In today's episode, I interview Robot Glover, the author of the bestselling

book No More, Mr. Nice Guy, which has been translated into over 25 languages.

In today's episode, we dive deep into masculine and feminine dynamics,

overcoming the Nice Guy syndrome.

What is the distinction between a good man and the nice guy, and why do

women don't actually desire nice guys?

What is this really about?

Why do men crave for validation and what is the impact of that in relationships

and other areas of their life?

Why do so many men struggle with anger, resentment, and sexual shame?

How can men break free from this and truly reclaim their power?

And this episode is not just for men, it is for women as well,

because you will gain insights into the male mind, unlike any others.

Welcome to the Masculine and Feminine Dynamics podcast.

My name is Lorin Krenn and I'm an author, coach, and hypnotherapist.

I help you to understand masculine and feminine dynamics.

Let's dive in.

A little bit about Robert Glover.

He's a psychotherapist, speaker, and bestselling author known for

his work to help men overcome the so-called Nice Guy syndrome.

He helps men develop true confidence and step into their

authentic masculine energy.

Lorin, good to be here with you.

You published no more Mr. Nice Guy 25 years ago, and I feel it is even

more relevant now in 2025 than ever.

What has changed in the last 25 years?

That's, that's a good question, 'cause yeah, I, I finished writing

the book well over 25 years ago.

It's been out in print almost 25 years.

And, um, when I, you know, finished writing then lots of people said,

Robert, you need to publish this book.

There's lots of people that need it.

And I've continued to work with men for the last, you know, 25 years.

I'm still in my own men's program.

I lead men's programs and I see the same thing.

And in no more Mr. Nice guy.

I talked from that frame of reference 25 years ago, what I

thought were contributing factors to nice guy syndrome, which I

think many of them are still there.

But with the, the younger generations, whether it is, um,

gen X or millennials or Gen Z, a couple of other patterns that I see.

One is when I first started working with nice guys 30 years ago, a lot were

like me, I'm a tail end baby boomer.

And a lot of these guys would say that they were, had

disconnected from their fathers.

Father was gone, either gone 'cause of divorce, rarely saw him or

worked all the time, or dad didn't feel safe, he was an addict or

abusive, uh, a philander maybe.

And a lot of men were trying to be different from their fathers.

I I did, I heard that a lot.

Nowadays, what I hear from a lot of men, especially, uh, the millennials

and the Gen Z, is that they had nice guy fathers, which makes sense.

'cause my son's a millennial, he is 39.

And so I, I finished writing the book when he was a teenager, and, and he and

his, his stepbrother said, you know, dad, you gotta get this book finished.

We know a lot of guys that need this.

You know, at that time they were 14, 15 years old.

So now we have a lot of, of younger men.

Who maybe dad was around, but all he taught them about being a man was just

don't piss off your mother, 'cause that's what he was trying to do, trying

to avoid pissing off the son's mother.

Two more pieces, I think if you throw in another one is social media.

That, that, of course is, is a phenomenon of the last,

say 15, maybe 20 years.

Now, where every millennial gen Z's grown up with ubiquitous internet,

social media, you know, swiping right, swiping up, swiping down, whether it's,

it's just wasting time on YouTube, you know, doom scrolling on Instagram,

maybe even TikTok, the more you just spend time wasting time, the less.

In your masculine that you are, the less that you're being challenged,

which is what is activates and creates a sense of validation for

the masculine part of ourselves.

Men and women both.

And I guess two other things I'd say would contribute.

Another is what I would say is a lack of masculine initiation.

Now, I'm not saying my generation had that either, but I think more and more

young men just grow up in the nursery.

Seeking female approval and validation.

I mean, it begins with mom, of course.

And then it's our, our, our babysitters, our nannies, our

preschool teachers, our elementary school teachers, primarily female.

So a lot of young men don't know what it's like to be challenged, but

it's not their fault because these older generations, like mine, have

not helped initiate younger men into the challenging, frightening world

of the masculine, and taught young men how to feel masterful, how to

take charge of their life, how to be the man that is basically the target

that attracts the arrow, to be the man that attracts the feminine, to

attracts female, to attract money, to attract opportunity, attract adventure.

So instead, we sit around either waiting for it to come to us

or we go chasing those things, thinking they'll fulfill us.

We go chasing the hot woman.

We go chasing success.

We go chasing money,

Then I'll just add one more piece, and that's maybe the whole toxic

masculinity piece where, you know, the, the swung from the, you know,

this, this extreme of the patriarchy, you know, provider protector all

the way over to all men are evil.

Everything men does is terrible, it's toxic.

So if we've got this message that everything about being male is bad,

well that's even gonna try to do more of what nice guys already do, try to

become what we think other people want us to be, hide anything about us that

that might get negative attention.

Specifically what you mentioned around validation, what is the true

root, the core of, of nice guys?

The, the reason, what is the core of why they're seeking validation?

You know, I, I, I know you talk around masculine and feminine and the, and

the way I talk about it is, is a model.

Okay?

It's not like truth, it's just an approximation, proximation.

So I talk about the energy so masculine and feminine.

And I don't necessarily say, well, 'cause you're a guy, you're masculine,

or because a woman's you know, female, she's, she's, she's feminine.

I believe energetically we have both parts, I think we've

had that model for centuries.

The feminine part of ourselves and all, and all children are feminine.

Um, that's, and that's part of the problem when I say that we as young

boys don't get masculine initiation.

We're never taken from that feminine world, that feminine, the nursery

where we're just surrounded where all of our needs are taken care of and

we're not taught how to be masterful, how to get our own needs met.

If we've never learned how for our masculine to actually husband our own

feminine, fill our own bucket with either through self care, getting

enough sleep, getting to the gym, having a job, making money, having good

guy friends, having adventures, those kind of things, we often then turn to

women to say fill my bucket, love me, approve of me, like me, choose me.

And when we take that to a feminine creature, they often push that away

'cause it just feels like a demand on their already empty bucket.

And the feminine creatures going, I don't want to come fill you.

I don't want to come validate you.

I don't want to come make you feel good about yourself.

I am empty.

I want to be filled.

And another way I put it is that the feminine is highly attracted to a man

who's comfortable in his own skin, knows where he is going, and looks like

he's having a good time getting there.

And every time I share that, I said that to Chris Williamson a few months

back, and he like took that viral.

I say that to women dating coaches and they all go, uh, yes.

You know, so the women get it.

They want a guy who's comfortable in his own skin, right?

He, he likes himself.

He's taking good care of himself.

Uh, he's, he knows where he is going.

He lives with purpose, which is internally validating.

He looks like he's having a good time.

He's enjoying his life, he's having fun.

He's on an adventure that's all highly attractive, but that needy

part of ourselves, I don't know if you're familiar with Mark Manson's

book Models, it was the first book he wrote, and it's called, uh,

Attracting Women Through Honesty.

Basically, what he said in that book is Don't be needy.

The needy is repulsive to the, to a feminine creature because needy

says, here's one empty bucket saying to another empty bucket fill me.

So bringing that back to, to us men of any age, you know, my age in my

sixties, going down to, you know, men in their twenties, we have to learn how to

activate that masculine part of ourself that can masterfully penetrate the

world, masterfully, get up and get the job done, that's internally validating.

So we don't need to go seek external validation from

women or even our successes.

Oh, look at me, look at what I've accomplished, look at the car I

drive, look at how much money I make.

So what you're essentially saying is, even though society might perceive

these men, oh wow,, that's a powerful masculine man, look at the success and

kingdom he has built in that sense.

And yet there is still that deeper desire and he still remains in the

feminine world, so to speak, and he's still looking to be validated.

So he too can still be a nice guy.

That never ends.

'Cause, 'cause what I see, you know, I, I, I, you know, I, I, I'll get online

and I'll watch these influencers that of course trying to sell us all something

that basically say, be like me.

You know, I, I, I'm up at 3:00 AM you know, doing my coal plunges and

running my how many miles, you know?

I'm, I made this much money last month.

You know, I'm, I'm, I'm this and I'm that.

And you know, you could be like me if you buy my $20,000

product and, and that.

And I look at those guys and I go I don't wanna be them.

I don't want to be in their skin.

Because one thing is I thought, when are they gonna get happy?

When are they, when are they gonna be happy with their million dollar

launch, their $10 million launch?

You know, when, when you see them?

Oh, when I hang out with my billionaire friends, I'm going, yeah?

Does that make you happy that you have billionaire friends?

But most of them seem to be doing two things.

They're cha, they're, they're trying to outrun some demons from their past.

They usually have a story, right, about the, the, the totally abusive

unpro father or, you know, the early deaths, uh, you know, in

their family or their fear of death.

They're trying to outrun some demon.

And I tell you what, I don't think you can be successful

enough to outrun your demons.

They're still right behind you.

And the other PA pieces, it still looks like they're seeking

that external validation.

You know, look, look again, look at my yacht.

Look at my house.

Look at the pretty women.

Look at my car.

You never get enough.

It's, remember, it's an empty bucket and everything's got a hole in the bottom.

Everything's going out in the bottom.

The only thing that gives true contentment is when we get up, do the

job, masterful, and then we can just rest in nothingness, put our head

down, go to sleep, and know, know we've accomplished what we need to accomplish.

That is satisfying.

But then we get up the next day and there's still another challenge in

front of us, and we get up, welcome that challenge, bring our A game to it, do it

masterfully, and then we know I'm done.

It's complete, but it's never really done.

it's also the element of, you said nothingness entering stillness, right?

That the big importance for men to enter stillness, to enter nothingness.

It's almost like the constant need for validation is also a

running from that stillness.

it is.

That's beautifully put.

You know, if, if you, if you're familiar with the model of David Deida and

how he presents this yin and yang and masculine and feminine, he says, you

know, basically in the, in the, in the spiritual energetic sphere, the

masculine does just rest in nothingness.

It's just, it's just constant, it's consciousness, right?

It needs nothing.

Well, you know, we live in the human sphere, so we got a few needs, right?

But when I first heard him say this, that you know the masculine,

you know, masterfully conquers this masters that, solves that.

And then it's, you know, it's time to kick back and do nothing, you know,

have the beer, watch Sports Center, you know, enjoy the game, sit in nature.

That is our deepest desire is to conquer, to accomplish, to master

so that there's no more demand.

And as David Deida says, you know, in The Way of the Superior Man,

first paragraph of the book, the masculine error is to think at some

point this will all be done, my woman will be happy and quit complaining.

My boss will approve of me.

You know, that, that, that that motor I fixed and got running will stay running,

and you know, tho those ones and zeros I lined up will stay lined up,.

But it does never end.

But then we get up and our masculine, we get up, we say what needs to

be done, what's required of me?

We embrace it, we dance with it.

We sit, we welcome it, and we, and it's best done with other men.

We are at our best in tribes.

You know, whether it's our hunter gatherers, whether it's playing a sport,

whether it's making music, whether it's accomplishing the big thing.

It's best when we men, we masculine creatures join and

do it together masterfully.

And again, most men have not been initiated into that space.

One of the kind of myths or limiting beliefs is if only my woman or

my partner would be different or would be happy or would change

this or would speak differently to me, then I'm going to be happy.

This, this fixation on that something is, is inherently broken with

their, with their beloved, which almost like, kind of put blames

externalizes and is is blaming someone else for deeper pain within.

But, but why is that belief so destructive for men when there is an

inherent belief that there is something broken with their partner, and if

they change, then they are almost like get permission to finally change and,

and, and to be happy and fulfilled?

Yeah, you, you, you're, you're talking about me.

Um, I, I'm a recovering nice guy and.

Yeah, I, I'd spent a good part of my adult life using

what I call covert contracts.

If I give this to them, they'll give that to me.

If I do this right, they'll approve of me and love me.

If I, you know, whatever I'll do, I'm expecting this thing back.

And so if I make her happy, she'll be happy and not get

angry or wanna have sex with me.

So, so we somehow think the feminine can be managed and

controlled, but the feminine is, is the big bang of the cosmos.

The feminine is hurricanes, the feminine is tornadoes, the feminine

is storms, it's earthquakes, it's volcanoes, that's the feminine,

and that, that doesn't get tamed.

But again, that's the masculine error is to think I can tame

that and it will stay tamed.

And I know where that, that showed up for me in relationship is I often

would pick women that maybe had some flaw I saw in them that if I can just

help that, if I can help 'em get over their depression, get over that bad

relationship, you know, help 'em get outta debt, make that car payment,

start paying their bills on time, get happy, I thought I can fix that.

'Cause that's, that's what I was trained to do by my mother.

But I think it's even still part of just the masculine, if something

needs fixed, we go try to fix it.

Now I'm, I'm a marriage therapist.

By training, I mean, I started doing marriage therapy 40 years ago, so I've

worked with a lot of couples, I've been in a number of relationships myself.

And yeah, most people walk in my office saying if they would

just change, I'll be happy.

I've done the same thing.

But my core belief around marital therapy, how, in terms of how I can

most help people in a relationship is to recognize they, everybody involved,

invited the other person into their life to help them either recreate

familiar roles and or work through old baggage, typically from mom and dad.

And I've heard it said, we tend to be attracted to people who have some of

the worst traits of both of our parents.

So if you're attracted to women, and they have some of the worst traits

of your mom and your dad, and the people you connect with are attracted

to you because you have some of the worst traits of their mom and dad,

and maybe throw in a stepdad or a stepmom or two in there as well.

The reason why we do relationships, see, we, we, we have a, we have an

internal fallacy about relationships.

I tell men whenever I work with men and, and when they walk in my office

and say, whatever your male brain thinks a woman can do for you is wrong.

And I tell the women, whatever your female brain thinks a

man can do for you is wrong.

But what our partners can do is help us create a powerful

personal growth machine.

Our partners and the relationship dynamics we create with them are a

portal, a window, a crucible, into the deepest parts of ourselves.

When we open to them with vulnerability, when we open to them with sexual

intimacy, when we just day, day in and day out life, our partners

are going to trigger our deepest woundings, our trauma, our losses, our

abandonments, our pains from childhood.

And if we know that, everything our partners trigger

about us, we can welcome.

We can know, oh, I invited them, or they are loving me enough

to trigger my old baggage.

Now that, that can be a pretty big leap sometimes to go, thank

you dear, for cheating on me.

You know, you, you brought up my deepest wounds, now I have a

portal to enter in and work on.

Thank you dear for treating me, you know, with such disrespect

and such neglect, I'm grateful.

But if we use that as such, everything is a gift.

Now, again, that can be a big leap to say thank you, dear, for, you

know, being this crazy human being that's forcing me to deal with my

own stuff, but if at least, you know, it opens the door a little

bit to say, why did I choose this?

Why do I perpetuate it?

Why do I even reinforce the bad behaviors I don't want?

Then we've gotta space to go work on some old stuff.

There's also this fixation on monitoring a kind of her,

her mood constantly, right?

Which is also deeply unattractive in that sense.

Like constantly checking, is she angry?

Could she be angry?

How is she going to react?

And at worst, like you say in your work, is can lead to

lie, lies manipulation, right?

And even trying to kind of withhold information out of fear, oh she could

get pissed off, she could get angry,

How can men break free from this?

The constant fixation onto the feminine, that the constant monitoring, which is

a total disconnect from being in their own power, being in their own center.

That, that's a good question because yeah, you, you,

you, you're preaching to me.

What I think we're dealing with is, I'll just say, is a nervous system issue.

Not, not, it's not just a little habit.

It is truly wired into our nervous system and our emotional body.

Going back to as babies, our survival was dependent on our mothers being

attentive and being able to meet our needs in timely, consistent ways.

But what if mom was depressed?

What if mom was sad?

What if mom was sick?

What if mom had other kids she was having to take care of?

What if mom had a job and she went right back to work after she?

What if our primary caregiver, who we were dependent on life and death

dependent on for them recognizing our needs and responding in timely

and consistent ways, that's a pretty big emotional piece, right?

So I know for me, I've, I've always had that pattern in relationship to

be monitoring the woman I'm with.

I still feel it in my nervous system.

So I just, as an example, yes, just yesterday my wife and

I had a good day together.

Uh, I was in the evening, I had some calls down here.

I got up, she'd, she'd gone up and taken a nap into the evening and got

up fairly late and just got up and ate some yogurt and did a bunch of stuff

for my daughter for a trip she's taking.

And you know, I, I'm kind of fixing my own dinners about eight 30 at night.

And um, and she seemed kind of distant and I felt it.

I felt that, I thought, what?

What now?

She was in a good mood earlier.

What changed?

You know?

And I'm, no, I'm noticing that internal, my nervous system's reacting.

I'm trying to figure it out, I'm trying.

Is she just trying, she's got a lot to do to help my daughter.

Is she not feeling well?

Is she still tired?

I don't think I did anything in the last hour and a half that upset her, right?

Because that goes back to mom.

It goes back to every female creature I had a sense of

dependency on at a young age.

So because it was so young when this dependency developed, it's

still wired in my nervous system.

And partially 'cause I never got a masculine initiation that taught

me how to get comfortable, feeling uncomfortable, how to face fear,

how to lean into life and death.

And the funny thing is, is I've learned to soothe myself, ground myself,

breathe, remind myself she loves me.

She's not gonna leave me.

I haven't done anything wrong.

I can just soothe myself while watching and observing my

nervous system wanting to react.

I'm gonna keep having that work to do.

Now I do notice my nervous system is both getting calmer and more relaxed.

It doesn't get triggered as quickly.

The big part is I notice it sooner and I've got the tools to soothe myself.

It's almost like when we are coming from that needy energy,

we are being inauthentic.

And then what we're essentially getting is that, is that pushback,

which kind of almost like becomes a self reinforcement cycle,

does.

It does.

And, and you know, one more layer we can put on that, 'cause you're a hundred

percent right, is that it also creates what I'll call a reverse polarity.

'Cause if I'm in that scared, needy, you know, place of, I'm gonna get

abandoned, I'm in my feminine.

And as I approached my wife from that feminine, uh, you know, validate

me, tell me everything's okay, tell me you still love me, right?

Tell me you're not mad at me.

I'm the, I'm the, I'm the little child in that feminine place

and I'm polarizing her into her masculine to where I'm saying,

fix, fix me, fix everything.

And from her and her masculine place, she's probably gonna get even more

irritated about my neediness, me being a little boy, her having to fix it.

Uh, she's not going to feel, uh, any deep attraction to me in that

state, she's just gonna feel more of that repulsion, get away from me.

I got things to do.

Don't burden me with more of your, you know, your emptiness and your neediness.

And so, another tool, I'll give your listeners a hack.

This helped me tremendously.

Whenever I have a sense that my wife.

Is upset at me, distant, whatever, and whenever my nervous system gets

triggered, what I find has helped me is to just tell myself, my woman's either

not feeling sufficiently loved by me right now, or my woman's not feeling

sufficiently connected to me right now, or my woman's not feeling sufficiently

safe or secure with me right now.

And is there anything I can do about any of those three things?

And so, instead of me being empty and come trying to fix it and make

it better and ask What's wrong?

What's wrong?

Tell me what's wrong?

I say, come here, come here.

Or look at my eyes, I'm, I'm, because I'm telling her what to do.

I'm leading, so I'm in the masculine.

And if she does it, she's now polarized into her feminine.

And because I'm solid and I'm not coming from an anxious place, and

I'm, I'm breathing and I'm, I'm grounded and, and I'm, I'm giving

her love, I'm feeling her bucket.

And if I have no attachment to the outcome, if I'm not trying

to fix, I'm just bringing to my woman what she most needs.

I'm just gifting her.

I'm filling her bucket.

All that I have to do is often just bring a little bit of presence,

maybe a little bit of polarity, maybe a little bit of physical

affection, a little bit of, you know, kind of masculine demand, anything

that puts her into her feminine.

And that now I'm gonna be amazingly attracted to her, amazingly secure.

She'll feel more depth of connection.

Especially if I'm not trying to fix something, I'm just gifting her with my

presence and my masculine leadership.

And I find that my wife, you know, almost every time I'm conscious enough

to just ask, you know, is it one of those three things, instead of me

projecting all of my stuff, well, she's always this or always that.

How come this, well, you know what?

I'm just, hmm.

She needs more love, she needs more connection, she needs more security.

Can I, can I bring any of that to her?

And then it's amazing how that transitions both her, but it

transitions me into a more powerful masculine pole in the relationship

and, and it makes me feel better.

And you said something there, which is so quintessential here.

In the moments where you are conscious, because I'm sure you've heard

that, I hear that often from men.

Okay, that's all amazing.

But how do I make sure that 10 out of 10 times I can be so conscious, right?

And it's like it, it's a journey, right?

Because I wish that too, and I'm sure every man would wish for that

because what you just shared here imagine for a moment a person will

be able to do it every single time.

But again, we're imperfect, we're human, things are primed into our

nervous system, and it's, it's about kind of grad, it's also

giving ourselves grace, right?

Giving ourselves grace.

Okay.

As long as I'm progressing, as long as uh, I'm getting to a place

where I notice myself becoming more conscious, I'm essentially stepping

in into my power, essentially.

Yeah.

I love that we, yes, we gotta give ourselves some grace.

We're, we're imperfect, we're growing, and every, every, every.

One of these situations is an opportunity to grow, opportunity

to make some mistakes, learn from the mistakes, you know.

You look at the professional athletes, they, they don't hit

every shot they take, every basket, they don't score every goal.

You know, most shots on goal, you know, go wide.

Um, football players, they don't score a touchdown every time they get the ball.

You know, you don't hit a home run every time you get up to bat.

But how you do get good and increase your odds at performing at a

high level is through practice.

The difference between you and I and a professionals, professionals practice

all the time, they have the best coaches, 'cause they're trying to do

something difficult and challenging.

They know they're not gonna do it.

At the highest level, 100% at the time.

But they will practice in ways to increase the odds of

them doing it consistently.

So I see, you know, my wife is just opportunity for practice and uh,

sometimes I will do better than others.

Sometimes I'll be more conscious.

Sometimes if I'm tired or hungry or irritable or

overwhelmed, I won't do so well.

And, and again, I have to give myself some grace.

And luckily my wife gives me a lot of grace as well for when I don't

do it as perfectly as I could.

And that's such a beautiful gift.

Like when the, when the fam or when a woman is working on herself, and to

receive that from our wives, when I receive it from my wife, that level

of grace, I think that's one of the most, what you just mentioned, is

one of the most beautiful gifts a woman can essentially give to a man.

And I've noticed I get more grounded and more solid and not going

into those cycles where we just kind of blow up and get into the

fight, amazingly, she does better.

She's got her own, her own coaches and shamans that she works with.

She, she's filling her own bucket by going to dance and, and she,

she takes good care of herself.

A week ago, my wife and I walked to a, a little, uh, taco place.

We liked to get some tacos and we sat down and this young woman,

the waitress with kind of a short crop top on and kind of low, you

know, just it looked like she was there basically just to look good.

She comes in and she goes to put some salsas on the table in front of us,

and she is standing just right next to me, just as about as close as she

could get, and putting the salsas and kind of telling which ones are hot.

And, and then I could just feel my wife going, uh, and, and, and the, the

women do that down here it is sport to see if I can get the attention of

a man who, who's with another woman.

They do that to each other.

Say, I feel it in the past.

I would've gotten anxious and thought, oh fuck, I'm in trouble.

She's gonna be mad at me.

In the past, my wife would've gotten mad, she would've been mad

at the woman, but taking it out on me maybe for a couple of days, and

I would've been feeling done to, and, and so I, I'm soothing myself

going this isn't gonna go well.

I'm sure that woman's gonna come back here again, you know what?

And, and, and then my wife says, will you trade chairs with me?

And I go, I would love to.

So I move in her chair, she moves to where I was sitting.

She goes, I'm gonna see if that woman's as friendly with me as she was with you.

And that's all she said.

And then nothing else came up.

Uh, we had a male waiter after that, the woman did come by maybe one other time.

Nothing else happened.

And then just this last Monday night, so about four nights later, she

and I were driving out to go visit some friends and she said, I wanna

apologize for the way I handled that thing in the restaurant the other day.

She says, I don't like that.

I get, I said, I, no apologies.

You handled it beautifully.

You were respectful.

You know, you asked me to trade seats with you, I said, don't, no apology.

Thank you.

So, yeah, that's a good woman that, that as I work on me it

invites her to do the work.

I call that the relationship teeter-totter.

When one person kind of does their work, it it, it unbalances the teeter-totter.

This person down here goes uhoh, they're working on themselves.

They're growing, and that, that makes them anxious and afraid,

oh, they're gonna lead me.

They're not gonna need me.

They're gonna find someone better.

And so they have two options.

They can either try to bring you back down, which that's what some people do.

Or they go, I better work on me.

I better get better.

I better get to the gym.

I better learn to work on my shit.

I better get a coach.

I better get Now, all of a sudden you get some balance this way.

And this person goes, oh look, they're growing, they may lead me.

They may not.

I better pull them back down.

Or maybe I need to go work on me and work on, and then, that's why it's

a powerful personal growth machine if both people can welcome whatever

the other partner brings, treat it as a gift, treat it as an opportunity

for personal growth and development.

That's a gift we give back to our partner as we work on us and

inspire them to do the same, without demand, without expectation, without

saying, you've gotta work on you

I, I heard so many people say this, and each time when I hear them

say it without quoting you, I'm like, no, robot Glover said that.

Um, because, and it's, it's the thing around, for instance, one version

I heard, I saw that only recently, people please us specifically

here talking about men, it's not that they're not angry, they are

the ones who feel the most anger.

And I think essentially you were the one who really first kind of

introduced that to the modern world.

And, and I think a lot of people, some are quoting you, some, I'm not

quoting you, but each time which time I hear it, I'm like, you said that.

And I, so why is that number one, and can you explain the paradox to the

listeners of Nice guys seem like so nice and priding themselves in, in

never raising their voice, and yet at the same time there is this powerful

anger inside them stuck, and then sometimes will even erupt in a way

where you go, I thought that's a really nice guy who never raises his voice.

Um, yeah, my, my ex-wife who I was married to when I wrote no more

Mr. Nice guy called those victim pukes, you know, that stuff that's

just been building up and building.

And I'd have those and I would just blow up and say all

kinds of hurtful mean things.

And later she might ask me, you know, how long has that been bothering you?

I go, I don't know, six months maybe.

And she said, and, and you never thought to just tell me.

No, actually never crossed my mind that that was a good idea.

I all, I thought of, if I tell you this, you'll blow up at me, so I keep it in.

So that's the covert contracts, that if I do this for you,

then you'll do this back.

I've given to you.

How come you don't give back to me?

How do this, how come you don't appreciate me?

I do all this.

How come you don't wanna have sex with me?

Um, is, it's a giving to get.

So it's fundamentally manipulative.

It's, it's covert, so it's secret.

The other person doesn't know about the contract.

So the, the, the, the things I see that contribute most of this

resentment, frustration, most nice guys won't say, I'm, I'm mad as

hell, or I'm really pissed off.

Oh no, I'm okay.

No, I'm a little bit bugged.

Oh, oh no, I'm just frustrated.

No, you're resentful, you're pissed.

Right?

And that can come from those covert contracts I gave you didn't give back.

You know, I did this, you weren't in a good mood.

I did that.

You didn't want to have sex with me.

I did everything for you, but you didn't wanna be my girlfriend.

You know all those covert contracts.

Nice guy seduction I call it.

So it might be our covert contracts, it might be our lack of boundaries.

I was in my mid thirties in my second marriage and already had a PhD in

marriage and family therapy before I ever learned about boundaries.

I didn't know what those were.

I didn't know that they existed.

I didn't know you could say, no, stop.

I'm going to do this.

If you do that again, I'm done.

Or I'm gonna get off the phone now.

Call me back when you're in a better mood.

I went to a therapist in my very first session with her, she

demonstrated boundaries to me.

Now, I don't know if she could just tell I needed the boundary

presentation or if she did that with everybody on their first session,

but that was, that was changing.

'Cause if we don't set boundaries, we do let people treat us badly.

We do let people walk over us.

We do let people hurt us, and we just keep it in and it builds till

it, it comes out one way or another.

And maybe a third thing that contributes to this is nice.

Guys are not good at asking for what we want.

We're not good at saying, can you help me with this?

We don't, we're not direct or bold.

We, we don't surround ourselves with people who want to

help us get our knees met.

And we're terrible at receiving.

I've had so many people in my life, the women in my life said,

Robert, you're difficult to give to.

I am.

I, I, I make it hard for people to give to me.

Uh, little example, I, I'll be at the, our table and I'll get up to,

to dinner to go get a fork and my wife will say, where are you going?

And I go, I'm just gonna the kitchen to get a fork.

She goes, I'll get you one.

And I go, no, no, I can get it.

'cause if I let her get me a fork, that makes me like my dad, you

know, the controlling asshole, Mrs. Glover, go get me a fork.

That'd be my dad, right?

So I didn't wanna be like that, but when my wife says to me, I'll get you a fork.

And I say, no, I can get it, I'm robbing her of the opportunity to give to me.

And she says, let me give to you, that's how I show my love.

You know how hard that is to sit back down and let her walk to the kitchen and

get me a fork, and then I, I'm gracious?

I'm, I'm not gonna rob her of the opportunity to love me because

it's hard for me to receive.

You know, I'll be taking the bag of garbage out to the street.

She goes, do you need any help?

No, I got it.

You know, no, I don't need help.

I, I'm just carrying a bag of garbage out.

I've learned to say, yeah, babe, come on, come on.

Come give me, come gimme a hand.

Well, and, and she just wants to be with me and just wants to be there.

So I've had to work for many years now at letting people give to me.

So if a nice guy is living with covert contracts, giving to

get, and not getting back as much as he thinks he should get.

If he has no boundaries, he's letting people just use him, walk on him,

treat him badly, he's not good at asking for what he wants, and he's

even worse at letting people give to him, he will build up a lot of

frustration, resentment, anger that will just keep perking around inside,

maybe even out of his consciousness, because it scares him to be angry like

dad or like the bad men out there he is heard women complain about, so he

doesn't even know how angry he is.

It will usually start out becoming out as passive aggressiveness.

That's indirect, roundabout anger, a put down, a cut, a jab, a bite, a

forgetfulness, a not following through.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I forgot, I forgot.

Or, oh no, that was just a joke.

I didn't mean anything by it.

That's how it will often come out.

It's the little daggers that we poking, the people we're

frustrated and resentful with.

Then if it's a big enough deal, you know is building enough, we're tired

enough, we're irritable, whatever, then it's gonna come out as that eruption,

that victim puke where we say everything we've been rehearsing in our head that

we never even made the connection that this thing I'm rehearsing, that I want

to tell them of how, how bad they're not treating me well or not loving

me, where they need to quit doing that or they, all that stuff we're

rehearsing, we don't even link that to the fact that we're pissed off, right?

It goes back to that maybe the very first thing you talked about

this, wanting them to change.

Right.

We don't even realize that's anger.

That's anger and it's unloving.

I tell people, wanting somebody to fundamentally change is unloving.

'cause I don't know if you've ever been with somebody who wanted you

to change in some fundamental way.

Did you feel loved by them?

Probably not.

Absolutely not.

And what you just said about receiving as well, I, I can

see myself there as well.

I mean, I had to do a lot of work on being able to receive and

actually, because that sensation in my nervous system felt like

a fret almost in that sense.

And I would not, I would literally notice myself self sabotaging

or sabotaging afterwards because I felt so uncomfortable.

Which is kind of also ties into the making it hard for people to receive.

You talk about how nice guys often, of course you mentioned about not

express their needs and specifically also of course when it comes to sex,

there's a lot of shame around that.

And there is, there are often indirect, subtle, or covert contracts when it

comes to sex, rather than being bold, being directional and being clear

like, Hey, I want to rish you, I desire you, and kind of expressing that

powerful, conscious masculine desire.

But specifically kind of the way you describe it, it's almost reminds

me of it's like a little boy asking for permission rather than a man who

actually expresses his truthful desire.

How can men start to shift this?

How can men shift from these subtle or covert contracts when it comes

to sex or indirect ways to really express in a powerful way their desire?

Let me throw out something that, that I think probably needs to be talked about

in terms of just nice guys in general anyway, but it really relates to this.

When I started working on myself, I, I, I started in a 12 step

group for sex addicts, 'cause my wife said, you're a sex addict.

I, I quickly found out I wasn't having enough sex to be a sex addict.

But I did use sex for external validation.

If a woman wanted to be with me, I got value.

And, and after my wife and I got married, she quit having

interest in being sexual with me.

It just shut off.

And, and then I also got into a men's group I was in for a number of years,

led by a female therapist who'd written a few books on sexual shame.

So I went to work on being in a group.

And what I did in, in both that, that 12 step group, a therapist,

the men's group was, I worked at just revealing the things about me

that I didn't want anybody to know.

And for many of us that is sexual stuff.

Uh, the stuff we keep hidden, we keep secretive things that have happened to

us, things we've done, our fantasies, we have our desires, our impulses,

we, because of our culture that says sex is dirty, evil, and sinful.

So save it for the one you love, we have almost this universal hiding of,

of our sexual wounding, our sexual self.

We think we're bad.

People are gonna reject us, think we're terrible people.

So I'm a big believer that if you want to be a fully functioning sexual person,

if you want to be that person, running your, your, you know, your factory

installed software of, of, of, of a man or a woman who is desirous of sex,

who's open to sex, who's adventurous around sex, who, who, who will open

and take risks and be vulnerable and, and, and have adventurous,

we've got to go find safe people and start releasing our sexual shame.

And for me, I've been doing that for years of just, if I find anything

that I feel shame or fear about, I, I, I go talk to somebody about it.

I try to release it.

My wife and I, again, we were just talking about this again the other

night, driving out to visit friends.

For a few years now, her and I goal, and I kind of started this conversation.

I said, I want both of us to keep supporting the other in clearing

out all sexual shame and fear.

If you have a sexual impulse, if you have some, and you feel shame or fear

about it, let's talk about it, let's, let's find ways to work through it,

uh, let's find ways to explore it, move past it, and 'cause we both,

she grew up, you know, in Catholic culture down here in Mexico, I grew up

fundamental Christian in America that even though we're bombarded with sexual

stimuli, it, it's still, you know, uh, a very prudent puran sexual society.

So we've all got our work, but we need safe people to go

work out that sexual shame.

And, and just not to scare anybody off.

But about two years, two years ago, three years ago, I was doing a, a

ayahuasca ceremony down in Costa Rica.

And I, I, I made my intention before that ceremony was I

wanted to release sexual shame.

Well, they say be careful what you asked for with Mother

Ayahuasca, the plant medicine.

'cause she'll give you what you need and maybe not what you wanted or expected.

That was the, the, the strangest plant medicine ceremony I ever did.

I've done about eight of them.

And what happened is I went into three, what they call

nadas, nada means nothing.

We're just, you don't, you're not aware, you're not dreaming,

you're not seeing visions.

And I woke up three times with the back of my shorts wet.

I thought, what happened?

I'm not sweating.

And I realized I, I, I had shit in my shorts.

And now that night before I went to the ceremony, mother told me, put

extra pair of shorts in your bag.

And I did.

I hadn't done that any other night.

I thought later, I wish she'd told me, put two extra

pairs of shorts in your bag.

So I, I got up, first time it happened, I thought, wow, I

don't even remember anything.

I was, I was in that deep trance.

So I went to the bathroom, changed my shorts, put on another pair, and, you

know, another nta wake up went shorts.

This time I got no more shorts to change into.

I go a lot of paper towels, stuck a lot of paper, towel down my shorts.

Third time I wake up, again.

Okay.

So I go up to the shaman to get, you know, I think my last cup

of, of, of the ayahuasca, and he goes, have you had any visions?

And I said, no, but I've shit in my shorts three times.

And he puts his arms around me and he says, that's amazing.

There's freedom in that.

There's wildness in that you're free.

Now, he didn't know.

My intention was to release sexual shame.

And so, and this was an all night ceremony.

So I spent about the rest of the night till the sunrise sitting in

a pair of shitty shorts, 'cause I had no other option, right?

And I thought if there's any way to clean out sexual shame, that

must be the way I needed to do it.

'Cause probably my sexual shame began probably in messy diapers

with maybe a caregiver that had that disgusting look of shame

or left me in my shitty diapers.

That's probably where it all began.

But just therapy alone wouldn't have ever gotten me to that

space of connecting my sexual shame to a shitty diaper and the

disgust of a caregiver, right?

So it was powerful.

And I'm not saying that's the route everybody needs to take.

But I do say go find a coach, a therapist, a men's group, a 12 step

group, uh, a, a minister that's open and not gonna put more shame on you.

Probably don't go do this with your mother, your wife, or your girlfriend.

Go find safe people to start talking about the things you don't

want people to know about you.

As you release that sexual shame, get feedback that you're not bad,

you're not a terrible person, you're normal, and, and you get to

actually integrate everything in the shadows into conscious awareness.

And like Yung Carl Jung said, until we make the unconscious conscious, it'll

rule our life and we'll call it fate.

So to open up and have that kind of sexual dynamic we want for ourself with

a partner, with partners, the gift we give to people we're sexual with, even

how what we teach our children, we've got to go release our own sexual shame.

And that might be a lifelong journey.

So far it seems to be for me.

Wow.

It's truly incredible.

And, and, and this really goes to the, to the core ultimately of

it, rather than for men just to try to be more direct and be bold,

which can be an act in itself.

It's really going to the core of that shame.

Just one final question for you here, where can people connect

with your, where can people access your powerful work?

Where can people find you?

Two ways.

One is at drglover.com.

I'm rebuilding the website right now, but it has my courses, my workshops, um,

and, and the programs I've got there.

The other's integrationnation.net.

That's my men's membership program that we launched in July of

23, worldwide program for men.

Um, so check out both.

drglover.com, integrationnation.net.

We're gonna link that all in the show notes, episode descriptions

everywhere for people to find you.

And also for everyone listening here, as I shared at the beginning,

Robert's book about no more.

Mr. Nice Guy is, from my perspective, as we said, more prevalent and

more relevant than ever before in today's world, specifically

around what you mentioned today.

Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

I know this is going to serve a lot of people.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

It's been fun.

Thank you for the invitation.

Thank you for listening to this episode.

I'm so grateful to be of service on your path.

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I'm so honored to be of service.