviors, she will keep behaving in undesirable ways.

Here is the irony for Nice Guys: Nice Guys like the idea of a smooth and problem-free relationship.

Typically, if their partner is unhappy, depressed, angry, or having a problem, they will jump right in and try and fix it or make it better. They believe that by doing so, they will make the problem go away and everything will quickly get back to normal. Unfortunately, this is like giving a dog a treat for pissing on the carpet. Every time a Nice Guy responds to or pays attention to a behavior he would like to eliminate, he is actually reinforcing that very behavior. This reinforcement increases the likelihood that that behavior will occur again. For example, Joe's wife frequently came home from work in a silent rage over some problem she experienced with a co-worker. It bothered Joe when his wife was in this mood. In an attempt to relieve his anxiety, he would ask his wife what was wrong. After a little coaxing, she would spend the next couple of hours venting to Joe about how mistreated she was at work. Joe would listen and offer helpful suggestions, hoping that by doing so, she would get over her mood.

In his attempt for short-term anxiety relief, Joe had actually helped create a long-term problem. Every time he asked his wife what was wrong, listened for hours, and offered advice, he was actually reinforcing a behavior pattern he found undesirable.

In dog obedience school we learned that if you want an undesirable behavior to go away,
you stop
paying attention to it.
The same is true in relationships.

Like many Nice Guys, Joe felt like a victim to his wife's behavior. He was oblivious to the fact that he was responsible for perpetuating a behavior he found undesirable. When the men in his No More Mr.

Nice Guy! group pointed this fact out to him, he decided to try something different.

The next time his wife came home in a silent, withdrawn mood, he didn't say anything. He ate dinner in silence and then went out to the garage. Even though he felt intense anxiety, he resisted his impulses to try to "fix" his wife. As he lay awake in bed that night, the deafening silence kept him awake for hours.

The next morning, the silence continued. Joe was afraid this behavior might go on forever. In an attempt to relieve his anxiety, he tried making a little small talk. His wife responded with one-word answers and left for work.