Hey, Cemar - But I'm a Nice Guy!

[Martelo]

Cemar I know you like Dr.Lauras ideas but the thing is YOU
can not use "the care and feeding of husbands" it is not
written for you it's a book for women. Let it go, Dr.Laura
gets you unfortunately you're not married to her.

I think you should look to a male perspective, like Dr.Glovers
book.

Here is a snippet from him.

Let go of attachment to outcome. Nice guys are always trying to control the people and situations around them. They are risk-avoidant. They don’t like surprises. They want a smooth life. This kills a man’s life energy. It makes him bland and boring.

[cemar2]

Martelo:

I understand that I can not use Dr. Laura's book. What I am pointing out is that she is spot on with regards to men (HD) and how they work.


Let go of attachment to outcome. Why? If you only get one chance at a good outcome, and that outcome sucks, what does the book say to do?

[fearless]

Guilty of these covert contracts as well. But what do you REPLACE them with? Overt contracts are ALSO unacceptable. I just covered 100% of the options unless someone can find a better solution.

Cemar, Yes an overt contract would not work either. There is ONE more option. STOP doing things to get your wife to act a certain way. DO them because YOU want to do them and DO NOT attach expectations to your acts.

I am starting to wonder why we should do ANYTHING for our spouses

This is the EXACT feeling that those covert contracts cause in a person and why they are so detrimental to YOU and your marriage. YOU have the control to stop this. This is why I told Hairdog I believe HE will feel better and happier when he stops this behavior.

Here is something I wrote on this subject over on Cadesmom's thread. You didn't respond so I am not sure if you believe me but I happen to be a person who does not have hidden expectations for people when I do nice things. I also don't believe in having friendships/relationships with "overt" contracts. That's why I did not care for Lou's use of the idea of a "raincheck" for sex. It's a personal thing but I just don't like the idea of reducing sex to something that I "owe" my partner.



Martelo: Another idea is that of a "covert contract" were a "nice guy" does something with the hopes that it will result in certain behavior in another, without the knowledge of the other.

Cemar2: Everyone does this, not just Nice Guys.

No Cemar you are WRONG. Not EVERYONE does this and I know because I don't do it and my friends don't do this. For example: I buy gifts for people when I have time and find something I think they would like. In NO way do I expect ANYTHING from them. My friend and I discussed this at Christmas when I gave her a gift after she had expressed a desire to not exchange gifts with friends to reduce spending and stress. I had already bought the gift and when I gave it to her I stressed that she had no need to reciprocate. Thankfully she took me at my word and didn't buy anything.

One of my personal pet peeves is people who don't take me at my word, make extra work for themselves and then seem resentful if I don't appreciate "enough" the extra work that I never asked for in the first place. But as I have said before my friends don't seem to be this way and those who are probably drop me as a friend early on.

[fearless]

Nice Guys are notoriously slow learners ... Their inclination is to hang on to belief systems that have proven to be consistently unworkable, yet are so embedded in their unconscious mind that to challenge them is tantamount to heresy. It is difficult for Nice Guys to consider doing something different, even when what they are doing isn't working.

Cemar: I understand that I can not use Dr. Laura's book. What I am pointing out is that she is spot on with regards to men (HD) and how they work.

Cemar, You seem to hold on to Dr. Laura's concept with hope that someday your wife will magically take her advice to heart and you believe that IF she would then everything would be okay. You keep ignoring your own culpability in this issue.

This is why I am so excited for Hairdog. He actually has something he can work on for himself. This does not mean that he does not want his relationship to change and it certainly does not mean his wife doesn't have her own issues. What it means is he can now focus on something that WILL make him a happier person. What will be interesting to hear is if his wife eventually notices a shift in his behavior and their interactions. AGAIN he is not changing in order to MAKE her change. He is changing to be a better person and then as a side benefit their interactions should change.

Anyway, I really thought you were getting somewhere in our "conversation." Could you go back and answer the questions in my last post to you about your relationship with your wife?

Thanks

[MJontheMend]

Interesting how bad behavior in the man was automatically corrected and he became more desireable just by you being HD (exactly as Dr. Laura predicts). And people tell me this does not work.

I don't think you get what I'm saying. First off, I should probably make it clear that I don't come off as blatantly sexual in real life. Even if I'm wearing a tight red t-shirt within 2 minutes of interacting with me most people would probably guess that my profession is something like kindergarten librarian. I use big words, smile a lot and I am generally dorky and well-mannered. When I make the effort to bring my sexuality to the surface, I would say that the immediate reaction that I have gotten from men is that they "blink" because it's like the kindergarten librarian is reading aloud from a book and just said the word "c*ck" or "f*ck". This was true even when I was a 14 year old girl playing strip poker at the fort.

I very much like it when the men I date act "nice" and gentlemanly (they all do), who wouldn't? It just doesn't signal sexuality to me. However, I am often tempted to let myself be "played" in this manner just to not rock the boat. My thought might be along the lines of "Maybe I should let him think that I am agreeing to have sex with him because he brought me flowers rather than because I think he has strong hands." The reason I would have this thought is because I am aware that many men have the tendency to lump women into two categories- women who are sexually motivated by romance/good deeds or women who are sexually motivated by money. The women who are sexually motivated by sex category is reserved for a few insane nymphomaniacs and those so desperate for affection that they'll trade sex for hugs. So I am tempted to fake like I am sexually motivated by romance in order to not be seen as an insane emotionally-desperate whore. However, I refuse to do this. I gotta be me. So I either have to find the kind of guy who has the experience/knowledge that women like me exist like NOP suggested OR I have to be really good at communicating who I am and what makes me tick to men. Pretty much I'm shooting for something in the middle at the moment.

My point is that the man who acts nice in order to get sex sometimes won't act nice if he can get sex without the nice behavior. The man who knows that nice behavior isn't what will get him really hot sex is free to act nice for other reasons. So a woman as HD as me has to have boundaries that basically honestly state "Nice behavior isn't what turns me on but not-nice behavior will send me out of f*cking distance from you."

[fearless]

My point is that the man who acts nice in order to get sex sometimes won't act nice if he can get sex without the nice behavior. The man who knows that nice behavior isn't what will get him really hot sex is free to act nice for other reasons. So a woman as HD as me has to have boundaries that basically honestly state "Nice behavior isn't what turns me on but not-nice behavior will send me out of f*cking distance from you."


Well-said!!!!!!!!!

[sat567]

Out of curiosity, do you think you can forgive your wife for "breaking" the covert contracts over the years? I would imagine you have built up considerable resentment for her "failings."

I started to answer this with a quick, "yes," but then I started thinking about it, it got a little complicated. Here's my inner dialogue:
"Yes. Well, of course I expect things will get better between us as I work on improving myself. If they don't get any better, and, specifically, if I don't see any effort on her part to meet my needs, then I'll probably get resentful again. Wait. Isn't that a covert contract?: I'll do this self-improvement exercise, and she'll make efforts to meet my needs. Sheesh...I still have a long road ahead of me."

The difference here is that I am trying very hard to include her in my work, my self-realizations, etc. I haven't done that before...at least not very well.

How did she react to your statement, hd?

All I can tell you is that she seemed interested in learning more about the book, and that has continued through the week.

My best friend, who is one of my "trusted people" in my "recovery", evidently didn't quite get the concept behind Glover's book (or maybe I didn't do a great job of explaining it.) Here's an email he just sent me:

So, I told [my wife] I have to give you a$$hole lessons, and her only reply was, "at least he came to the master."

Finally, here's some wisdom from the NG forum:

An old Lakota indian is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

"One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you - and inside every person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his Grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Lakota simply replied, "The one you feed..."

Hairdog

[fearless]

Actually I'm glad you figured out that forgiveness is not an easy thing. I planned on asking Cemar the same question and if he's honest like you, it will not be an easy yes. And think about it, doing the hard work in order to answer yes is what is going to make a better relationship possible. It's pretty hard for a person to be attracted to someone who resents them!!

Here's something for you to hold on to: This work is all about YOU being a happier person because you are not "secretly" doing thing to make others do things for you. So you go out and rip those trees out because it makes YOU feel like a man who takes care of his property and is something you know your wife will appreciate PERIOD. And when you want to ML to your wife, you don't have to feel like you have "earned" it. This will subtly change the dynamics with your wife. The KEY is to not make these internal changes directly for this reason. Make the changes for yourself and then let the indirect changes occur naturally.

By the way, Mojo perfectly summed up how I know I feel about men. So being a nice guy if it is done altruistically is a good thing!!

[Cobra]

CeMar,

Why do kids learn to follow rules and morals? Because they learn to fear the consequences of not doing the right thing. Those kids who realize they can accept the consequences can then go on to do whatever they want. They become the bullies and troublemakers.

Your wife is acting just as she wants with no consequence from you. From the little bit of information you have leaked out about her on this thread, it seems she might have good reason to be so wary of intimacy, but this is only an assumption on my part. I am guessing she has some sort of abuse or trauma issue in her past. I suspect you do to. You might help yourself by filling us in on that.

But back to your M. Assuming your W has these types of issues and you do not like her current behavior, your task is to figure out a way to make her grow to a more functional level, or leave. She will NOT want to do this because it will feel unsafe for her. She is comfortable in the cocoon she has woven for herself, with your help. She will only want to move to a new level because that cocoon is no longer safe. IMO, your task is to take away the safety of her current cocoon and offer new refuge in a new place. Otherwise, what is her incentive to change? Your whining and complaining is obviously not enough to overcome her level of resistance.

Remember, people do what is easiest and that almost always means doing one less hard thing to avoid another more hard thing. In a healthy relationship, requests met by a spouse means that spouse understands and fears the consequence of not meeting the request. Perhaps the fear is of abandonment, knowing the other person could eventually leave, or maybe fear of an argument or cold relations. When your W does not meet your needs, what are her consequences? Do you continue being the nice guy because YOU think that is the right thing to do? If that is so, then ask yourself why you do that?

In all this nice guy discussion, I see some good points that Hairdog mentioned from the book, that nice guy actions can be a covert form of control (just another form of narcissism). Corri rants against nice guys because they are so passive aggressive and take advantage of other’s good intentions, but IMO, that is not the core issue. I think Corri may be irritated in part by the guilt she feels from not placing boundaries against the nice guy, then finding out later she has been duped. That would make anyone mad, but it is really a boundary issue for her, the person being duped. If someone is too nice to be true, then they probably aren’t true.

So the nice guy uses the shame of his her “victim” to his/her advantage. But remember the axiom that people take the easy way out. Why does the nice guy act this way? If it is conscious and premeditated, then I’d say the person is a sociopath. Otherwise, I assume the person is not aware of why s/he is being nice. Perhaps the niceness is the less hard path to avoiding a more hard path, which might be to avoid rejection, fear of being shamed, etc. All this says to me is that the nice guy has serious issues that s/he is trying to avoid and is protecting him/herself, just as a mean, attacking, aggressive person is doing. Same purpose, different tool.

So CeMar, what is your shame that you are trying to avoid when you feel you are NOT a nice guy? What happened to you to make you put the needs of others over the needs of yourself? Why do you have a problem asserting yourself over your wife as you take away the safety of her cocoon, even if it is to forge a path to a better place for her?

I would also take the comments to you from the women here with a grain of salt, not because those comments are wrong, but from what I see, they are commenting on how THEY think things should be. These women are by and large much healthier than your wife, IMO. So your wife will not be able to relate to what is being said here, it is on a level higher than where she is now. Your wife will not be able to switch over to a healthy form of relationship with you. She will have to grow and it will be painful for her and for you. So don’t expect to wake up and find an enlightened, intimate and functional wife all of a sudden. Once you take away her cocoon, she will be in some level of panic. It won’t make your life easier. She will fight to go back to her safe zone, just as Choc’s wife is doing. Can YOU handle this guilt?

One note to all of this….. be careful in how you wield power. Everything must balance. Sometimes compassion, not power, is the needed action. Other times power is needed to get the spouse to move off center, but empathy and compassion has to quickly come back into the mix to create that new safe haven. For instance, I fear that Choc has taken the path of too much power without proactively validating the fears of his wife, divulging his fears (ie., making himself vulnerable) and offering the safe haven she needs. So while he may have feared that asserting himself could drive another person away, his move too far to one side of the power spectrum may have created the self fulfilling prophecy he wanted to avoid. Always maintain balance.

[MJontheMend]

By the way, Mojo perfectly summed up how I know I feel about men. So being a nice guy if it is done altruistically is a good thing!!

Thank you. I thought of another way to put it. You can just change the expression "There's nothing so pure as a kindness from an Atheist." to "There's nothing so pure as a romantic gesture from an experienced 'player'"