No More Mr. Nice Guy

The Nice Guy Syndrome

Robert A. Glover is a marriage and family therapist who practiced for many years in the Seattle area. Over years of practice he kept meeting the same kind of man. These men were generous, helpful and eager to please. They avoided conflict and tried hard to do everything right. Yet they were frustrated, resentful and often unhappy in love and work. Glover called the pattern the Nice Guy Syndrome. He first published No More Mr. Nice Guy himself as an e-book in 2000, and a print edition from Running Press followed a few years later.

At the center of the syndrome is a belief Glover calls the Nice Guy paradigm: if I am good, then I will be loved, get my needs met and have a problem-free life. Nice Guys try to become what they think others want. They hide anything that might cause disapproval. They believe that this will earn them love and ease.

Glover argues that it does the opposite. Hiding real needs and feelings makes these men dishonest, even when they think of themselves as honest. Their niceness has a hidden purpose: it is a strategy for getting something back.

He lists common traits of Nice Guys:

• They seek approval from others, especially women.
• They try to hide their perceived flaws and mistakes.
• They put other people's needs and wants ahead of their own.
• They avoid conflict and have trouble setting boundaries.
• They are often controlling, passive-aggressive and secretly angry.
• They feel they must fix or caretake others.
• They often have problems with intimacy and sex.
• They are often less successful at work than their talent would suggest.

Covert contracts

One of Glover's best-known ideas is the covert contract. A covert contract is an unspoken deal: I will do this for you, so that you will do that for me, and we will both act as if there is no deal. The Nice Guy is often unaware that he has made it.

A Nice Guy might do the dishes, plan a thoughtful date or listen patiently to a friend's problems. Under the surface he expects affection, sex, approval or loyalty in return. The other person never agreed to the trade. When the payment does not come, he feels cheated. That resentment comes out as sulking, sarcasm, withdrawal or sudden bursts of anger.

Glover connects covert contracts to the difference between caretaking and real caring. Caretaking is giving that comes from the giver's own need: to be needed, to avoid guilt or to create an obligation. Caring is giving freely, with no hidden bill. Recovery means noticing covert contracts and either asking directly for what you want or giving without expecting a return.

How Nice Guys are made

Glover traces the syndrome to childhood. Children are completely dependent, and they interpret everything that happens to them as a statement about their own worth. When a parent is absent, neglectful, angry or emotionally needy, the child does not conclude that the parent has a problem. He concludes that something is wrong with him.

Glover calls these experiences abandonment, using the word broadly. It includes physical absence but also emotional neglect, abuse and being used to meet a parent's emotional needs. The child develops toxic shame: a belief that he is not acceptable as he is. To survive, he learns to hide his needs, be good and seek approval. These strategies are logical for a child. They become a trap for an adult.

Glover also points to social change. He argues that industrialization took many fathers out of the home, leaving boys raised mostly by women, with few close models of adult men. He says that some men who came of age after the 1960s tried to define themselves against their fathers and to please women by being unlike traditional men. In his view this produced a generation of men who equate being good with being agreeable.

Some Nice Guys describe a close, enmeshed bond with their mother, in which they felt responsible for her happiness. Glover sees this as another form of abandonment: the boy's own needs came second to the parent's.

Learn to please yourself

Each chapter of the recovery program ends with exercises Glover calls Breaking Free Activities. They ask readers to write lists, notice patterns in their daily behavior and try small experiments, such as asking for something directly or saying no. Glover argues that insight alone does not change a Nice Guy. New behavior does, practiced in small steps.

The recovery program starts with the man himself. Glover tells Nice Guys to stop seeking approval. That means noticing when they act to please, and asking what they would do if no one were watching.

He asks readers to accept themselves as they are, flaws included. Hiding mistakes keeps toxic shame alive. Revealing yourself to safe people, and seeing that they do not reject you, weakens it. For this reason Glover strongly recommends a men's group or a therapy group. In his view, Nice Guys are often isolated from other men and need a safe place to tell the truth about themselves.

He also tells them to take care of their bodies, spend time alone, have fun and do things just because they enjoy them.

Make your needs a priority

Nice Guys learned that having needs was dangerous. So they hide their needs, try to meet them indirectly and feel like victims when no one guesses them. Glover argues that the opposite is healthy: put your own needs first and ask for what you want clearly.

This is not selfishness. A man who takes responsibility for his own needs does not need covert contracts and does not resent the people around him. He can then give freely. Glover lists practical steps: name a need, ask directly, accept a no and take care of the need some other way.

Reclaim your personal power

Glover describes personal power as a state of mind: being confident that you can handle whatever comes. Nice Guys try to create safety by controlling everything around them, which fails and keeps them anxious.

His recovery tools for this stage include:

• Surrender. Let go of trying to control what you cannot control, and respond to life as it comes.
• Embrace fear. Do the things you fear, because fear shrinks when you act.
• Develop integrity. Decide what you believe is right and do it, even when it disappoints someone.
• Set boundaries. Say no, state limits and let other people handle their own feelings about it.
• Express feelings. Notice anger and other emotions and say them directly instead of hiding them.

Reclaim your masculinity

Glover argues that Nice Guys are often disconnected from their masculinity. They see other men as competitors or as aggressive and crude, and they seek the company of women. He tells them to build real friendships with men, find male mentors, join activities with other men and take care of their physical strength.

He is clear that this does not mean becoming aggressive or dismissive of women. He describes masculinity as strength, courage, leadership and the willingness to take responsibility.

Love, sex and the life you want

The last three chapters apply the program to three areas, in order: "Get the Love You Want," "Get the Sex You Want" and "Get the Life You Want." Glover says Nice Guys often choose partners who need fixing, sometimes called projects, because being needed feels safe. These relationships stay stuck. Healthy relationships, he argues, come from two people who each take responsibility for their own needs.

On sex, Glover argues that many Nice Guys carry shame about their desires and try to earn sex through good behavior. He discusses compulsive habits, including heavy use of pornography, and encourages men to take responsibility for their own sexual needs and talk about them openly with a partner.

Finally, he encourages Nice Guys to pursue the life and work they want, take risks and stop waiting for permission. The goal of recovery is the Integrated Male: a man who accepts himself, takes care of his needs, can be kind without being a doormat and can be strong without being cruel.

What the critics say

The book rests on Glover's clinical experience rather than controlled research, and terms like Nice Guy Syndrome are not clinical diagnoses. Critics say its account of masculinity relies on broad gender stereotypes, and that its explanation of social change places much of the blame on mothers, absent fathers and feminism. The book is widely shared in online men's communities, including some hostile to women, although Glover tells readers not to become jerks. Many readers of any gender say the advice on people-pleasing, covert contracts and boundaries applies to them.

Who should read it

Read it if you recognize yourself as a chronic people-pleaser who gives in order to get and then feels resentful. Treat its gender theory with caution, and focus on the practical tools for honesty and boundaries.