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The Nice Guy Syndrome has become the norm for so many men. Dr. Robert Glover, author of the book “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” comes on today's show to tell us how to unlearn this passive-aggressive persona, overcome sexual shame, and enjoy healthier relationships.

Dr. Robert Glover shares his own history of living as a Nice Guy and the breaking points that told him enough is enough. He has spent over 30 years helping men and women get the love, sex, and life they want. His groundbreaking books, classes, podcasts, and seminars have helped form the foundation for a growing world-wide men’s movement.

In this Episode 

• 02:42 Dr. Higgins revisits the Empowered Relationship Podcast intention to achieve long-lasting intimacy. 
• 07:00 Introduction to Dr. Robert Glover and the “Nice Guy Syndrome.” 
• 10:20 Unpacking “Covert Contracts” and the paradigm of the Nice Guy 
• 14:49 The Nice Guy Syndrome: Anxiety, shame, passive-aggressive behavior. Dr. Glover explains that this begins as an infant's precognitive response to pain that gets carried into adulthood.
• 23:23 No More Mr. Nice Guy teaches that there is a better alternative to the “default” roadmap of Nice Guys: Fear of confrontation, agreeing too much, and the inability to take a clear stand.
• 32:15 Nice Guys mindsets on expectations and attraction, including passive-aggressive behavior, are fundamentally flawed. 
• 37:09 Pushing down wants and needs leads to problems with intimacy, living fantasy worlds, and porn. Too often, Nice Guys assume that they have to conceal their interest in a girl due to their sexual shame. 
• 43:17  Tips and strategies: Dr. Glover gives practical advice so Nice Guys can take control and be honest with themselves.
• 52:41 How to contact Dr. Robert Glover

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Write down your innermost needs and wants so you can begin to unpack them. 
• Don't try to do it alone. Connect with other men. Find safe people. Men's groups can be healthy outlets of positive masculinity to be honest and true to oneself.
• Be honest. Learn to put your needs first. Fill your own bucket up and give from the overflow. 
• Sexual shame, issues with sexuality, and compulsive behaviors are core parts of the Nice Guy. Start working on them to change them. 
• Shed ideas that kill passion, but start from the most basic work like being honest, learning to make your needs priority, and learning to connect with men and being open.

Mentioned

• Dr. Robert Glover's Website
• No More Mr Nice Guy Homepage
• Dating Essentials For Men
• Get your own copy of at No More Mr. Nice Guy (*Amazon Link)

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

About Today's Show

Dr. Robert Glover, thank you for joining us today.

It's good to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

As I was telling you, I have referred many clients to your book. I've actually had clients introduce me to you years ago. You have been doing this work for a very long time, and is such a service to men who get stuck in this nice guy syndrome.

For listeners that maybe don't know you or just getting an opportunity to meet you now through this podcast, what got you interested in this topic of helping nice guys look at what's going on there for them and how to kind of transform out of that?

Well, what got me interested is that I am a recovering nice guy. If you'd met me 30 years ago, I would have told you, “I'm a nice guy. I’m one of the nicest people you'll ever want to meet.” I couldn't understand why everybody didn't have that attitude, why everybody didn't try to be good, and generous, and helpful, and peaceful, and non-confrontive, and things like that.

Where it came to a head for me, I was in my second marriage, trying to be the good husband, the good man, raising my wife's kids, trying to make her happy, trying to help her be in better moods than she was in a lot of the time.

I remember her confronting me and she says, “Everybody thinks you're such a nice guy but you're not. You can do things nice for me. I think everything's okay. And then, you can really hurt me. You can be really passive aggressive.”

Now, I already had a PhD in marriage and family therapy. I had to go look at passive aggressive. I didn't know what I was being accused of. She says, “You embarrass me in public. You put me down. You cut me. You tell me you'll do things and then you don't follow through.”

She said, “I would rather be with an asshole because at least I know an asshole is going to consistently treat me bad. I know what to expect.” And she said, “I can't take this anymore.” She said, “You need to go get help.”

I thought, well, that's interesting. You're the one that's depressed and unhappy and never wants to have sex anymore, and is critical. “Okay, I'll go get help.” I actually went to go get help to find out why me being a nice guy didn't make her appreciate me more, didn’t make her love me, and want to have more sex and be happy.

Luckily, I landed in some good places. The first place I landed was in a 12-step group for sex addicts. I quickly found out I wasn't a sex addict. I wasn't having enough sex to be a sex addict. But it was for the first time in my life I was in a place where I thought I can just be me. I can talk about anything here. I can start revealing me.

Now, I grew up in a fundamental Christian Church. I have two degrees in religion. I was a minister for eight years. I had a critical father. I grew up during the years of angry feminism in the 60s and 70s. My mother trained me to be different than my father. So, I was well-groomed to hide everything, keep everything in.

I started going to this 12-step group. I could just tell anything and everything about me. It’s like, “Wow, this is really cool. This is fun. This is liberating.” And you know, nobody has negative reaction. It's, “Thank you for sharing, Robert.” So, that was a good start.

I started seeing a therapist as well, a female therapist. The very first session I had with her, she got out a piece of string and put it on the ground and did a physical demonstration of what boundaries look like.

Now, again, I was in my mid-30s and in my second marriage with a PhD in marriage and family therapy. I've never heard of boundaries. I had no idea what boundaries were. I don't know if she could read that in me or she just did that with every first session with new clients.

 But through that, and later joining a men's group and being in there for several years, I started to really just see this paradigm that I had, this roadmap that I thought if I'm good and nice and treat everybody well, everybody will be nice and good and treat me well.

I quickly realize that it was a very faulty paradigm. It was based on something I talked about in the books and you and I can dive more into called covert contracts. It’s the things that I unconsciously do for everybody else in the hopes that they will do in return for me.

 Now, they're fundamentally manipulative. There are strings attached, which are not so nice. But then how this really then kind of blossomed was, I had a private practice as a marriage therapist. As I was discovering these things about me and my covert contracts, my lack of boundaries, my difficulty asking for what I wanted, my difficulty resolving conflict to saying what's on my mind, having feelings, all that kind of stuff, these men were coming to me with their wives or girlfriends for therapy and they were saying the same things I'd said. I'm a good guy. I'm a great guy. I treat her better than her ex. I'm raising her kids. I do everything to make her happy. I give her everything she wants. It’s never good enough. She's never happy. She never wants to have sex anymore. And I got mad, I finish her sentences.

And then there are single guys that go, “Women all say they want a nice guy. I treat women well and I listen to them talk about their problems. I do nice things for them. They never want to be my girlfriend.” They say, “Oh, some lucky woman is going to be so lucky to have you someday.” But I'm going, “Why don't you want to have me?”

 So, I started realizing I wasn't the only person on the planet thinking, oh, if I'm just nice, everything will work out. I'll be liked. I'll be loved. I'll get my needs met. All the smooth life. I started, over 25 years ago, every other week, no more Mr. Nice Guy men's group. We met every other Wednesday. And every Wednesday, I just started writing. Just writing about what I was discovering about me, what caused nice guy syndrome, what the paradigm was, how to break free from it, what was dysfunctional about it, how we could do things more healthy. I just kept giving these guys these chapters. They and their wives and girlfriends said, “Robert, you need to write a book. There's lots of people out there that need it. You need to go on Oprah.”

And so, I kept writing over a period of about seven years. I never went on Oprah. And then eventually turned it into the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy, that came out in print 2003 or right about now 2003. It's still out there selling well. Royalty checks get bigger every year. I guess more people like you keep referring people to it. So yeah, it's affected a lot of people, men and women both, in terms of people getting what they want in life and having better relationships.

 I primarily now just work with men. You and I were talking before we recorded. I live in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. I did private practice for about 25 years. Now I do everything online. Workshops, seminars, online classes, and consultation. Almost completely with men. I love working with men. I feel like I can make a big difference working with men.

Yes. As I listen to you describe, it seems like such a breakthrough to talk about this paradigm shift and feeling as though you're doing all the right things or helping men that are seemingly doing all the right things and really bumping up against not getting the results that they're looking for or expecting for that matter. And to really help men transform some of these covert contracts and the unconscious expectations and all of the different things that you're describing. It's really profound because I love the context of which you also reference around how this gets developed.

How does one develop a nice guy syndrome? I think there is so much around not wanting the toxic masculinity or having so many female role models or not having a really positive masculine role model in different ways that were developing in life. It's really important. I have a very big support for men's development. I think it's critical. When we talk about relationships or family or parenting, just to have the healthy masculine is critical.

Well, you've really touched on a number of pieces. As I said, when I started working with nice guys and realizing, “Okay, I'm not the only one. There's more than just me.” I at first thought, “Well, maybe they all had the exact same childhood experiences I did.” I kind of started there. Kind of the fundamental religion, an angry moody father, my mother raising me to be different, listening to women complain about all the bad men out there. And I just thought, “Well, maybe they're all like that.”

I quickly realized there's lots of factors that go into it. A commonality does seem to be men being disconnected from their fathers. Nowadays, I hear more of something that I didn't hear 25 years ago. I typically heard about unavailable fathers. They work too much. Or fathers that were never there that were divorced or never saw their kids. Or alcoholic, or angry, or philandering fathers. Now I hear a lot more about nice guy fathers.

There's a pattern of men tending to be disconnected from the man beginning with their father. And often a pattern of men having to manage a relationship with their mother in some way. Now, this can take different forms. It can take the form of a critical perfectionistic or controlling mother. The little boy trying never doing anything wrong. It could take the role of a dependent or needy mother and the boy trying to be a surrogate partner. I can take different roles, but usually there's a disconnect from dad and some sort of unhealthy role the boy has to take with his mother. And again, that's not necessarily universal, but it is pretty common.

I want to go back even just a little bit further in development. This applies to really every person walking in the planet, not just “nice guys or nice girls”. There are countless nice women out there that have the same basic paradigm of the nice guy, the covert contracts. If I'm good, I'll be liked and loved. If I meet other people's needs, they'll meet my needs. If I do everything right, I'll have this smooth problem-free life. There's lots of nice girls out there as well. A lot of this applies to women as well.

But if we go back even further than maybe these dynamics we're talking about, every little child, every baby comes into the world completely helpless, completely dependent. I remember in child development courses in grad school, first thing we're taught is that for a child, their biggest fear is abandonment, because abandonment means death. And so, children are hypersensitive to everything that happens to them, and they have no control over anything. So, anything that is uncomfortable for them, you know, they're hungry, and they don't get fed, you know, parents are angry or fighting, you know, they're sick and they can't sleep or they need to be held, and they're not. All of those things really affect children very powerfully.

Now, another piece that all children have, part of this is again, childhood development 101, is that children are fundamentally narcissistic. They are the center of the universe. Now, this is probably important for them getting their needs met. But another way that it plays out is they also believe that they are the cause of everything that happens to them for good or for bad. They think, “Well, if good things happen, I caused that. If bad things happen, I caused that.” which then leads to what was called an internalization toxic shame. There's something wrong with me, I'm bad. I'm unlovable. I'm defective.

Now, part of this narcissistic grandiose belief is if I'm so powerful, that I can make mom sad, that I can make dad angry or make dad go away. If I'm that powerful, I'm also powerful enough to fix all that. So, this you can start seeing almost a narcissistic grandiosity that gets carried into adulthood. I'm really bad, but I can be really good. So, the nice guy is trying to be really good.

Now, every child when they have these painful, uncomfortable experiences in childhood, they do two things to try to manage the discomfort. One is trying to manage the discomfort right now to not feel bad. They stick their thumb in their mouth or they cry or they reach out or they go to sleep. They do something to not feel bad.

The second thing that children do is they try to develop some sort of persona to prevent these bad things from happening again in the future. Now, this is all going on in a pre-cognitive, emotional brain of an infant. They can't think this stuff out. It's almost animal in how they're trying to figure it out. So, what happens is we all develop these survival defense mechanisms. Everybody does. I’m trying to manage the discomfort I'm in right now and trying to prevent it in the future.

Now, we then grow up, we might be a nice guy or a nice girl. We might become appositionally defiant. We might turn to drugs or alcohol. We might turn to sex. We might become perfectionistic. We might become controlling. There are many different manifestations of the same dynamic. And a lot of this is really based on inherited temperament.

I think a lot of nice guys I work with are just kind of naturally easy going, you know, don't like to fight kind of guys. My mother frequently makes a point. Whenever I get into a new relationship with a woman, my mother at some point would let the woman know, “Bobby never did like conflict.” I think that's her way of saying, “Don't be mean to my boy.” I'd say, “Who does like conflict?” I don't but apparently some people do. I tend to attract them actually. That's partly my temperament, partly my coping mechanism.

We've all got our temperament that we're born with. We've all got these coping mechanisms that turn into a roadmap that we carry from infancy and childhood into adolescence, where then that's when they really kind of get on steroids. And then they tend to get locked into our personality traits in late teens, early adulthood, and we carry that forward into life, not realizing our roadmap for life is a paradigm we developed when we were three weeks old, three months old, three years old. We think it all makes sense. This is true for nice guys but it's true for everybody else out there doing whatever it is they're doing. It sounds weird but hopefully for most of us, something breaks sometime in life. That paradigm doesn't work. We realize, you know, I can't keep drinking myself to death so we go to 12 steps. Maybe we get divorced. Maybe we have a kid. Maybe we find religion, whatever. Something happens that we begin to start evaluating that roadmap. And that's good news. You start as adults looking for what roadmaps work better, that are more effective for us to get the love we want, to get our needs met, to have the kind of life we want.

And so, really, that's what No More Mr. Nice Guy is. Here's a more effective adult roadmap to replace the one that we've been carrying with us since we're just small children.

I love it. It's this real playbook, if you will, of looking at this strategy of being a nice guy and recognizing what the old beliefs are, or the context of which it developed in the environment. Because as you're saying that environment was our childhood. It's likely not our environment. And our developmental skill set was of a certain age when we developed that strategy, and we are more adult and we have more options, we have more consciousness, and we can evolve that. So really helping people have a more awareness around the tendencies and how they were developed and how they limit. And also, what is possible. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah. I think you've probably heard this from some people who've talked about my book, and I hear it all the time. I get emails all the time. I hear it in workshops and classes. Guys saying, “I'd read every self-help book out there. I'd been to therapy. I'd been to Landmark. I'd done this, I'd done that.” And it wasn't until they read No More Mr. Nice Guy that it clicked. That's it. That explains it. I guess that's maybe one of the things I'm most proud of the book is that people tell me all the time, “Have you been following me around? How did you know my life so well? You know me! You know, all these little bullshit things I do.” It's because I've done them all and they all made sense to me at some point in my life.

There's nothing better than having that wakeup call and actually getting the roadmap we've been searching for all along. I give the example that this is like having a road map of San Francisco and somebody saying, it's a roadmap of Los Angeles. You're trying your damnedest to get the roadmap to work. It’s supposed to work. You've been told it will work. He's told us the right road. Maybe all your life, here's how you're supposed to be. And it doesn't work so you think there's something wrong with you. And because you don't know what else to do, you just keep trying harder, right?

All of a sudden you realize, “Oh, that roadmap didn't work.” That's why nothing else worked. Trying harder wasn't going to solve it. Oh, this roadmap makes sense to me. This looks like Los Angeles now, this roadmap you've handed me. I think I can get around better now. It's really just getting the updated roadmap for the terrain that we want to traverse.

Yes. Because we don't want to continue those dynamics where we're being controlled, or, you know, some of the things that you described in childhood. We don't want to repeat that. If we're falling into these patterns of giving, it's extremely painful for men, in this case, as we're talking about nice guys to be so giving, so generous, so much effort, so much trying and pleasing and to not have the reciprocity. And, you know, when you were talking earlier, there's almost a sense of disconnect from self even.

Huge disconnect from self. Very much. It's just an example. I've been working with nice guys for 25 plus years. I remember when I was in private practice and therapy or group situation or individual, the guys would get it. It makes sense to them. They said, “Well, where do I start?” Well, I would give them a legal pad and I’ll say, “Let's start talking about making your needs a priority. Let's start making a list of things you can start doing to make your needs a priority. That's what adults do.”

I've had guys just literally sit and stare at the legal pad and go, “I have no idea what my needs are.” They've suffered since infancy. They've been trying to be needless and warrantless. Never be anyone’s problem. Here, I'll take care of everybody else. I won't stress anybody. And even feeling guilty if somebody tries to meet their needs for him and making that difficult. That's one of the paradoxes about nice guys. As part of our covert contract is I'll give to you so that you'll read my mind and give back to me. But I'm going to make it hard for you to give to me because it makes me feel too uncomfortable. That's a crazy roadmap.

It is so profound when we realize, “Oh, you mean being honest is an easier way to live rather than manipulating the truth and hiding the truth and hoping I don't get caught. You mean making my needs a priority and taking responsibility for that and surrounding myself with people who want to help me get my needs met? That's a better plan than finding broken people and trying to fix them so that they'll appreciate me, and then get back to me? You mean, those are better plans than the ones I've been following?” Yeah. Yeah, they work a little better.

I can see how this really fits in relationship. Well, let me ask you before I even say what I'm about to say. Do you find that nice guys will tend to be attracted to extroverted or strong assertive women or if we’re talking heterosexual?

Yeah. I'm smiling because you're smiling too. We have mutual smiles. There are two things. There's a phrase out there in quote, the manosphere. You know, online forums. One of the phrases or the terminologies is Captain Save a Ho. They're talking about nice guys. As nice guys, “I’ll go find this broken woman.” At least that’s a perception. This needy woman, a single mom, or a woman that's depressed, or a woman who's in financial problem. “I'll just do everything for them, and then that'll fix their life. And then they'll be eternally grateful for me, and I'll have this diamond in the rough that will polish up nicely.”

One thing I tell men is, this is just from my own personal experience over the years is that how you find them is how they are. Honestly, for men and women both. Your female listeners and your male listeners, both. If you're single and you meet somebody, and there's this piece of baggage they carry with them. They don't get along with anybody. They can't manage their money. They're moody. They got an eating disorder. They got some other addiction. Assume that is who they are and that will always be a part of who they are. 

Now, people do grow. People do make changes but usually not because somebody is trying to rescue them that made them to change.

And whenever I tell that to people, people go, “You're right. That's been my experience.” Those defense mechanisms we formed as little children, they're all we know. They are our safety blanket that now we're getting into adult relationships and we're vulnerable and this is messy and uncontrollable, unpredictable.

Does that mean it activates our nervous system?

Being intimate and vulnerable to scary things. I'm going to get hurt again so I'm going to hang on to my defense.

The other thing and answer to your question, I've got 200 podcasts that I've recorded and sell on my website. A lot of them are dating, a lot about relationships. Not about just nice guy recovery. Things from sexuality to being the non-judgmental observer of self.

The number one most downloaded podcast, and I just noticed, I see all the orders that come through, and a woman just downloaded this one the other day. It was interesting. But the number one most downloaded most sold podcast on my entire website is, what to do with strong or controlling women. So that's the number one thing. I mean, I've got 200 podcasts on different subjects. That's number one.

When you come at this in different ways, but part of it is, you know, if the nice guy is insecure about himself and passively pleasing person, he may have probably picked a fairly dominant person. It just kind of fits and feels familiar, typically based on old relationships.

And underdeveloped skills in perhaps themselves.

Yeah, of course. And then, if we even just look at it from an idea of polarity, if we just even call it masculine/feminine polarity, Yin, Yang, whatever, if the guy is going to be kind of passive and submissive, yeah, believe it or not, that kind of attracts a dominant controlling person. You can flip it either way.

There just seems to be that polarity that goes on in intimate relationships. Mainly because it feels familiar. We all want to recreate familiar scenarios from our earliest life experiences. Now, they may be toxic, they may be dysfunctional, but if they're familiar, it feels normal to us. So yes, to answer that question, it is not unusual for nice guys to get with strong and/or controlling and/or dysfunctional women.

And you've already named some really important challenges that couples will run into around sexless marriages or partnerships.

I was talking about my marriage, my second one. Not my present one. But yeah, been there done that.

It sounds like it's a common experience or even that your significant other is not happy with you, or whatever efforts or generosity or helpfulness and the nice guy strategy is not working to calm or bring more harmony, or peace, or equanimity to the dynamic. Like, these things are extremely painful. Are there any other things that you want to name so listeners might be able to recognize where it kind of comes to? Like you said, a breaking point, if you will, where the pain is so significant that it's like, “I can't keep doing this anymore.”

You can easily Google what couples fight about the most. We would assume this is why they don't get along, or why they break up. The top five list, I don't know what order they're in but usually includes sex, money, in laws.

But for nice guys, you would feel that it touches on all of those topics. The dynamic is the same.

Here's the thing. From my experiences as a relationship therapist and from my own relationships.

They might be fighting about money, but maybe they're really fighting about power and control. Maybe they're really fighting about vulnerability. Maybe they're really fighting about fear. Maybe they're really fighting about their projections that they put on the other person and their expectations of how it’s going to feel to be married to this person. They must have a girlfriend or a boyfriend.

Again, we've talked enough about all the baggage every adult carries with them into adolescence and adulthood as we start forming intimate relationships. Whether it's heterosexual or gay or lesbian. We all carry the same type baggage. It doesn't matter if we're top, bottom, or whatever. We're going to carry the same stuff. We're going to carry our number one relationship fear, our number one relationship defense mechanisms. We're going to carry these faulty roadmaps. We're going to carry faulty expectations of what the opposite sex can do for us.

Like I said, I mainly work with men now. I tell men all the time. Whatever the male brain thinks that a woman can do for you is wrong. I tell women the same thing. Whatever your female brain thinks that a man is going to do for you is wrong. And then, when our chosen partner doesn't do those things, our brain thought they were going to do. When we all got in relationship, and especially if we're married, we all got in there thinking, “This is the one. This is the person that's going to do all those things for me and then I'll be happy.” And then every couple that ever gets in a fight or gets divorced, what happened? What changed?

I mean, even if you get really basic with this, when I got divorced almost 20 years ago, and had to get out in the dating world in my late 40s. I've never dated as an adult. I just used nice guy seduction. I found a broken woman and listened to her talk about her problems and hoped she would like me and want to have sex with me. So, I thought I better learn how to date. And so then, when I got good at that, at dating and creating healthy relationships, my clients said, “Robert, teach us.”

Well, what I found is that most men, the thing they're most drawn to are body parts. The guy thinks, well, I like her boobs, or I like her butt. She has a pretty face. And so, I want her to be my girlfriend. I go, “Is that how you pick your doctor? Is that how you pick your car mechanic? Is that how you pick your accountant? Oh, I like his butt. I'm going to hire him to handle all my money for me. But we think because we like their body parts that's a good way to pick a long-term partner? We then do everything we can to get them to like us and want to get naked with us and have sex with us and keep hanging around us. And so, while we're doing all that, we never actually bothered to ask ourselves, do I like this person? What's their nature? Do they have qualities that I want to actually spend a long time with? Because we're working so hard to get them to be whatever our projection or fantasies. And men and women both do this.

Believe it or not, I read romance novels from time to time. I find them really interesting. They're all exactly the same. They all are a fairly strong, controlling, stubborn woman who meets a stronger, more controlling, stubborn man who they fall head over heels with and then resist that, you know, oh, I can't be with him for all the reasons that romance novel comes up with, but we all know they're going to get together, right? So, that's the best way to pick a relationship is like how they do it in romance novels? How they do it in sitcoms or romcoms?

I tell people, whatever you get out of a relationship, whatever you get from this partner, and I'll refer to the opposite sex, but I also use that term with gay men and lesbian women, the opposite sex is whatever you're attracted to. Okay? And you think this, remember that whatever you think they're going to do for you is probably wrong. But what I can guarantee is that whatever comes out of all this, it will be a powerful personal growth machine if one or hopefully both of you can be fairly conscious in the process.

I love that. That's what this show is all about.

And that's the beauty of trying to make these relationships work. And really fundamentally they're not built to work. We're actually trying to do something that we human beings aren't wired to do. To have long term, monogamous pair bonded relationships till death do we part. It's not in our DNA. It never has been. That's why it hasn't worked for the last 10,000 years. But! There's the but. If we do it consciously, they can really grow us. And as two people grow, they might go, “You aren't the person I thought you were but I like the person you're becoming. Let's keep doing this. Let's keep growing together.”

Yeah. There's so much that you're saying that I want to respond to you. I also don't want to lose the thread earlier when we were talking about these breaking points and how you were describing the nice guy syndrome. Part of what I feel as you're talking and some of what I've seen is that there's a hindrance to intimacy in the nice guy syndrome because of perhaps not revealing or the lack of transparency or the lack of connection with self to be able to have that reciprocal exchange of really deeply understanding each other more fully. Is that what you find?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's what I've struggled with. Like I said, when I went to that 12-step meeting, I'd never been intimate. Nowadays, when I do interviews or I do workshops or seminars, people often say, “Robert, I appreciate how authentic you are, how open you are.” Nobody would have accused me of that 25 years ago. Nobody would have said, “Robert, you're so authentic. You're so open.” No, I wasn’t. I’m Teflon. I mean, everything was hidden and kept.

The core paradigm of the nice guy is because I'm not okay just as I am, I have to become what I think other people want me to be to be liked and loved and get my needs met. And I need to hide anything about me, that might get a negative reaction.

So, if you're pushing all that, just hide your emotions while we're at it as well. Put all of that down and you've been doing it for so long, you don't even know what that stuff is or how underground it is.

Example. When I wrote no more Mr. Nice Guy, I was married to my second wife. That’s the woman that said, “I can’t take your passive aggressiveness.” I remember, she and I would go for walks. We'd be having a discussion, probably about us or about something she accused me of doing or something. We would walk and she'd keep saying, “What are you feeling? I want to know what you're feeling.” And I'm thinking, “What? Is this like a spigot? I'm supposed to be able to just turn on. What is this thing we're talking about?”

I was terrible in math as a kid. That’s why I became a therapist and not a scientist. Actually, I got better as I got older. But as a kid, my biggest fear was being called to the chalkboard in front of the class and work a math problem. I didn't know that there were like systems and principles to math. I thought you just had to figure every problem out on its own. That's what it felt like when she's saying, “What do you feel?” Don't call on me. And so, I tell her what I was thinking. And she'd say, “No, those are thoughts. That's what you're thinking. It’s not what you feel.” So, then I’d tell her what I thought I was feeling. Well, I think maybe I'm feeling angry. Then I go, “Well, I think you're being a bitch to me.” She goes, “That's not a feeling.” And we would just keep walking and walking. Now, one thing I learned from that, I tell men, don't try to learn to access your feelings from a woman, especially your partner, because you're never going to feel the same way they feel.

My ex-wife when we did that sex would occasionally cry after climax. I remember her asking me one time, “How come you never cry after you cum?” I don't know. I never thought about it. I never thought about crying. Never had any reason to cry. And so, that's why I tell men, don't try to learn how to do feelings from women. And that's why I'm such a big fan of men's work. Yes, we can get with men.

 I often tease that I'm kind of the Barbara Walters of men's work that I love making guys cry in my seminars and workshops. They feel so good when they cry. And of course, they feel so shameful about doing it until everybody's going, “How cool is that man?” And then all of a sudden, “Oh, you mean, I'm completely accepted by everybody in this room after crying? I didn't see that one coming.”

So yeah, the feelings get pushed down. Our needs and wants get pushed down. We don't even know what they are. Like, just staring blankly at the legal pad. And especially sexuality. That is why nice guys are so indirect with their sexualities, why most of them have some kind of issue with porn or compulsive sexual behavior.

Yes. Well, I just want to underscore what you're saying around the safety to be able to express and I just feel like I'm just in such gratitude for what you're doing in the world. When you started talking in the interview, I was like, “Oh, he does such a great job of normalizing and really just being willing to share. It makes it really relatable and accessible. I think that that's really a wonderful quality. I appreciate what you're doing.

I know we don't have a ton of time so while we still have you, I would love if you can share any tips or strategies that you recommend for people. You listed one already, which is to kind of list needs and wants and just to unpack that a little bit. Is there anything else that feels helpful to share with listeners today?

Yeah. Actually, one way or another said many of them already. Several at least. Number one, and this is really what you and I were just talking about. Don't try to do this alone. Go find safe people. One thing about men and especially nice guys, because we do tend to hide everything. I’ll read a book. I'll fix it on my own. I’ll listen to some podcasts, whatever. And I said, “Don't try to do it alone. Go find safe people.” I talked about that in the book. I preach it all the time.

Now, this can be a coach, a therapist, a men's group, a 12-step group, your minister, maybe your best friend. Probably not a woman. Probably not your wife, girlfriend, or mother. Those people, number one, would have fear and will hold back. And number two, they may have some investment in us not changing.

And they're not a neutral totally uninvested party.

Yeah, exactly. That's my point. And they may want what's best for you but any changes you make are going to initially frighten them. Now, they may catch up. And I mean, that's what happens in that powerful personal growth machine. We tend to keep playing catch up with each other. So, go find safe people to do this with.

I love men's groups. When I was in private practice, I was leading five of them a week. I still am in a men's program. We have regular Zoom calls. We have workshops that we go do several times a year. I've got a coach. I'm still doing this in the context of men. I have several spin-off little groups where I still get my needs met. I have a writer's Zoom Room. Every morning, I'm writing with other men. I exercise accountability group where I check in every day. Here's how I did and these other guys. I've got another accountability group with six guys. We meet every other week. I'm in men's groups. I love them. I believe in them. I love working with men. So, I highly recommend that. When I started doing my work 25 plus years ago, there wasn't much out there. I mean, mankind project, was there. Maybe Sterling weekend. Basically, it’s Robert Bly in the mythopoetic. Let's go out in the woods and beat a drum and have the talking stick and say, “Whoa.” There wasn't a lot more there. Man, if you just Google men's groups now. I love that there's so many ways to go connect with men and go find safe people. So yeah, don't do this alone. Find safe people.

Some of the core pieces I initially started working on, and I think those are good places for most people to work on. Number one is being honest. Learning to be what you see is what you get. Nothing held back. No surprises kind of person. That's challenging for nice guys. It was challenging for me. So, working at being honest. Working at getting your needs met. Making that a priority.

Often, when I tell guys I want you to put your needs first they get a deer in the headlight look. “Oh no, that'll make me a bad person. That'll make me like all those bad men I hear the women complain about.” No. Fill your own bucket up and then give from the overflow.

Connecting with men is so core. That's why I said go get in a men's group. Most nice guys do not connect well with other men. I hear nice guys often say, “Well, I don't connect with men. They just want to talk about women and sports and drink and race cars.” I go, “Bullshit.” I take out a big stick and hit them upside down and say pay attention. Right? And they’ll let. So, I said bullshit. There are lots of men out there who want to get real. And I said this is the defense mechanism you've bought into because it keeps you safe from having to risk and reveal yourself.

Yeah, there's a lot of men out there that's all they do want to do is drink and watch sports. Fine. And there's nothing wrong with that. Go drink and watch sports, but there's also men that do want to get real and go deep and be honest with each other. It's out there so don't use that as an excuse. Connect with men. Go work on your sexuality issues, whatever your sexual shame is, whatever your hidden compulsive behaviors are. That's often a core piece of the nice guy work.

And then, there’s one other piece. This maybe is a lifetime. A lot of men come to me and say I just don't know what my purpose is. I don't have any real passion. That's really core for a lot of men but especially for nice guys because we've been taught all of our lives, “Sacrifice you. Give up you. Don't rock the boat. Become what you think other people want you to be. Hide yourself.” Those things all kill passion. If you can't even write on a notepad what are some things that you want to do that are important to you, how are you going to go live with passion? So, that's a key piece. That seems to be a piece. It’s hard to start with that piece.

Absolutely. Oh, my goodness, I am just beyond grateful, again, for what you're doing. It's so needed to help men. When you were talking about all the different places that you are connecting with men, I just go like, “Oh, it's just so amazing to have that brotherhood and that camaraderie and that sense of safety with other men and being able to see examples of what it looks like on other men and being able to kind of have that mentorship, if you will even.

They are role models. Yeah. And then, the support and accountability. We humans evolve in tribes. The men of the tribe always work together for the survival of the tribe. Whether it was hunting, gathering, fighting, whatever. And nowadays, men are so disconnected from other men. We need the tribe. We need the connection with men.

Yes. And to be in practiced with, right? What is dishonesty and even to be called out right? And really ask to go deeper and to be doing it in a safe way that invites a deeper dive that allows for that more authentic empowerment that is so beautifully masculine, right?

And is so sexy.

And is so sexy, exactly.

You're visualizing that and it shows. Yeah, the feminine is so turned on by that. I'll tell you a quick story. When I was dating, you know, going back to that time when I was learning how to date. I met a lot of really great women. I started doing something after, you know, we dated for a few dates. It looked like maybe we're going to keep seeing each other. I'd sit the woman down and I'd tell them, if we keep seeing each other, here's what you can expect from me. I tell four things.

Number one, I'll be conscious. I’ll pay attention to you, to me, to us, to everything going on around us. I'll be honest with you. Everything I tell you will be the whole truth. You won't ever find out, I left something out or this isn't true. I'll be transparent. You'll know what I think, what I feel, what I want, where I'm going, what I expect of you, what bugs me. And four, I will set the tone and take the lead. I won't go, “What do you want to do tonight?” Or, “Do you want to do this?” I'll get the ball rolling. I'll show up with the plan.

Every woman usually had two responses. The first one is, “Wow! I've never had a man say anything like that to me before.” And they say, “You need to write another book. You need to tell men to do what you just told me.” And then second response that the majority of the women had is to go, “Okay, what do you expect of me?” And that's a good question. And I'd say, “I have pretty much most areas of my life pretty well covered. I love my work. I have guy friends. I have adventure. I make enough money. But, just always tell me the truth. Treat me well and make my world beautiful.”

Every woman I said that to their eyes kind of cut up into the right, like, they're thinking. They're creative. They're going, “I got some ideas.” What a beautiful way to create a dynamic. If the default masculine character shows up here and says, “Here's how I'm going to show up.” And the woman's going, “I've never seen that before. I want to find out more of what that's really like.” What's not to like about it?

It feels healing. It feels powerful. It feels that it allows a synergy and evolving. Like you were saying, being able to up level and learn and grow but there's something there to really too grounded people that are doing their work, and what can be created out of that.

By stating that out loud, it keeps me honest. That's what I've committed to. I got to show up with consciousness, with honesty, with transparency, and with a plan. Yeah. I like showing up in that way. I like what it brings out in me.

Totally. Wonderful. Well, how can people get to know your work, what you're up to? How do people contact and connect with you?

All right. Easy enough. Just go to DrGlover.com. D-r-g-l-o-v-e-r dot com. If they Google No More Mr. Nice Guy, if they Google Robert Glover, I have the top spots on both pages. I even beat out Alice Cooper's No More Mr. Nice Guy. I’m proud of that. When I finally passed up Alice Cooper. So yeah, DrGlover.com. This is a great way to go find out whatever I'm putting out into the world.

It sounds like you're very active in your writing and your podcasting and your coaching and your facilitation and just the different ways that you are serving.

Well, I'm doing a lot. My conscious effort is to keep cutting, narrowing, funneling back a lot of stuff to expand the amount of writing that I want to do. I made a commitment a couple years ago to write 10 books in 10 years. I want to write a few more books. So, the writing is my big priority but yeah, I'm still teaching courses, doing workshops, doing some consultation. Not a lot, but a little bit. I just like staying in contact with men.

I can't imagine myself for example, thinking I'm going to write books for men without having regular contact with them. So, I keep doing a lot of the things I do just because it keeps feeding what I put in the books.

Absolutely. Staying fresh and current and connected.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you for spending your valuable time with us today. It has been such a pleasure and an honor.

Thank you for the invitation. I had a great time. Thank you.

Signing Off

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