Hey dude.

If you’ve been sent this post, it means your wife/girlfriend reached out to me in a desperate attempt to save your relationship.

Based on what she has shared with me, I feel certain you need to read this and do something about your relationship, or you’re going to lose her. 

Every week I get emails from frustrated wives and girlfriends who have seen my videos and posts and realised their man is struggling with something that I can help him with.

You may not know who I am. My name is Dan Munro, and since 2013 I’ve been coaching men – specifically, men like YOU – to become authentically self-confident and to build healthy personal relationships.

And by “men like you,” I mean you almost certainly suffer from what’s known as Nice Guy Syndrome, an unofficial psychological disorder that the man is often blind to, and yet his whole life is made worse because of it.

For a complete explanation of this syndrome, take the time to check out this post.

In short, a Nice Guy is a man who seeks to protect himself from emotional pain (based in childhood trauma) using specific techniques that he considers to be “nice” behaviour. At least, on the surface it can look “nice” to others too… at first. He uses these techniques to control how people feel about him, so that he can feel safe.

Underneath the surface is misery. And eventually, the true darkness behind this niceness comes out and destroys your relationships, taking them to breaking point after a long build-up of resentment. This is where you’re currently at with your partner.

Here are some of the things you are probably doing – you might not tick every box on this list, but even engaging in just a few of these is poison to a romantic connection (click on the linked words for deeper posts on each):

• Avoiding conflict by being too agreeable or forcing yourself to be easygoing about everything – including putting your partner in a position where she has to make lots of the major decisions for the both of you (you probably blame her for this dynamic)
• Covert contracts – expecting things without asking for them directly, assuming your partner “should just know” without you saying anything, e.g. expecting to be appreciated for helping out
• Giving unsolicited advice and help – forcing your support onto your partner, or “caretaking”
• Not taking the lead, especially in the bedroom – avoiding rejection risk by not initiating
• Holding in your anger and then eventually snapping in rage, what’s known as a “puke”
• Self-sacrificing to the point where it’s detrimental to your health and wellbeing – even when your partner specifically asks you not to
• Treating others better than you treat your partner and children – like your boss or strangers – hurting your loved ones while you bend over for less important people

There are many other traits, but the main one for you – given that you needed to be sent this letter to push you to do something about this problem – is this:

• An unconscious selfishness where you feel like you’re the victim and you blame your partner and others. You struggle to accept the truth about the harm you’ve been doing – denying her claims, telling yourself “she made me do it,” refusing to discuss anything emotional, engaging in poor coping mechanisms (e.g. porn, work addiction, sugar/alcohol bingeing), and just hoping that the problem will just somehow get resolved without you needing to do anything.

I’m writing you this letter because it’s what I wish someone had done for me.

See, I’m a recovering Nice Guy myself. It took me YEARS to see past my fear or rejection and intimacy, my egotistic sense of superiority, and my attachment to being the “good” guy, to see that I was the one sabotaging my life.

Your people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, dishonesty, manipulative controlling, emotional suppression, and refusal to engage in some kind of recovery with your partner is going to destroy your relationship.

And that’s not even my main concern!

What I’m most focused on is how this affects YOU – how it ruins your ability to truly enjoy your life.

Nice Guy Syndrome is essentially a disguise. We pretend and blend, trying to be what others will react positively to, and in the process we lose sight of who we really are. After a few years or decades of doing this, we become The Nice Guy – we start to believe the act is real.

But because being nice all the time is fake, our self-confidence is slowly eroded down to nothing.

Admit it: you’re not happy with yourself. You might even be externally successful, but it’s not as enjoyable as it should be, right? It doesn’t seem to take away the stress and anxiety and pressure and sense of unfairness. It’s never good enough.

And that’s because all that shit is INTERNAL. It’s been with you since childhood. And it continues to poison your life from the inside.

No one can force you to deal with this. You’re either ready to accept responsibility and finally free yourself from this hell, or you’re not.

If you’re ready, I can help you. Together, we might even be able to save your relationship if it’s not already too late.

If you’re not ready… well, you probably haven’t read this far anyway. But if you have, and you still refuse to accept that’s it your job to solve this issue, then either your partner doesn’t really know you, or you’re too attached to the Nice Guy system to escape. In which case, unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do for you.

You’ll have to learn the slow and really fucking awful way… like I did. It took me nearly a decade to work through this on my own. My clients take an average of 3 or 4 months to make the same amount of progress.

Your partner wanted you to read this because she still loves you and still has hope for a future with you. She knows that she has a lot of work to do herself, too, because this is a 50/50 problem requiring both of you to contribute to the solution.

She needs to let you lead, respect you more, stop criticizing, be less reactive to your honesty, give you more freedom, and basically create a supportive space for you to figure out how to be a man.

She’s contacted me because she’s willing to do her half of the work, but she can’t do your half for you.

If you want to talk more about doing your part, and finding that self-confidence that’s eluded you your entire life, then get in touch and we’ll start talking about it.

No pressure. No sales. No bullshit. Either I can help you – and it will be obvious – or I can’t.

dan@brojo.org