Dealing with the Not So Nice Guy

Feel the shockwaves as I peel away the deceptive veneer of Nice Guy Syndrome, unveiling the truth behind betrayal trauma. Today's conversation ventures into the murky depths of manipulation and control, often cloaked in a guise of kindness. I'll tackle the "Jekyll and Hyde" dichotomy plaguing so many relationships, where love bombing morphs into verbal abuse, leaving victims entangled in a web of confusion. By shining a light on these patterns, we pave a path towards healing and empowerment, offering a lifeline to those struggling to reclaim their joy and identity.

Witness the transformational power of setting firm boundaries and establishing non-negotiables within relationships, a topic we delve into with conviction. Hear the inspiring tale of a woman who, by imposing clear expectations, nurtured her husband's evolution from a manipulative "nice guy" to a truly supportive partner. My personal non-negotiables are laid bare, reinforcing the narrative that self-respect and unwavering truth-seeking are paramount. As I navigate the complexities of relationship dynamics, I impart the wisdom needed to foster financial independence, chase dreams unabashedly, and eschew the role of enabler, setting the foundation for a partnership rooted in support and individual growth. Join me and equip yourself with the tools for crafting a more authentic, fulfilling connection.

For the Powerful and Profitable Trauma Informed Coach 5 Day Challenge, click on this link to join the challenge: https://www.kushlachadwick.com/5day-powerfulandprofitable

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:03

Hey everyone, it's Erin Anderson with the Erin Anderson Betrayal Trauma Coaching. I am super excited that you have tuned in. Today. Let's get talking about how to heal from betrayal trauma. Welcome to the other side of the struggle trauma, how to heal it and then how to take it and use it to unlock your mission and your potential and to use it to live your very best dream life. When you're dealing with betrayal trauma, it can be hard to know how to heal it, how to stop the pain and to know what your next steps are to take in your own life, and these are the questions that we try to answer here. Trauma has the ability to rob us of our joy and identity, which is why it's so miserable to experience. But with the right tools and with the right mindset, we can totally reclaim that joy and even use this trauma to strengthen ourselves. So that way, trauma does not knock us off of our joy again. Living your dream life should be a non-negotiable, but trauma tends to try to negotiate that with you. And even though trauma is not something that we will completely ever be free of in our life, the pain is negotiable. This is why I created Erin Anderson Betrayal Trauma Coaching and this podcast is because I want my listeners, I want my clients, to live truly live free from the prison that trauma can put you in. I want you to live on the other side of the struggle. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the other side of the struggle.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Today I wanted to talk to you guys about the nice guy. I know we've already kind of talked about it right A few episodes ago we had my good friend, trevor Henniger, come on and chat about it and actually I'm going to ask him again to be on with us very soon to again chat about the nice guy Because, as I've been learning about this and it it's it's a very important topic to talk about, um, for a couple of different reasons. Number one you guys have heard me talk about the three different types of men. You know that I normally see you've got the mild, the medium and the jalap right, but nice guys kind of fall into all of those categories and I also see a lot of my clients who come to me with a husband who has the nice guy syndrome and the problem with this is it's anything but nice. This is what is literally going on behind closed doors and it drives the people around them crazy. And the other problem with this is everybody is always enamored with how nice of a guy they are are. So when you are reacting to their not so nice moments, everybody around them thinks you're the problem, because you're the one that's not acting nice. You're the one saying something is wrong, something is not right, something is not nice. He's not behaving this way, this is not normal for him. Or sometimes you just end up feeling completely crazy because they're very good at also mental manipulation tactics that are very underhanded, very subtle, and you don't even realize it's happening. So let me give you kind of an example of what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 5:53

Okay, say that there's this husband and there's this wife, okay, and the husband is known as a really nice guy, but he's into porn and he's hid that pornography addiction from her For years and years and years and years Until. But she starts to suspect something's wrong because he has these really big mood swings at home. He gets really really snappy with her and then love bombs her and then he snaps at her and then he love bombs her and he's doing this mental yo-yo with her Right, and then when she asks him, do you possibly have a pornography addiction. I mean these. This is one of the signs he says why on earth would you think that about me? Haven't I been loyal to you? And he tends to and he starts to talk about all the ways he's been loyal to her. Remember last year when I bought you all that jewelry? I was completely thinking of you. I'm so good to do the dishes for you. And he love bomb, love, bomb, love bombs her. And then he turns around and complains to her about how she doesn't do enough, or how she's not giving him enough sex, or how she's not doing enough. She's not enough, she's not enough. And causing her to work herself crazy, trying to show her affection and her appreciation and take care of him and believing that she's somehow crazy because she doesn't feel safe. But she can't necessarily explain why.

Speaker 1: 7:54

That's someone that's possibly married to a nice guy, because on the outside he's everybody's hero. If there's ever a time that somebody needs something, he's the first guy on it. He hears about the neighbors down the street who got into a car accident. What does he do? He lets them borrow his car. He's in the hero mode, right, are he's in the hero mode, right? The mom and dad needs somebody to go mow their lawn. Oh, he's gone that he's going to go mow their lawn because it's so important for him to maintain an image but we can't maintain images with everyone all the time, and so at home he might do the dishes for her once in a while, he might love bomb her with jewelry or sweet words, but then he's also turning around and calling her names. We call this the jekyll and the hyde. That's a very big symptom with a nice guy. Somebody that is nice in one instance can totally love bomb to get what they want and then turn around and not be so nice later, be somebody completely different, and it it does. It leaves you feeling pretty crazy.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Another thing about the nice guys they really also are not very good at protection. Okay, now, this is one thing we, as a society in general, need men to do more of is stand up and actually protect right. This is a beautiful, wonderful masculine trait that we truly do need more of, because there's so many really, really horrible things happening out there, and women in general tend to feel very, very insecure and very scared for their safety. The simple act of walking from the grocery store to a person's car is very different for men and women. For a man oftentimes they might be kind of aware, but for a woman, she's wanting something in her hand just in case she gets attacked, because that's something that is a very real fear. Because that's something that is a very real fear. Women are usually far more targeted as assault victims than men are, and that's just a statistic.

Speaker 1: 10:32

We need men to stand up and actually protect the nice guy because he does not want conflict, and protection often requires some type of conflict. Because he doesn't want the conflict, he will push somebody else in front of him to do the protection, and oftentimes that lands on his partner. Finances aren't great, guess what. He leaves it all to her to figure it out. Another way that this might also show up in your relationship with a nice guy is if, say, you're trying to share your emotions with him. You're trying to tell him how you actually feel about what it is he's done and he can't hear you. But yet when it's his turn to share what is happening with him emotionally, you have to sit there and listen to him. You have to sit there and take in everything and change it for him. Nice guys don't like conflict and your emotions are one of the things that can create that inner conflict in him. So he might even acknowledge oh yeah, I've done something wrong, but it's not because he is. He's feeling any guilt, but it's because he's been caught. He's feeling any guilt but it's because he's been caught.

Speaker 1: 12:03

See, most people are who are mentally healthy, I should say will. When they realize that their behaviors are not good, will turn around and, um, actually try to change. Try to change the things that they're not doing well, things that they're not doing well, things that they're not doing right and the things that are actually hurting another person. But the problem with the nice guy is this whole facade that they've created for themselves, where they have to be the nice guy, they have to be seen as the nice guy. That idea, that savior complex that they have, cannot be challenged. But again, like I said before, it's not possible to keep up an act all the time, and so it's usually the people that they are the closest to, aka their wives, that tend to see this the most.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Now, so how do you know if you might be married to a nice guy? Well, number one, like I said, people think he's just the best guy ever, right. Everybody around him thinks he's just such a nice guy, he's so good. But you, on the other hand, are like, oh yeah, he's got some nice things, but, and so you have this confusing polarity happening. No-transcript, you have to take care of the finances, you have to take care of your own protection, you have to protect his best interests, his emotions. You feel like you have to walk on eggshells around him and you feel neglected and confused and you may even be wondering if it's you. And you feel neglected and confused and you may even be wondering if it's you. Like what else is you? Maybe I'm the narcissist? Let me tell you something. If you're asking that question, you're not a narcissist. So what do you do If you were married to someone like this? What do you do If you were married to someone like this? What do you do?

Speaker 1: 14:42

It doesn't necessarily mean that this nice guy unfortunately there are a lot of them out there but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to divorce immediately. Honestly, the best thing you can do when you're married to a nice guy is set boundaries and recognize truth. You may look like the bad guy and people will most likely come at you when you're setting these boundaries. They may call you the narcissist. They may say that you're the problem because he's such a nice guy and you have to be willing to realize that. Yeah, you might end up having a lot of people come after you saying not nice things about you, because you're finally done and you need to be able to if you want to keep your marriage intact, because you do see a lot of good things and oftentimes I think the nice guy isn't necessarily aware of that. Somewhere in childhood they've learned to conflict avoid and in order for them to conflict avoid because that is like the thing that keeps them safe, that that is the thing that keeps them safe, that is the thing that keeps them alive. They've learned to do this for survival. So that means that anything that you do when you're setting boundaries is going to make them so they're not necessarily always conscious that they're doing these things. This can be a very subconscious thing, but it still needs to be addressed, it still needs to be dealt with and the way to deal with it is to, like I said, set those boundaries. And you need to answer that question of am I willing to look like the bad guy?

Speaker 1: 17:19

To give you an example, I had a client whose husband was a nice guy but also had a consistent porn addiction, and she had told him over and over and over again that the porn addiction was really a problem because she had boys at home that had already been exposed to it, because he had been so deeply into it. He had been so deeply into it he wasn't realizing when other men had stalker behaviors towards his wife and his children, and so the idea of protection was completely foreign to him, completely foreign to him. He had no idea. When his family felt unsafe and the behaviors of other men that were making them feel unsafe, he was asleep to it. She finally decided that she was done. She was done with the pornography Not with him necessarily she did love him and he had a lot of really good qualities but she was done with the pornography.

Speaker 1: 18:25

So what did she do? She kicked him out, told him he had to go sleep at his mom's. Well, his sister um chose to call the wife a narcissist You're such a horrible person. You have no idea how to take care of a man. You are the worst person alive and turned around and started telling her brother how horrible she really was and how she was never good for him in the first place, and my sweet client was the one that was consistently there for him, consistently saving him, consistently fighting off the dragon. It really hurt my client.

Speaker 1: 22:00

Luckily, her husband was smart enough to realize that a lot of what was happening in their marriage was due to him, but at this point he had been such a nice guy for so long that anything negative that happened as a result of his behavior looked like it was her fault, his wife's fault. At this point she came to me and she asked me what do I do about this? This hurts, and one of the things we went through is realizing that the reason why it hurts so bad was because it was pointing to everything she had done for him that was never acknowledged. It was pointing to the abuse she was suffering from him that was completely subconscious. Completely subconscious, it was pointing to everything she had ever done just to try to keep things safe and that she felt crazy herself. It was pointing to the fact that, in order for her to keep this marriage alive and to keep her family intact, she had to legitimately give up herself and her self-identity because narcissist, calling her the bad guy, telling her that she was crazy, telling her that something was wrong with her, that we needed to stay strong to the truth. You are welcome to think that way if it makes you happy. That meant distancing herself from some people that were toxic to her because they did not want to get it. They wanted to keep the mentality and the vision of him being a nice guy, but the problem was he wasn't happy either, and so his happiness, his unhappiness, was also blamed on her. It's heartbreaking to say to someone that you love you are welcome to believe that if that is what makes you happy, but it's even more heartbreaking to try to prove on a daily basis that you're not the bad guy.

Speaker 1: 24:58

So what did she and her husband do? I talked to her about coming up with the four non-negotiables, or I should say she came up with four non-negotiables. My recommendation is at least like at most, 10 non-negotiables, because men are also creatures that need very, very direct instructions and they need simplicity. I'm not calling them simple creatures, by the way, it's just that they do need very simple directions. Um, and so the more concise you can make these non-negotiables, the better it is for them and the better it is for you, because they can go back and remember these things.

Speaker 1: 25:49

She set boundaries with him. If you're going to talk to me this way, I'm leaving the room. She started a business and she started earning money and started doing things that she wanted to do with that money. But she refused to pay for his things. And that's such a good thing, too, because it taught him that he actually could create. He could get out there and start doing some work. He could actually lean into the things that he wanted to do in his life. He didn't have to deny himself the good things and he started. Instead of being a nice guy, avoiding conflict at all costs, he started being kind. Now Teal Swan if you guys follow her on youtube or wherever she's at she talks about this too the nice guy versus the kind guy. See, kind, they're very gentle with the people that they love, but they're not afraid to step into conflict, and this is why they're also great protectors.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Set some boundaries with the nice guy. Boundaries that I would suggest are don't pay for him If he's going to have problems financially and act like a little boy that needs to be taken care of. You start creating your own money now, before you sit there and say I've got kids and I don't have an education my loves. This is 2024. You can make five or six figures online. There's teaching outlets, you can sell things online, bookkeeping, virtual assisting, goodness blogging and, yes, sometimes it's going to take a little bit of time for some of these things to grow fruit, but plant your own seeds of money growth.

Speaker 1: 28:22

When you realize that you're not a part of the finances and you need to be then you need to get your own money, and that is a boundary that you need to set with him and yourself. And the money you make is not to fund him in any way. The money you make is to fund your goals, your dreams and your life. That is what that money is for. That's a very strong boundary, and the boundary you need to set with yourself is that you're going to persevere, you're going to push through. That doesn't mean it's going to be fixed tomorrow, but if you will maintain this, I promise you. And if you start getting curious about ways you can start making money online right now, I promise you that you will do it. If you'd like some extra help with that, please schedule a call with me.

Speaker 1: 29:17

This is something I love also helping women do, because it is such a necessary boundary, especially when you're dealing with a nice guy. Second boundary when you're especially when you're dealing with a nice guy. Second, he may sabotage things that you want him to do, so that way he doesn't have to be responsible for doing them again. If he does things like that, make him go do it again. If he wants to be treated like a child, treat him like a child, somebody who has to be told every single step. But, most especially, come up with your non-negotiables.

Speaker 1: 30:02

The non-negotiables I have with my husband are number one he has to have a relationship with God. He has to actively pursue a relationship with God. Number two he has to cherish me. So cherishing you is actually one of the things that will cause him to stop being the nice guy, because we want to be protected as women, protected as women. We want somebody who, when they're going to come after us, to step in and say, no, that's not going to happen. Cherishing is kind, not nice. Number three he has to pursue his own goals and his interests. He has to have some ambition in his life. I want him to be happy, I want him to have a life, I want him to enjoy what it is he's doing he's doing. And number four no porn. However, if he does those other three, the porn will naturally go away, because it's addressing the root issues of a porn addiction. But now that I've addressed the non-negotiables that I've said with my own husband, there's also non-negotiables with myself. That I've said with my own husband, there's also non-negotiables with myself.

Speaker 1: 31:48

Number one I don't take anybody's disrespect personally, but I respect myself very much. That means I also respect other people's opinions. It doesn't necessarily mean they have to be right. Opinions Doesn't necessarily mean they have to be right, but they can have an opinion of me that's not flattering. One of the things I'm going to do is I am going to ask OK, well, you know, why are they seeing these things? Is there something about me that could possibly be true, that I need to change? But I don't add emotion into that question. I ask out of pure curiosity, because I love truth, I love the idea that I can do better and I do want to do better. But there are just some areas that I can't do better in and if those are the areas that are being judged well, that's not on me and I need to be okay with other people having their experiences and having their opinions. That's okay.

Speaker 1: 33:09

One non-negotiable for me is I will always be my own best friend. I will always have my own back. I am going to put God first in my life and then myself. Put God first in my life and then myself, and whatever comes from those two relationships will benefit my husband and my children and the people I love. That's my number one non-negotiable with myself. And because the other non-negotiable I have with myself and it kind of goes along with the best friend here is I will know myself, I will know who I am.

Speaker 1: 33:57

Anything that makes me feel disappointed or betrayed by myself, that is something that I am not going to do. I can get curious, yes, about how I need to improve, because I'm still walking on this planet in a skin suit. My loves, that means I still have improvement to do. God hasn't twinkled me off the earth yet, okay. But that does mean that I am going to have to get curious about how I can grow more, how I can do better, how I can be more of who I am, be the very best version of myself that I can possibly be. But not because I want to placate someone, it's simply because I want to be that loyal to myself, because a best friend will always have your back right, and having your back means that sometimes they're going to have to tell you yeah, you kind of mucked that one up. Here's the ways you can do better. Here are some things you can try, because they want to see you succeed. They want to see you do the very best possible life that you can have.

Speaker 1: 35:34

My third non-negotiable is that I am a seeker of truth. This is very helpful when someone tries to manipulate me. I don't take anybody's opinion as truth until I test it out for myself first. See, truth will always come back to to a physical uh evidence, for example. Um, I had a client the other day that was really struggling with their self-esteem and self-worth and really had a lot of self-talk issues. It wasn't necessarily his fault either. Bless his heart, bless his heart. He'd had a very, very rough childhood and had a former wife who was also quite toxic to him, and so when he's sitting here having a lot of this negative self-talk and wondering if it's his fault, right, that's actually a sign of gaslighting. He's wondering if everything is always your fault.

Speaker 1: 36:46

I had to stop him and I said, instead of speeding up, let's slow it down and let's ask some questions here. Number one do you have a body? Well, yeah, okay. Well, god didn't give every one of his children a body. Does that mean you're worthy? Huh, yeah, oh, okay, that's interesting. Number two Do you have a life? Yes, so God also trusted you with a mission and a purpose. So God thinks you're worthy and he trusts you.

Speaker 1: 37:40

I was able to follow the truth back to the fact that he had a body and a life. Truth will lead us back to things that we know for sure Always, and truth will also light a brightness inside of you. It'll bring hope, it'll bring joy, it'll bring peace and it'll help you know yourself in a way that is irrefutable, and it will awaken inside of you a sense of awe in who you are. Truth does that, and if it's bringing those things to you, then you know you can trust it, and that's an important thing when you yourself have been betrayed by a nice guy or even a nice gal. All right, my loves. I hope this was super helpful for you. If it was, please and you would love more help, please feel free to book that call with me. It is in the description below and, if not go to ErinAndersonTheTraumaCoachcom On my webpage is booking options so you can book a call with me. My loves, I would love to help you more especially if you're dealing with these things, and until next time, from my heart to your heart, I'll see you on the other side. Bye, my loves.

Speaker 1: 39:35

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Speaker 1: 40:04

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