Episode 131 – Dr. Robert Glover, No More Mr. Nice Guy

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He's written a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy.

We're going to get into the realms of relationships, love, and much more.

Dr. Glover, welcome to HXP.

Xavier, thanks for the invitation.

So, Dr. Glover, I think a great way to kick this show off is if you could paint a picture of your background, give us an idea of what your education is.

I think that would be a great way to start this conversation.

um yeah in terms of background education i i originally started out to be a minister i grew

up in a very fundamental christian church and uh got my first two degrees in religion and then um

my my freshman year of college i took a psychology 101 class and just fell in love so from there on

out i pretty much shaped everything i did uh to work with people and then eventually got my phd

and marriage and family therapy.

I don't know, about 30 plus years ago.

It's been a little while.

So that's my basic education.

Okay, okay.

So Dr. Glover, I want to be radically honest with you.

As we were promoting this episode about a week this week,

I was told not to take this interview.

And I'm wondering, have we gotten so sensitive as a society

that we can no longer discuss these types of issues

without it becoming some charged gender-based thing?

I was reading your book, I didn't get the sense that what you were teaching men is toxically

masculine or any of those things. In the book, what I found, my experience of it, was that you're

actually teaching men how to be more honest with themselves. And in fact, you even dedicate the

introduction of your book to many of women that helped you. You say without their help that it

wouldn't have been possible. So, you know, can you touch on why your material may be perceived

in this light and because you work with men and women equally in your practice right well

historically yes pretty much i i pretty much work with men now for probably about the last 15 years

has pretty much just been with men um but yeah for for 25 plus years i was a marriage and family

therapist so i was working with couples and and women individually and so you know it's a good

question. And, you know, when the book was published about 17 years ago by Barnes and Noble,

I think they actually kind of hope there might be a little bit of controversy or blowback.

And it never really happened. You know, they thought, well, maybe that'll sell books.

And it's understandable that if somebody just looked at the title, you know, no more Mr. Nice

Guy, they might think, well, you know, why is somebody writing a book teaching men to be not

nice? There's already enough not nice men out there. And when the book came out, the word

not even in our mainstream. And it's not by talking no more Mr. Nice Guy, it's not at all

anti-female or anti-women. In fact, women are my biggest cheerleaders for it because I get

emails all the time saying, thank you, my husband, my boyfriend read your book, or

I want to give him your book, that kind of thing. Because really, it is just about men learning to

be honest, authentic, trustable. It has nothing to do with becoming manipulative or toxic or

harmful in any way. Right. I mean, I found that you're just teaching people how to be more

authentic with themselves and others and the people closest to them. So I felt this concern

was a little bit over colored. I felt like the people that were saying that hadn't really read

your book yet. So I appreciate you addressing that for us right out of the gate. Let's get into

the book itself. Let's get into nice guy syndrome. You know, you talk about this in your book,

and you talk about how this afflicts many men when it comes to forming relationships in their lives.

Why, what is it, what is a nice guy? Okay, well, let me, you know, kind of continuing with

my personal history and how that weaves into it. You know, I tell people I'm a recovering nice guy

and I was, I'm, I'm a combination that, you know, I talk about in the book and there's lots of

different unique combinations of what creates what I call a nice guy. But, but basically a nice guy

is a person. It could be a man or a woman. Women read the book all the time and say, Hey, I got,

I got a lot out of it, but it's a person who doesn't believe he is okay just the way he is.

And this is the result, from my point of view, of inaccurately internalized belief systems very early in life based on external events.

And so the nice guy from a very early age is trying to become what he thinks other people want him to be in order to get loved and get his needs met and have a good life.

And trying to hide things about himself that he thinks other people might react negatively to.

so that that's just kind of you know the little snapshot of the nice guy and that that is you know

I tell people the book is autobiographical I just use other people's stories to tell my own

because I was trained to to be a nice guy to hide my needs and wants to take care of other people

to be a pleaser to be a fixer to take care of other people and a couple years into my second

marriage my my now ex-wife said hey you know everybody thinks you're a nice guy you can be

guy, but you're really not. You can be really passive aggressive. You can be really hurtful.

You can be mean to me. You can blow up when I'm least expecting it. And she said,

you need to go get some therapy. And I thought, well, you're the one that's angry all the time.

You know, maybe you should go get therapy. And actually she was. So I went and I went into

therapy. I joined a men's group, started working with a therapist. And my goal was to find out why

me being a nice guy didn't make my wife appreciate me more, didn't make her more loving, more

and it didn't make her happy.

And luckily, I got in with some good therapists and some good work

and learned about setting boundaries, making my needs a priority, being honest,

learning how to connect with other men,

learning how to break those cycles of codependency.

And so what happened then was in my practice as a marriage and family therapist,

couples were coming to me,

and a lot of the guys were saying the exact same thing that I was saying.

they're talking about their wives or their girlfriends and say, I'm a nice guy. I'm one

of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I treat her better than her ex. I'm raising her kids.

I try to make her happy. I give to her all the time. It's never enough. She's never happy.

She never wants to have sex anymore. When's it going to be my turn? So I started an every other

Wednesday, no more Mr. Nice Guy men's group. And I just started writing some chapters, lessons,

whatever, about just what I was discovering in my own work. And just kind of by looking at the

and I kept handing these out every other week when we met and soon they these guys and their

wives and girlfriends were saying you know Robert you need to write a book you need to go on Oprah

there's lots of nice guys out there and people need to know about it so over a period of about

six seven years I wrote the book took about three years to get it published because a lot of

publishing companies said their marketing department said men won't won't buy self-help books

But that's been 17 years ago and sales go up every year.

So so that that's how the book came to be.

And that's kind of how my work with men and nice guys came to be.

It started out working on me.

You know, what I was doing wasn't working.

And I went to figure out why.

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you mentioned the bigger picture because there is that.

You start the book by saying that there have been decades of this dramatic social change that has happened in our society.

What exactly has happened in the traditional family dynamic that has changed the way men behave?

Behave? Is that the right word?

The way that men are.

It goes deeper than behavior.

It goes down really to core paradigm, roadmap, how people see themselves in the world.

And that's what dictates our behavior, of course, is our emotional roadmap of the world and how we fit into it.

And we all have them.

paradigms. Most of us don't know it. Most of us think that whatever our mind tells us must be

true because we all believe whatever our mind tells us. But what we don't realize is we've all

stored up a lot of emotional belief systems in a very primitive part of our brain at a very young

age based on inaccurately interpreting the experiences around us. You know, dad's upset,

mom's crying, parents are fighting, parents, you know, are critical or perfectionistic. And we

internalize that that's telling a story about us all children do that and then all children develop

a roadmap or a paradigm to try to negotiate that world experience that they're having with very few

life skills because they're little kids and and so some grow up trying to be pleasers some grow

up being perfectionist some grew up angry some grew up oppositionally defiant and rejecting all

authority,

Some grow up using sex to get their value and identity. Some grow up using money. It can take lots of different forms. And just one of the forms that I saw a lot of – and I see it a lot in women as well. In fact, this kind of codependency – I never used the word in the book. But that's really what we're talking about is a codependency that I'm not okay as I am. I have to get my value externally from other people.

And I think nice girls were around long before nice guys.

So I think for me the biggest thing that's really had the effect on men in this way, in terms of developing this kind of paradigm, has probably been the absence of fathers from the home.

You know, if you go back 100 years ago, 150 years ago easily, boys grew up, you know, in an agrarian farming society.

And they they worked with their dads. They worked with their cousins and their uncles and their grandfathers.

And they were around men and connecting with men.

That just really doesn't happen anymore.

A lot of boys grow up without their father even there in single parent families or with stepdads or dad is working.

You know, at very minimum, dad leaves home every day to go do something that the boy never sees and then returns home, you know, tired and just wants to watch TV.

Those are stereotypes.

But what I think has happened is that there's not been a masculine presence in a lot of boys' lives,

and they've mainly been influenced by a feminine presence, primarily raised by their mothers, going to preschool, primarily women, going to elementary school, primarily female teachers.

and one thing that i often say is that in in most western society a little boy

moving from third grade to fourth grade not only has to learn his reading writing and arithmetic

but also how to please a woman how to make this female teacher happy he's already been learning

how to make his mother happy and then there's no no masculine initiation whatsoever into an adult

masculine world. And I know those words, masculine and feminine, are kind of hot topics, but we don't

have to make them a hot topic. We all have masculine and feminine tendencies, and there's

nothing wrong with masculine, there's nothing wrong with feminine. There can be a healthy

masculine and a healthy feminine, and there can be a toxic masculine and a toxic feminine.

And I think a lot of the toxic masculine has to do with the result of not having healthy masculine

boys as they grow up. So, I mean, it equates down to something that simple, just not having

an adequate role model that represents a masculine figure in a guy's life. I mean,

this is where it stems from? Well, that's, I think, a big piece. I mean, a lot of other factors,

I believe, have entered into that. But if you think about it, if you're a little boy growing up

and dad's hardly around, or if he is, it's not a pleasant experience to be around him,

you know, that means you either kind of tend to isolate yourself and or try to figure out how to

please women, because those are kind of the main people in your life that you have to figure out

how to please. And what happens for a lot of guys, and also temperament fits into this.

I'm a fairly easygoing guy in a lot of ways. My mother, she's 84 now, you know, pretty much every

with, my mother has at some point announced to the woman that, you know, Bobby never did like

conflict and I didn't, and I still don't. So part of that's even just temperament. Um, but a big

part of this was I grew up trying to be different from other men because my father, my mother

trained me to be different from my father. Um, and trying to figure out, okay, what is this

feminine view of the world that I have to fit into if I'm going to get love and get my needs met?

and um and what happens is in a lot of guys just never grow up and meet any kind of real challenge

in their life and never have any healthy sense of themselves as a man as as as a masculine person

yeah yeah that really rings a bell with me i mean it and i've got your book in front of me right now

and i'm just i'm just taking a look at it and i mean some of some of these traits that you say

that happen as men become to be honest with themselves you know they start to accept themselves

They use their mistakes as valuable learning tools.

They stop seeking the approval of others.

They experience loving and intimate relationships.

They face their fears.

They develop integrity and honesty.

They set boundaries.

I mean, there's a litany of positive things that start to happen when you recover from what you term as nice guy syndrome.

What does being integrated mean, what you use this term in the book?

That's a good question.

And, you know, I don't know that I have, okay, here's what it is.

Here's what it looks like.

You know, you know, one, two, three, here's how you get there.

But it really is, you know, it involves, you know, being authentic, being yourself, making

your needs a priority, learning to soothe your anxiety so you can act with integrity

rather than just, you know, doing whatever's easiest or whatever's most expedient.

It really involves becoming a person you can trust, a what you see is what you get kind

of guy.

and I know in my workshops and seminars and you know in interviews like this some of the feedback

I frequently get is you know Robert you're so authentic you're so real and I promise you I would

not have been accused of being authentic 25 years ago nobody would have ever said that to me because

I wasn't I you know I was the chameleon I was you know kind of licking my finger and holding it up

to see which way the wind was blowing to see what I needed to be or do or say to not rock the boat

to not upset anybody, to not get a negative reaction, to may not thought badly of.

And those are not good qualities.

But that was what was leading my life.

And now I can make a decision based on what feels right to me, what's most important with

my core values.

I can act on that even if I receive resistance from people around me.

I can be honest.

I can be transparent.

I can tell the truth.

I do tell the truth.

And kind of one of my mantras is nothing hidden, nothing half-assed.

do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it in the open. And, and, you know, there's just that

authenticity about it. Yeah, I resonate with that so much. I mean, I think authenticity now is so

valuable. I feel like there is this air of people and they put this, I don't know, it's like a wall

or a facade. I mean, you can get onto social media and you see this all the time. I mean,

people don't put their problems on social media. You know, it's, it's always this color of the

perfect. Come join it. Come, I don't know, worship. I don't know what it is. So, you know, I want to

talk about the stages of becoming a nice guy. How does this evolve in a person? You talk about,

you know, this creation of a survival mechanism, toxic shame and abandonment. I think that I

reversed those. So how does that work? Well, you hit the nail. You've got the right components

there. You know, in terms of my perspective, and actually, you know, I finished writing the book

well over 20 years ago, and I've continued to work on me, and I've continued to work with,

you know, thousands of men and women around this dynamic. So I keep evolving in terms of

how I view the context. I think there's two things that really fit into this creation of

the nice guy you know and and we'll just say temperament being a thing that you know we're

going to naturally develop according to our temperament our our dna inheritance um and so

you know two boys two kids in the same family might have pretty similar experiences and then

of course birth order and gender and other things are going to play into it but based on just their

their emotional inheritance or emotional wiring they might create totally different roadmaps in

unusual to see when I work with a nice guy, it's not unusual for them to have had a sibling

that was oppositionally defiant. You know, they were the one that just blatantly resisted every

rule in the family, you know, just cut off their own nose to spike their face. And then the nice

guys at the other extreme of hiding all their wants and needs, never rocking the boat, never

be a moment's problem. And so that, that, that internal temperament can have a big play in this,

but then where it begins to get you know we'll use the word toxic for for the the developing child

is is when they begin to experience things that feel like an abandonment and for a child

all children abandonment feels like death because it is because children are cannot survive on their

own they can't take care of themselves so anything that feels that is disruptive of their schedule

their needs don't get met in a timely judicious way where there's any kind of real abandonment

parents disappearing not being there anger it's interesting as a marriage and family therapist

I'd work with couples and maybe you know they couldn't get a babysitter for their kids so

they'd bring in their you know their three-month-old or you know the three-year-old and just kind of

set them down while they did the couples therapy. And it's funny, the kids are barometers of the

tension between the parents. Like if it was a three month old, it might just be there sleeping,

you know, in his little carry thing. And then as soon as there's tension between mom and dad,

the kid wakes up and starts crying. Or if it's a three year old, they're on the floor coloring.

And as soon as there's tension that they crawl up in one of the parents laps and start kind of

being needy and showing them. So children are just like, they're sensitive weather. Dogs are too.

If you have a dog in your house and you start fighting, the dog will get anxious.

Most pack tribe type

animals really absorb the anxiety of the people or the other animals in their environment.

And so two things really play into this for the developing child.

One is that abandonment can trigger anxiety, which I did not talk as much about in the book, which I've come to see more since I finished the book.

But the other is this concept that is called toxic shame.

and it took me a long time to understand toxic shame and i i still remember um in my second

marriage my wife was reading a book by john bradshaw around shame and she's reading it to me

and she said this is you this is you and she kind of read the passage i thought

i don't that doesn't sound at all like me that sounds a lot like you and and i and and really

i i actually read the book and i thought i don't i don't even get this concept of what is this toxic

shame, let alone see it in myself. And then I did. I began to do some work and I realized

most of what I did in life was was guarding or protect protecting that sense of I'm not OK.

Not just I do things that aren't OK. I'm not OK. I'm not lovable. I'm defective. I'm broken.

And I can't let anybody see that. So pretty much everything nice guys are doing based on these,

again, inaccurately internalized beliefs that they internalize in a very primitive,

immature brain based on these experiences that feel like abandonment, that feel like death,

that trigger their anxiety in childhood. And, you know, this doesn't have to be a wildly,

you know, toxic or abusive family. Every child has some experiences they internalize

in terms of shame and anxiety. So then what the child starts doing is trying to manage both the

shame and the anxiety. And so they manage the shame by trying to be good and hide what they

They manage the anxiety by, you know, constantly reading their environment.

What do I have to do or what do I have to avoid doing to not trigger negative reactions that make me anxious?

And then these little children grow up to be adults that are hiding parts of themselves, trying to, you know, kind of wear this suit of clothes that say, you know, I'm good.

I'm good.

I'm capable.

I'm competent.

I'm lovable.

and then also trying to manage the people and situations outside of them to not feel so much anxiety on the inside of them.

Sure. Yeah, that's a resounding answer. I love that.

One of the key areas that you mentioned about nice guys is approval seeking.

There is this aspect of them where they're trying to please everyone but end up pleasing no one, including themselves.

So you wrote about how they use this value-seeking mechanism to convince themselves that they are lovable or desirable.

In this context, what are some of the value-seeking mechanisms?

And if you could offer some examples of what a nice guy might use to exhibit this behavior.

Well, probably I would say number one thing that they do to seek approval is to hide their needs.

and when I work with nice guys and start working around making their needs a priority I mean I get

this deer in the head like look oh no that'll make me bad if you know people know that I have needs

which if you think about it that's that's pretty skewed um you know but but nice guys will believe

that they're bad for having needs um they're going to get in trouble if they have needs people can

be mad at them if they have needs so that's a real real strong manifestation so one of the things

they do is they create what I call covert contracts where they start giving to everybody else if

If I give to you without you having to ask, then you'll give to me without me having to ask.

So they hide their needs.

They even often stay unconscious to their own needs themselves.

When I start working with nice guys around their, you know, what they need, what they want in life,

how to live a life that's true to their deepest sense of self and calling,

you know, I'll give them a legal pad to just start writing things they can do to start meeting their needs

and getting their wants met.

And I've had guys just sit there and stare at the page like they have no clue of what this looks like.

So that means they got to go out and start getting approval for other people.

And again, that approval seeking might be I'm needless and wantless or I'll take really good care of you.

It might be, you know, look at me, I'm smart or look at me, you know, I have a good job or I make good money or look at me, I'm different from other men.

That's a huge one for nice guys.

toxic masculine guys. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a good guy. Uh, you know, nowadays the term

for that is virtue signaling. That term didn't exist much. I don't think when I wrote the book

either, but that's what nice guys do. They virtue, virtue signal. Look at me. I'm a good guy. I'm

different from those bad men. I'm not toxic. I don't have a sexual agenda. You know, I'll treat

you well. I'll, I'll, you know, and when it comes to women, I'll listen to you talk about your

problems. I hope you fix your problems. I'll do things for you. Like me, like me, like me.

And it does get most manifested typically in their interpersonal relationships and especially with the opposite sex.

I mean it doesn't end up working out for any of the people involved in these situations, does it?

No, and especially – let me just go a little bit more to the covert contracts because this is where it doesn't work out for anybody.

Nice guys – and again, I've even kind of clarified this more since I wrote the book.

This is even a little bit more clear than what you'll see in the book.

Nice guys tend to operate from three fundamental covert contract.

Now, the covert contract is called that because it's covert.

It's hidden.

It's unconscious, often from the nice guy himself.

Often the behaviors are not even in his own conscious awareness.

And these three covert contracts are all an if-then proposition.

If I do this, then this will happen.

And the nice guy is convinced this paradigm, this roadmap should work, and it should work in all situations.

And in a minute, I'm going to say why it makes them often not so nice and why it doesn't work for other people.

So the three covert contracts, number one, is if I'm a good guy, then I will be liked and loved.

Now, number one, what's a good guy?

And who's keeping score?

The nice guy is always the one keeping score.

And if he thinks, well, I'm a good guy, I'm different from other men, you know, or I don't use women sexually or, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever in his mind thinks makes him a good guy, then he believes other people should like him and love him.

Now, of course, not everybody's going to like or love us.

It just doesn't happen in this world.

But what that can lead to then is all of these lead to a lot of resentment, but they also lead to a lot of manipulation.

so one of the things and i've read like articles about this of women have really nailed this

where a guy has treated them really well you know the whole proverbial listen to him talk about the

problems done nice things for them and then he has an expectation that the woman should like him

and want to be his girlfriend and of course have sex with them and and it becomes this you know

this manipulative agenda and and you know so i've read articles written by women talking about

how they see that behavior for what it is. It's this expectation and agenda. So there's one

covert contract. The second covert contract I mentioned before is if I meet your needs without

you having to ask, then you will meet my needs without me having to ask. Now, the problem is,

is the nice guy is meeting what he perceives to be the other person's needs. Actually,

the nice guy usually gives what he needs to give, not so much what the other person needs

see because often all the well-meaning help we give other people as nice guys the people don't

need it they're not broken uh they don't need us to to jump in and be the white knight knight in

shining armor and come save them or rescue them from their own drama or calamity so there's that

and and then there's also this again the resentment that builds up well i've done this for you and i

did this for you and i did this for you you don't give back you don't give to me and so there's that

there was a contract they just thought they just thought you were being nice you're just being

available and and so now all of a sudden well you didn't give to me and we're blowing up at them and

we're having victim pukes and being passive aggressive and you know and going on the attack

or withdrawing and having a you know pity party and and but even the bigger problem is i said

nice guys because they're they're uncomfortable with their own needs um if a person does try to

meet their needs, often the nice guy won't let them. I've had a number of the significant women

in my life tell me, you are really difficult to give to. And they're right, because there's that

part of me that feels really uncomfortable if people are giving to me, whether it's praise,

whether it's affection, whether it's a gift. So that covert contract doesn't work for the nice

guy or the people in his or her life. And then the third covert contract is if I do everything right,

then I will have a smooth problem-free life. Now, this doesn't work for a number of reasons.

Number one, where is the rule book that says how to do everything right? Now, I know through the

centuries, a few people have pitched those rule books, but even those rule books usually say,

everybody falls short of this standard. Nobody gets it right. And so there's this, well, I've

done everything right. I've been the good guy. I didn't do this. I've done that. Then why are you

me? Why are you making my life difficult? Why aren't you making my life better? So the nice

guys believe that life really can be smooth and problem free. But that's not the universe we live

in. We live in a chaotic universe and a chaotic world. And so nice guys are in this very almost

childlike infantile way. You know, if I do everything right, you know, just like the daddy

will never get mad or mommy will never cry or

yell at me. They carry that into adulthood.

And again, the core piece that really comes out of these covert contracts, besides they're not getting their needs met or getting the connection they really want, but the bigger piece is all the resentment that stores up inside of them and comes out in a lot of not nice ways.

Yeah. So, you know, through this covert concept idea, then the person ends up becoming bitter because both people end up building resentment because first the nice guy that's creating this covert contract and then the other person, whoever they're with, they have no idea this contract even exists. There's no communication there. Right. So when it doesn't come to fruition, I mean, it just makes no sense. I mean, is this problematic because of a lack of communication?

I mean, what can people do to not – I mean, how can we communicate better so that we're not creating these ideas of these contracts covertly in our minds?

Well, it's okay to have reciprocal arrangements with people in which everybody gets their needs met.

In fact, that's what mature people do.

In fact, that's my definition of a mature grownup is somebody that is consciously taking responsibility for their own needs and creating what I call cooperative reciprocal relationships.

with other people and professionals and groups and institutions in which everybody benefits from it.

But that's all overt, and that's the difference.

Is it the covert contract?

In this case, the nice guy has hidden the fact that he even has needs or wants

and then has hidden the contract of what he's going to give to get.

It's always a manipulative giving to get.

and to make it overt um you know it just means speaking out loud what it is we want and i know

one of the first things that i really went to work on when i started working on my nice guy issues

the first one was being honest um and the second one was probably starting to make my needs a

priority where i started actually asking for what i wanted in very clear ways you know just as simple

as can you do this for me i would appreciate it if you could do this and with no strings attached

bargains, just being clear. Can you help me with this? And it's so simple, but yet it is such a

transformational switch from I'm going to be oblivious to my needs and wants. I'm going to

communicate them unconsciously and indirectly, expect you to read my mind and expect you to give

to me, even though I'm not very good at letting you actually give to me. And then I'm going to

be upset at you for not doing a better job. It's so much better to just say, can you do this for

can't, then you find somebody else that can. If you actually need assistance, a lot of things we,

of course, can do for ourselves, but the healthiest, maturest people have a multitude, 20, 30, 50, 100

cooperative reciprocal systems in their life, all filled with people, professionals, groups

that are available to help that person get what they need in life. And healthy people

are constantly evaluating those, creating new ones, reevaluating or getting rid of the ones

that don't work anymore. But it's inviting people, groups, institutions, professionals into our life

that are available to help us get our needs met. Now, that's a real conscious process.

That begins with saying, I have needs and they are important. And I'm an adult now,

and it's up to me to take responsibility for them. And so I'm going to openly ask,

you know recruit basically people professionals institutions and groups to help me get my needs

met yeah i mean it seems like you said so simple of an idea and just being clear in your communication

with the people that you have these expectations from instead of trying to cover these needs or

wants up i mean just communicate what you want to the person that that you're wanting it from

and be in the open about it, right?

Yeah, and for example, you and I have formed

what I would call a cooperative reciprocal relationship.

Both of us, hopefully, are going to get something of value

out of this time we spend together.

And there's been communication between us leading up to this

of, you know, you've asked for certain things,

I've said this, we've done that.

You know, there's been, you know,

there's been communication back and forth in that process.

And then we both acted on faith

interview, that it would be a positive experience for both of us, that we would both get benefit

out of it. And that now that the people listening to it, in a sense, we've got this cooperative

reciprocal relationship with them, that they're getting value out of it as well. And they may

keep listening to your podcast. They may go out and buy my book. And so it's all out there in the

open. And this is what mature people do. They form lots of these kind of cooperative reciprocal

systems. So it's just an aspect of growing up and becoming a man. Becoming an adult. Yeah,

man or woman. It's becoming an adult. And again, that's my definition of a grown up adult. A

mature adult is somebody who takes full responsibility for getting their needs met.

Okay. So, I mean, clearly women can do this as well, right? Of course. Of course. What are some

of the ways that women do this? Well, I'm not sure it's really all that different. Now,

you know, we could probably dig down deeper into are there some different basic needs that a

masculine kind of oriented person and feminine oriented person have? And but for example,

when I was a marriage therapist, I often told the couples I was working with the best gift you can

give your relationship is to have good same sex friends. So the men need to spend time with guys

makes them happy women need to spend time with women doing whatever makes them happy but that's

filling their bucket right forming those cooperative reciprocal systems and then they

both bring that fullness back to the relationship instead of expecting their partner to be like

their only system that's there in place to help them meet their needs so it may look different

for men and women and you know one of the things that to me that is beautiful that um that we've

really come to see that certain aspects of gender are fairly fluid and, and, you know, you can't make

a rule up that said all men are this way or all women this way. And so the ways that most of us

get our needs met now, it's, it's, it's really kind of cool because it doesn't matter if you're

a guy or a girl, man or a woman that, that culturally we now have a lot more opportunity

for people to, to really dive in to whatever makes them the happiest, whatever fulfills them,

whatever their sweet spot is. And, um, and you know, it might, you know, kind of in the bigger

picture, it may look a little different for men than it does for women. But on the individual

basis, I think what's most important is that the individual person values what is important to them

and, and then consciously goes about creating that to the best of their ability.

Yeah. It makes so much sense to me. I mean, you, in the book, you talk about when, when it,

When it comes to another person's needs, a nice guy is prone to wanting to fix whatever is wrong in their partner by a way of caretaking.

What is caretaking?

What does the nice guy get out of it?

And how does caretaking compare with just caring for someone truly?

Yeah, just truly caring versus caretaking.

Kind of how I simply define it is caring is giving to somebody else what they need to receive.

caretaking is giving what we need to give and there's always those strings attached and in it

and it usually for most nice guys the number one string is to be appreciated oh you know they're

gonna thank me they're they're gonna be glad I did that they're gonna think well of me and you

know if we take it far enough down that ladder is eventually especially if it's you know with with

a woman oh she's gonna want to have sex with me she's want to be my partner and be sexual with me

and so that caretaking it is toxic in so many ways because we we are giving to get it's

manipulative by nature even if it's just wanting to be appreciated but it but it's also fundamentally

dismissive of other people it's like saying oh i don't think you are capable of of you know

figuring out what you most need to you know to fill your bucket to have your own good life to

resolve your problems or your struggles in life, you need me. You need me to tell you what you

should do. You need me to help you. You need me to step in and fix it, you know, pay off your debt

or help you move or, you know, get your car fixed or, and, and then you're going to appreciate me

for that. And then you're going to treat me well, never be mad at me, never be upset at me, never

point out any of my faults. Those are, you know, again, back to the covert contracts. So that,

that whole caretaking thing, you know, really is so toxic because not only is it dismissive and

condescending of other people and kind of self-righteous if you think about it, it doesn't

help other people and it doesn't get you what you want. I mean, the person caretaking, usually all

they end up with is a person that keeps having problems that keep needing fixed. And then the

caretaker gets resentful because I've done all this to help fix you. How come your problems

haven't gone away and now we have this smooth, calm life and you love me in the way I want to

be loved? Yeah. I mean, it seems so simple. If you just give for the desire of giving and you

want to do that without any strings attached, it's going to work out for you. Yeah. And it

doesn't matter if it works out. I mean, it's as simple as, for example, if you drive quite a bit

and you're driving traffic.

you know, a lot of times you'll see situations where somebody needs to move over a lane or they need to pull into traffic but is not moving.

And you may just create a little space and let them move in.

Now, if you get pissy if they don't give you the wave, you know, the thank you wave, that was a covert contract.

That was caretaking.

but if you just did it because it makes the world a little better place and you know it's kind of

the golden rule you'd appreciate if somebody did that to you there's no strings attached there's

no energy around it it's just a little space you created to let somebody else's life flow a little

bit better and and we can do that through life then our giving really becomes pure and and there

are no hooks to it there's no energy attached to it and and are walking the planet in that way

makes the world a better place. And maybe it even helps that person have a little better day. And

maybe down the road, they even think, you know, oh, yeah, I'll let that person in. And, you know,

and maybe there's, you know, there's a snowball effect that, you know, maybe traffic just got

better for several people today. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's going to be bumps in the road.

That's just part of life. That's how it goes. And you talk about reclaiming personal power.

how do we start to do that for ourselves well it's really what we've been talking about in terms of

of recognizing that you have needs and your needs are important and you're not bad and you know and

that people want to help you get your needs met that that was a big revelation to me oh you mean

people want to help me meet my needs yeah they they really do especially if you can be really

clear about them and and especially if this is in the form of some sort of reciprocal relationship

where everybody's getting something of value out of it's not a giving to get but but it's where

everybody values that context and that connection and and it really again this is what what adults

do it once they actually become true adults and so that's where our power comes from and um you

know i i developed this concept of the cooperative reciprocal relationships after i finished writing

the book but i know in my life it's been transformational you know it sounds kind of

But I actually, when I do workshops, I have people, we get a big piece of paper and kind of do a little bit of a mind map where they, I have them start with, okay, let's just make you, you know, draw you and then draw a bunch of two-ended arrows, the arrow pointing away from you and pointing back to you, and then a bunch of circles around you.

And in those circles, we start by just writing what cooperative reciprocal relationships do you have?

well I've got these friends and and I've got my personal trainer and I've got my dentist and I've

got my accountant and I've got my church group and okay those are groups those are reciprocal

relationships that we have that that help empower us right we get something out of it and the other

side of the ad arrow is getting something out of it the second part is then then I'll have the

people all right let's do a second page where let's start listing some reciprocal relationships

you need to consciously create.

Okay, I need to get a therapist.

I need to get an attorney.

I need a new accountant.

Or, you know, I need to find, you know,

a meetup group that will, you know,

that I go hiking with.

So we actually, all right,

what are things that would help empower us

and make our life feel fuller and more complete?

And then go to work on creating those in our life.

And then the third part of the assignment,

I'll have people list the cooperative relationships, cooperative reciprocal relationships they have that maybe aren't so cooperative or reciprocal anymore.

Maybe the ones that aren't really serving anybody all that well or they're real one sided and maybe reevaluate those, maybe go back and renegotiate them or maybe prune them off and find others that served better.

And all three of these stages are an important part of that empowerment.

Because here's the thing.

What I find that for children, at least my theory of child development, if the parents are actually doing this kind of thing, they're being differentiated, they're making their needs a priority, they're filling their bucket up, they have lots of cooperative reciprocal relationships.

and they're the husband and wife or the mother and father or the man and woman or the woman and

woman, man and man, whatever, you know, if each to each other, there's just one more important

cooperative reciprocal relationship. But it's not like, OK, you're my wife. Therefore, you should

do this. You should meet all these needs or you're my husband. Therefore, you should do all you belong

to me. You should meet these needs. They're both filling their bucket up with a lot of cooperative

reciprocal systems, and then they have children, and if they can be attentive to their children

and meet the children's needs in timely, judicious, and consistent ways, child development theory says

that out of that, children internalize an emotional belief that I'm lovable, my needs are important,

and the world is like my family. I can go out in the world, and the world's going to operate in

the same kind of way. Now, can you imagine if we just take that, and we're adults now, we can't go

create our childhood, but we can now start meeting our own needs in timely, judicious,

and consistent ways. And I believe we will internalize the same emotional belief that

we store up in our very deep parts of our brain that says, I'm lovable, my needs are important,

and I can go out into the world and expect that I will be loved and get my needs met.

Sure, sure. You know, I want to talk about forming intimate relationships. You talk about how

guys, they struggle to get the kind of love that they want. And you describe them as, quote,

bad enders. And also, you say that they're in measures and avoiders. What do these terms mean?

What are we talking about? Well, we all grow up and unconsciously co-create, recreate familiar

relationship systems with the intimate people in our life. I can't remember who I'm quoting,

from a book on codependency I read years ago. But this person wrote, we all tend to co-create

relationships with people who have some of the worst traits of both of our parents. And the

other person is doing the same thing with us as well. And the reason for that is, is whatever

relationship skills or survival mechanisms we developed in childhood to cope with our mother

and our father, because that's all, that's what we know, right? That's how we know how to do

relationship, we will kind of energetically attract or go out and find people that let us

co-create what feels familiar and do what we learn to do as kids. Now, it's not, it's logical,

you know, in an emotional kind of way, but it's not real logical in terms of people really getting,

you know, what they want. And the other people are, everybody's doing that. So that means whoever

we pair up with whether you're a nice guy or or not or whatever you are going to co-create

emotional relational systems with other people where both of you are reenacting your childhood

trauma your childhood wounds your childhood abandonment and using your childhood survival

mechanisms on each other now with nice guys a lot of times that that it often plays out that

playing that caretaker role of the fixer is that they go out and they, you know, find a partner

that seems to need their help and they're fixing. And, and it's kind of the covert contracts all

play into that. And for the nice guys, kind of like, Oh, if I can, you know, she's got these

good traits that I like. And if I can just help her fix these other things over here, it's kind

of like, she's the diamond in the rough that I'll polish up. And then she'll become this amazing

person who will bless my life. And, you know, I'll be happy and everything will work well.

But that actually never happens. All that ever happens is everybody involved just doubles down on hanging on to their survival mechanisms and their defense mechanisms and their guarding systems and their, you know, anxiety management systems.

And it's kind of like that's why then it doesn't work and we blame everything on the other person and we move on thinking, well, you know, the next person won't be so crazy.

You know, the next person will be different.

And then we just tend to go out and co-create the same.

And then there's this tendency, and you can see it culturally, where, you know, now all the women are getting bitter about all the men and all the men are bitter about all the women.

And it's kind of like we're blaming everybody else.

But the truth is we've all gone out and co-created these systems because, unfortunately, they feel familiar.

And the human brain likes things that feel familiar.

and we like traveling the same neural pathways even if kind of that familiar territory is a

ghetto it's the ghetto we know and so we're you know we're going to keep just hanging out in the

old neighborhood and that's you know an emotional metaphor for how we do relationship and um and

and fortunately you know a good marriage therapist a good relationship therapist if people are open

to it can help people use this dynamic to become conscious of their childhood woundings,

their childhood abandonments, their internalized belief systems as children, and use them to start

working on them, cleaning them out, developing a more mature adulthood. And as a relationship

therapist, I've often referred to intimate relationships as powerful personal growth

machines. If we're conscious of, we're going to recreate what feels familiar. Therefore we're

recreating what feels bad. Um, we're just going to do that. Now I, I, since I mainly work with

men now, but I'd say the same thing to women. I tell guys, Hey,

whatever your male brain thinks a woman is going to do for you in a relationship is wrong.

And I would say the same thing to a woman. Whatever your female brain thinks a guy is going to do for you in a relationship is wrong.

Now, what I think we can expect is that whoever we get with, whoever we get with, is going to challenge us, is going to trigger us, is going to bring up old stuff.

And if we are willing to be conscious and work and bring in good help to help, not do this by ourselves, like don't try this at home, get help to do this.

I mean, I'm in my third marriage.

We've been married almost three years.

My wife sees a psychologist, a therapist regularly.

I've got a coach.

I'm in a men's program.

And we both use our relationship to, and then our professionals that we brought in, we use them to help us clean out our stuff.

My wife's got all of her baggage from her childhood.

You know, her triggers and defense mechanisms trigger my stuff from my childhood.

her back and then but you know it's a nice beautiful dance if if we don't take it also

personally and have some help from the outside to use it as a way of cleaning this stuff out

instead of just getting to the point where we can't stand each other because they drive us crazy

but they're driving us crazy and in the exact ways we invited them into our life to drive us crazy

we just didn't know it yeah you know and and it's amazing i i've got friends that are women

the audience and they're championing your work. I mean, they're the most vocal about this saying,

you know, like, wow, this really makes sense. This really connects for me. So it's not a one-sided

argument. You know, I don't, I don't see the toxic masculinity anywhere. I see a person that's,

that's talking about how to create a healthy dynamic between men and women. It makes a lot

of sense to me. Well, I think we have the potential to be a lot happier if we can kind of get away

Was it sex for all of our discomfort or, you know, struggles?

And one of the things that I encourage people to do, and I do this all the time with myself,

is whenever I'm triggered by anything in relationship, whether it be with my wife, a good friend, any relationship,

if I'm triggered emotionally, I try to ask myself, what is my emotional reaction telling me about me?

We want to all think my emotional reaction is all about them.

caused it. It's their fault. They're being that way. That's why I'm having this reaction to them.

But that's not really true. It's our story. And the example that I give is, you know, okay,

say you and two friends go to hear a comedian. You go to a comedy show and you're sitting next

to each other and the comedian's doing his shtick or her shtick. And the friend on your left is just

busting the gut, dying, laughing, crying, rolling out of his seat, just, you know, he can't get

enough. And the friend on your right is like looking all pissed off and he's all offended.

And he goes, I'm not taking this anymore. I'm leaving. I don't need to sit and listen to this.

And maybe you're sitting there and, you know, you don't really know what's so funny about it on one

hand, but you're not really particularly offended by it on the other hand. So who's right, right?

whose response is the right response well everybody's having their own response the comedian

is not the cause of the response the comedian's just doing what the comedian does and three

different people are having three different responses is their story okay that's going to

happen in every one of our relationships and if every time we have a strong emotional response

even one of attraction right even one that that you know of arousal or lust we can still ask

ourselves, what story is this telling me about me? Because probably the people that trigger

attraction and lust in us probably are also recreating an old story as well. And so we can

ask that question whenever we're having strong reactions in any context. Yeah, it's amazing.

It's resoundingly accurate. And, you know, I've got a question from the audience. Geek Ditz,

I hope I'm saying that right. She asks, how do you ask your partner how to lighten their load?

So like you want to help your partner and you want to help lighten their load?

Sure.

Okay. You can ask them that. And I'm going to share stuff kind of in a sterile environment here,

but it's relationships or anything but a sterile environment. You can say, you look like you're

you are, you know, got a lot on your mind or you look like, you know, you're struggling,

you know, it doesn't matter.

Just share what your perception is and say, is there anything up?

Is there anything you want to talk about?

Is there anything I can do?

Can I help?

And everything's out in the open.

It's clear.

You know, you're not just, you're not just trying to read into what it is, jumping in,

trying to fix it, trying to get it back to good, back to calm.

you're actually checking in with them and you're sharing what your experience is of them and you

know the the response you might get might be in all the way from you know they're mad at us about

something or they've got just a lot on their minds they've got a lot of things and they're checking

out boxes in their head of what they've got to get done or maybe you know they had a call earlier in

their day with their mother or a sibling and and you know they're still feeling kind of agitated

around that. I mean, just guessing, I, uh, you know, I, I'm a professional helper and I usually

guess wrong in my intimate relationships. So I've, I've learned to just ask. Um, I remember I, I was

in, I had one girlfriend and, and I'm, I'm really sensitive to people's moods and emotions and,

you know, probably partly is my temperament, partly, you know, my training from childhood.

But, um, you know, if she would seem kind of agitated or short or, you know, blah, blah, blah,

sometimes say, are you okay? Is everything all right? And often her response was,

you haven't done anything wrong. She said, you're such a narcissist. Not everything's about you.

Or she'd say, there's only room for one girl in this relationship. Stop being so sensitive.

And it was like, because I was anxious about her seemingly, I didn't project my anxiety. Is

anything wrong? Did I do anything wrong? Do I need to fix anything? That's my stuff. It's how

my stuff shows up. And, um, and, and, you know, I, I appreciated her for just being that direct

with me. It's not always all about you. Okay, good. That's nice to know. It's nice to know

you can be in a bad mood and I didn't cause it. That's a relief. And, and, and then is,

I, you can kind of like, all right, is there anything I can do to help? Do you need anything?

You know, do you need to talk to, you know, can I, can I help out in any way that'll make,

you know, your day feel better? And, and, you know, then it's not to fix. It's just because

you really do want to help the person you love have a better day.

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Glover, you know, I've really enjoyed this whole conversation.

I've got one more question for you and then we'll start to wrap up.

You end the book with a chapter called Getting the Life You Want.

So what does this mean?

What encompasses like getting the life that we want?

How do we build to that?

Well, I think if we take, you know, a lot of things that we've been talking about today,

You really, really, really did a very good job of going into the book and pulling out the key points of it.

Oh, thanks.

And, you know, I'm praising you, so then you'll think I'm a good guy by the way.

So, and by the way, if we could laugh about our patterns as well, it does help a lot.

You know, just to be playful with it.

We don't have to be serious about all the ways we're fucked up.

But, you know, it helps to lighten up a little.

so you know this whole thing for me is being conscious of making your needs a priority and

that's a good thing that's a good thing to ask yourself what do i want what's important to me

what feels right to me uh what am i passionate about where are my sweet spots in life what

fulfills me you know where do i get into the flow to be able to ask those questions and and to be

very conscious in that process and then to to very consciously create situations and contexts and

you know, reciprocal relationships that, that help you live in that way. You know, if you prefer to

be single, honor that and be single. If you prefer to be in a relationship, honor that,

be in a relationship. You know, if, if, if mom or dad, you know, wanted you to go to MIT and become

an engineer, but you know, you, you want to write poetry or, you know, playing a rock band, honor

that. It's called differentiation. It's the ability to ask yourself, what do I want? What

feels right to me and then hold on to that even if there's pressure from outside of you you know

to to change back to what you know family or church or culture wants from you and not giving

into the pressure between your own ears the anxiety the neurotic guilt that says you shouldn't be

doing that you're in trouble you know you're going to let your mother down you're going to let dad

down you're going to go to hell you know whatever the voices are in your head so that's what mature

differentiated people to do. That's how they empower themselves. That's how they live the life

they want on their terms. And it doesn't mean that life will always be smooth and life will

always be easy. We may actually choose some pretty challenging paths to take. But, you know,

it'd be nice to, you know, be on our deathbed about to take our final breath and look back and

kind of like the song said, I did it my way. It feels good. I, you know, I wouldn't change a thing.

We got to get up every day and live that way.

We can't wait till, oh, you know, once I get out of this relationship or once

I get this girlfriend or once I move out from my parents or once I get my degree or once I make enough money.

You know, we got to get up every day and live from that place of passion.

I tell people, do everything you do with passion and stop doing anything you're not doing with passion.

And get up – I think if you live that way every day, life gets really, really interesting.

Yeah, for sure. Dr. Glover, I really, really enjoyed this conversation.

I mean, I think we did a pretty good job wrapping the book together as tightly as we could in about an hour.

Is there anything that you want to say or cover that we didn't cover yet?

No, Xavier, you did a hell of a job.

I mean, the fact that we got down to covert contracts, how nice guys develop, how it manifests in the world, how it brings pain to others and why nice guys aren't always so nice, and what a nice guy can consciously start doing differently.

Now, just the one thing I'll add, and I say this in the book, is I tell nice guys, I tell anybody, if you're going to make a significant adjustment in life, is don't try to do it alone.

Nice guys didn't develop into their nice guy syndrome in a social vacuum, and you're not going to work out of it in a social vacuum.

Go get help.

Go get a coach.

Go get a therapist.

Join a men's group.

I mean, if you were going to quit drinking or quit doing drugs or quit gambling, you'd go join a 12-step group.

You'd go get a support system.

You can go it alone.

So whatever we're trying to do in life that's going to require, you know, significant adjustment from us is go find good people to help you do this.

Like I said, I'm 63 years old.

And, you know, I've got a men's coach.

I've got a men's program.

I don't try to go this alone.

I've tried many times in life.

And it just doesn't work so well.

So and through that process, let me just kind of wrap it up with this.

No problem.

put out kind of, it wasn't a revised edition. It was just kind of a cleaned up edition of No More

Mr. Nice Guy about two years ago. They just went in and corrected whatever errors and typos were

there. But I got to write a forward to it of what I'd experienced in the 15 years since the book was

published, both in my own life and in my work with nice guys. And the main thing that I really

wanted to put the spotlight on that I concluded in that forward, that recovering from nice guy

syndrome is not about becoming a different person or a better person. It's about becoming more us.

It's about learning to embrace us, who we are, just as we are, love us just as we are who we are.

And so that's what, you know, I'll just, you know, wrap this up with is that no matter

what direction we're going in life, work at being you, the you that you were born to be,

Be that you.

Don't think you've got to become better, different.

Just become more you.

Dr. Glover, I love it.

Where can people find your work, more of your work?

Well, then go to my website, drglover.com.

This is D-R-G-L-O-V-E-R.com.

The website has my books.

It has my classes.

It has my workshops and seminars, other things that I have available.

or if they just Google No More Mr. Nice Guy or Google Robert Glover, I come up in the top

several spaces for both of those searches. Sounds awesome. Guys, the book is called

No More Mr. Nice Guy. My guest that was with us today, Dr. Robert Glover, go pick up this book.

Whether you're a man or a woman, I think it's really important to read about this. Maybe you

have a man in your life that is operating on covert contracts and you want to give them a gift.

do that for them. That will do it for us here at HXP, guys. We will certainly be back with another

live broadcast for you next week. If you're not subscribed to us on YouTube, please get over there.

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Thank you.