There's a version of this I hear from guys constantly, the frog in the boiling pot. Things are fine, then the temperature creeps up so slowly nobody flinches, until five or six years later someone finally points out the water's been boiling the whole time. That's basically what Melanie and I spent this episode unpacking, the two very different types of partners nice guys tend to end up with, and why both patterns can run for decades before a man wakes up inside one of them.
The first is the volatile pairing. A partner with big feelings, maybe some BPD traits, maybe just anger or anxiety that fills every room. I get into why that works so well with a nice guy who's never learned to take up space himself. There's a polarity to it. If I can't hold a boundary, I'm going to attract someone who's never had hers honored either, and I'm going to stay no matter what gets thrown at me. We talk about disorganized attachment too, why the same partner can be completely regulated at work and unpredictable at home, and how that feeds a nice guy's core wound that everything wrong must be his fault.
The second pattern is quieter and honestly harder to spot. No fights, no fireworks, just two people who love each other and have gone sexless and distant because neither one is bringing any fire into the relationship. I trace that back to sexual shame, to a man who offlined his own desire years ago to keep the peace, and how that creates a real neglect even inside a friendly, functional marriage.
We also get into what actually helps a man get out, other men who've lived through it, community, and what it costs kids to grow up in a nervous system that's always bracing for the next shift in weather.
Where do you see yourself in either of these, the one who never takes up space, or the one who's gone quiet on his own fire?
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Melanie Curtin: I don't know why, but, yeah, there's just a lot of women that are exciting to be around and to be with and. And often they're exciting to have sex with. You know, it's just like, whoa, there's so much here, but there's this huge dark side and there's this big shadow around her trigger. Hi, guys. A couple of quick announcements before we get into the episode itself. First, I want to say that. That I am thrilled with the way the retreat went this year. If any of you are listening, that were at the retreat. Holy amazingness. The level of coherence and cooperation and joy and trust and safety and belonging and brotherhood that I witnessed was extraordinary. It was magnificent. I'm really proud of all of you that went. I'm so grateful for the time with you up at Whisper Tree. I'm just. Yeah, I'm just floored, honestly. I don't have the words. So thank you for bringing your full selves, your full hearts. I'm so excited to see where all of the connections go and how all of that blossoms and blooms and becomes a strong network, a strong team. Little teams, big teams. We're all connected. We're all interconnected, and I'm grateful. So thank you. Second, I have a very exciting announcement. I've been teasing this a little bit, but I want to be more explicit. I am going to be launching a new course this fall called the Man She Craves. The Man She Craves. And it's gonna kick off with a really cool event that I'm calling the man she craves 101. The man she craves 101. I don't have exact dates yet, but I do think it's gonna be on the weekend of my birthday, which is October 11, coming up in about a month. So if you're interested in getting updates on that, if you want to be the first to hear, then get on my list. And the way that you can get on my list is by texting the word backstage. The word backstage. Because it's kind of like backstage content to 33777. So text the word backstage to 33777. It'll ask you some questions, and you will get on my list, and you will be the first to hear, as things are unfolding in that direction, the first to hear about the dates, details for that. And if you have any questions about it, you can get [email protected] and I will hit you back. And I will also be emailing that list. I will be asking you all, if you're willing to do a little bit of research, I would like to do a little bit of research. And I mentioned this last time, but I'm going to say it again here, which is I would love for you all to be part of my big sexy data set and get, get involved. The research study that I'm doing at the moment is a repeat of one I did years, which is very simple. It's just what are your top three sex problems, what are your top three dating problems, and what are your top three relationship problems? So look out for that from me. That should be coming this week or next. Again, text the word backstage to 33777. Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode with Jason Lange. And the crowd goes wild. So we are talking today about a pattern that we witnessed in our work around the two common types of partners that nice guys tend to attract. So if you've listened to the other episodes on Nice guy syndrome, this will probably really resonate with you if that has felt familiar to you in any way. And you can kind of track whether you have. Yeah. Magnetized one of these two kinds of partners. I will say that we, we definitely have men that have magnetized both as well, but it tends to be one or the other. So let's just get into it. Let's just get into the two types. So we're going to go over the. Which one should we do first? What do you think?
Jason Lange: The most common one, probably the more volatile one.
Melanie Curtin: So the first common type of partner that nice guys attract is the volatile, loud sheep partner that often has borderline personality disorder traits or full on bpd. And if you have yet to listen to the BPD episodes and you resonate with what we're about to say, I would strongly recommend that you go listen to those. So, yeah, these kinds of women partners can be shrill, they can be very judgmental, they can be harsh. They can be, they can have a, what is it called, hairline trigger. So when they're triggered, it's big and bad and loud and intense. There's a lot of intensity and it can happen really fast. So one little thing sets them off and they are on the rage train. And whatever it was was definitely your fault. And it's a, can be a really outsized reaction. And we're going to talk a little bit about the different ways that this can show up, like how, what it can sound like. But yeah. What have you noticed in terms of what men have reported about partners like these?
Jason Lange: Yeah. So this is probably one of the most common pairings of nice guys we work with. And one piece I want to name here, that is right there with everything you said is one way to think about this is who's taking up space in the relationship. And so there's a polarity here where whether the partner has some BPD traits or a lot of kind of anxiety or anger or just big feelings, they take up a lot of space. And guess what? That works well with a nice guy who's not going to take up any space. Right? So the, the, the, there's a polarity in that as we say. And this goes right through to boundaries as well. Right. So there's a polarity too. As a nice guy, if I don't have any boundaries, I will often attract someone who has no relationship to boundaries. And you know, we'll go through the other manifestations of that in the second piece you name. But this first part is often BPD like or highly volatile partners, they just keep coming, right? Even if you say no, stop, this is not okay, just boom. They do not honor those boundaries. Now here's the deal. Turns out that's a pretty awesome deal for them if they get set with a nice guy who has no boundaries. Because if I can't set boundaries to begin with, it's going to work between us because I'm going to stay with you. If you're a highly volatile or anxious or angry partner versus, you know, if a man comes in and it doesn't even have to be a man, right? Any man or woman. But you're with a partner who has this capacity to not set boundaries and you set boundaries, the relationship's gonna end pretty fast. So I think this is one of the reasons we see these kind of long term relationships between more volatile partners and so called nice guys. Because nice guys are one of the only people that are gonna hang around and actually take, you know, often either explicit or sometimes just right on the edge, borderline abusive behavior. And so there's so many ways this, this kind of shakes out. But again, if, if I'm not taking up any space and you do, you're going to take up as much space as you can, right? There's a, there's a certain physics to, to this sometimes. And so if, you know, I see this a lot with, saw this a lot with myself too, right. Talked about on the episode, if I don't ever bring any of my anger into the relational field, my partner is going to take up the space of that anger. She's going to be moving my Anger and her anger, even in a healthy way, but particularly in the kind of more volatile situations we're talking about here. So this has shown up so much in our guys, and the challenge with it, like. Like. Like we said, I think, on previous podcasts, is it's. It's not even that this, like, happens all at once. Often what we see with guys is the frog in the boiling pot. Right. It's like just things were kind of okay, and then do. The temperature gets turned up, but we don't even notice because we're so in it that, you know, five, six years, sometimes decades later, someone like you or me starts to point out certain things, and they're like, whoa, you're right. Like, I got totally used to something that is not at all healthy in this sense, and I. I've kind of had to wake up to that.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I think there's. There's something important about, you know, the. The sort of classic book on Borderline is called Stop Walking on Eggshells. And I walked on eggshells as a child because my mom had borderline. And you do get used to it, right? There's a way that you. You kind of know what's gonna trigger her. And, you know, in my case, it was things that would maybe make her feel jealous or insecure or not chosen. And so I would do everything I could to make her feel important or chosen or special or things like that. And I'm not explaining it perfectly, but I think you're getting the gist. And so there's a way that we contort ourselves to fit not triggering this person. So not triggering this person becomes paramount in our consciousness, and we do a lot of things to ensure that we don't trigger her. And so to your point, you know, that's. Say that you're dating or something happens early on where she sees that you still follow your ex on social media, or you are going to an event where someone that you dated was that, and she has a big response to that. Now there is a sort of choice point around, do we have a deeper conversation and do. Do I lead that deeper conversation about this, or do I sort of. Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. That makes sense. I'll delete it. I'll stop following. I won't go to the event. I'll, you know, make a different choice about my life so that you feel okay and safe. And it's confusing because for a long time it's sort of like, oh, yeah, she gets a little jealous, you know, that's okay. I'll. I'll change my behavior in this way or so. It's insidious. It happens in little, small ways. And then it grows and it grows. And all of a sudden, you know, you're pretty isolated. You don't have a lot of other friendships or, you know, whatever it might be. And like you said, the frog in the boiling water, you're not necessarily paying attention to or tracking the fact that you're becoming smaller. You're becoming a smaller version of yourself. You aren't as expressed, you aren't as. You aren't as loud. You aren't as, you know, vibrant as maybe you were before. I remember one of the guys that we worked with, he was in a relationship like this that was with a pretty volatile woman who would berate him and, you know, criticize his appearance and just. She was just pretty mean. And, you know, he gained weight. His hair was stringy. He wasn't really taking care of himself. He was pretty depressed. And people noticed in his life, they said, like, what's going on? You know, you. You are different than you used to be. And he, of course, couldn't say, I'm in an abusive relationship, because he wasn't necessarily aware of that fact. And I do think that there's a decline that happens over time, an erosion of self, particularly with these kinds of partners with the volatile, harsh. And I want to say something else about the correlation, because there is often a correlation between these types of women. I'll just use women. Although you can have any constellation of sex and gender in this equation. But there. These kinds of women, they're often very smart, intellectually bright, witty, funny, dynamic, engaging, charismatic. There's a high correlation between really incredible women with borderline traits. I don't know why that is. And of course, not all women that have BPD are like this, but for some reason, there is something about this that they often go together. And so there's this also really compelling part of them, right, where it's like at the beginning when they, you know, there's this thing that happens with borderline called splitting, where you're either all good or all bad. So you're the best boyfriend ever. I can't. I've never met anybody like you. You're so incredible. I feel so lucky to be with you. And then the split of, I can't believe you did this to me. You're the worst boyfriend in the world. You're a piece of shit. I can't believe I ever trusted you. You. You know, there's this big swing, right? And then. And it go. It can go back and forth. That's called splitting. Where you see the world in black and white and there's very little gray. And when she's triggered, you are evil. When she's triggered, you are evil. You are the worst person. You have dropped her worse than anyone else in the entire world and et cetera, et cetera. And it's really confusing because there is a certain kind of vibrancy. There's a certain kind of aliveness. There's a certain kind of. What's the word? Energy that comes along with this kind of volatility. Right. There's a lot of power. There's a lot of power, and I don't know why, but. Yeah, there's just a lot of women that are exciting to be around and to be with and. And often they're exciting to have sex with. You know, it's just like, whoa, there's so much here, but there's this huge dark side and there's this big shadow around her triggers. And part of the issue with borderline in particular and this type of volatility is that this woman does not want to take responsibility. If she's angry at you because you were late, she isn't going to take any responsibility for. Yeah, I have a sensitivity around people being late. It's a. It's a thing for me. I. I take ownership of that. No, no, no, no, no. It's entirely your fault. You suck because you were late and you can do about it. She's just going to punish you. You know, it. That there's this kind of these claws that come out and they just want to rake your face. And there's no kind of recognition of my side of the street. Right. I'm. I'm not involved. I'm not. It's entirely your fault. And when it's entirely your fault every single time, that's a good indication of borderline most. Most of the time, if you. If you feel like you can never, ever, ever get it right with her or she has big triggers frequently and it's kind of the end of the world and it gets kind of scary, and it's sort of like, you know, relationship life or death, like she's gonna leave you unless you grovel, that's probably borderline. Most people that aren't on the borderline spectrum can take some responsibility. They're able to see their. Their side, even if it takes a little while to get there. They're going to see your side versus you have to go to her every single time. You have to grovel every single time. It's never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever her fault. Ever. That's a problem. You want to say a little about that?
Jason Lange: Yeah. First, there's one piece I want to point out here. Like you said, sometimes these partners like this can be really smart. And sometimes the challenge with these types of relationships is usually people close can start to see it, but people far out on the outside don't necessarily see all of this. And what I mean by that is for some partners, right, it's like borderline. Isn't this thing that just comes out of nowhere like, oh my God, you know, you were born borderline. Often there's some kind of correlation to some kind of trauma or neglect or abuse, right? And it's not exactly the same, but it's similar. This idea of a disorganized attachment style, right, where sometimes we're like close and connected and sometimes you're the worst enemy and we just never really know what's going to come. And so what can be challenging about this is sometimes the closer you are to someone with a disorganized attachment because you're the closest to them, you kind of get all the wild crazy, right? But someone who's on the far out isn't holding the same position and they could be at work and just be, you know, da, da da, da da da, plugged in. So it's not always like this person is just flipping their lid everywhere. And I think that can make it harder for a nice guy because he sees their partner interacting with other people who like, like them and it's okay and da da, da da. And then it's totally dysfunctional with them, which goes right into their wound of, well, everything fucked up is my fault, right? So again, it's, it's a way they of play together. But like you said, it's always your fault. And there's no way to win are the ways. We often talk about what a man starts to realize and see when, oh yeah, this is happening here, right? The rules are constantly changing. I hear a new rule, I try to do that, and then I still lose, right? Because now there's a new rule actually that I didn't know about and it becomes this really grinding down over time of, well then what the. The point. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna kind of give up or try to please and appease or whatever. Just whatever you want. Just whatever you want, right? Just whatever you want. Because every moment it's gonna be totally different. So this is a really tough one, you know, for guys to be in over time and again, depending even on the nice guy. The other crazy thing is this can feel like home to them because even nice guy syndrome is often born in a petri dish, so to speak, where there might be a more volatile parent or caregiver around that they've. Their system has internalized. Well, this is what connection and love feels like. So here it is. Yeah. This kind of wild, angry person. But this is what connection and love feels like. Right. I had another relationship once and I don't know, it was just kind of flat.
Melanie Curtin: Right.
Jason Lange: And I think that's the thing. We also see guys sometimes starting to like, really tease apart what that means.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I want to talk about confusion. So I'm thinking of one of the guys that we worked with where when he came to us, he was confused about his marriage. He said, I don't know what to do. You know, I've gotten to the point now where I know something needs to, to change. Particularly because the traits that he'd been displaying with, with him, with her husband were starting to show up with the kids and he felt protective of the kids and they were pretty little at the time. And I really want to point this out because I do think that because these kinds of women are often very smart, articulate, bright, sharp minded, you know, witty, clever. It can be, it can be hard to, you know, like with my mom, I used to call it twisty logic land where things that she would say, they, they were almost correct and, and she would twist things around so it's like she would take, take things that I said or that someone else said. And you know, like I, I've told this story before, but for example, I was, I don't know, 19 or something and wanted to go backpacking over the summer. And I knew this was gonna be an issue. I knew this was gonna be an issue. I was so scared to get on the phone with her and tell her that I wanted to go backpacking over the summer instead of going home and spending time with her. Right. And she, yeah, she yelled and screamed, she hung up on me, she gave me the silent treatment, the whole nine yards, which was exactly what I was expecting. And that was one of those moments of, you know, am I going to cave? Right? Am I gonna cave? And the, and so the. What I'm trying to say is that the way that she twisted the story was, you don't love me. You're just doing this to hurt Me, you know, like, things like that when I'm, you know, trying to explain. This is actually not about you. This is about me wanting to explore the world. But of course, she can't hear that. All she hears is abandonment. Because the core wound for most people with BPD is. Is fear of abandonment. And so everything gets layered through that lens. Everything is seen through the lens of you're abandoning me in some way. And what I find with a lot of the guys that we work with is that this woman is so smart and she's so powerful and she's so driven and she's so. All the things that she can make, arguments that feel like they're like. They almost make sense.
Jason Lange: Right?
Melanie Curtin: Like twisty logic land. And it's like, how do you. You can't. You can't really engage with it. Right? There's no. You can't really get in there. There's no. It's not a dialogue, really, but it can be really dis. Disorienting and confusing. And confusing is, I think, one of the biggest words that we hear from a lot of the guys in this place of, I. I don't know what to do, and I'm not sure what, you know, what the right thing to do is. I'm thinking of another one of our guys who. He. He was. He was. His wife was. I think she was getting her PhD in Sociology or something. Something. She might have even been a professor. Really smart is the point. Really bright, really incisive. And his kid was, I think, around 6 or 7 when we started working together. And he was. He basically started listening to the podcast and realized that these traits were in play. And then he didn't know what to do about it. And he started to work with us. And through the process of working with us, he gathered the courage to leave his wife. To leave his wife. And what I remember is there was one really bizarre. There were a couple of bizarre things that happened, and one of them was they hadn't had sex in a long time. They were sort of in a sexless marriage, and she initiated sex one night when things were not good between them. They hadn't been good between them, and it. It felt really off to him. It felt like, I don't know why you're doing this. I don't know what your motivation is. It feels confusing and somehow manipulative, but I'm not really sure or how or. I think that's a good example of. When we're talking about disorganized attachment. It doesn't always make sense. And it can feel really confusing. We were over here a minute ago, and now we're over here. And I don't understand the leap or the jump or what happened to get you there. I just don't get it. It's. It's. It's disorganized. It's not coherent. It doesn't make sense. It makes sense. In that person's traumatized brain, there's some way that they are. They are seeking connection. They are seeking soothing. They are seeking something. They are seeking to feel safe and not be abandoned. So in their world, it makes sense, but on the other side, it's like, whoa, what is happening? Where are we? What. What is going on? It's so confusing. So fortunately, I would say that there are many men we've worked with, but this one in particular, you know, he. Yeah, he got out. He successfully exited that marriage, and he was so much happier. And what I remember was that one of the first women that he dated, I remember him saying something like, this is the first time that I have felt wanted in 15 to 20 years. I just didn't feel wanted by. By her. I didn't feel wanted. I felt like I couldn't do anything right. And I was just always in the doghouse. It was just waiting for the shoe to drop all the time. And that contrast of dating this new partner who actually wanted him, who wanted him sexually, who wanted him emotionally, wanted him around, was a huge game changer. And he walked through the whole process with us. You know, he walked through exiting that marriage and then dating, and now he's with this really wonderful woman, and they've just moved in together, Blended family, just really happy, vibrant, alive. And I remember having a conversation with him once he had gotten out of the marriage of. I remember him saying to me, I lost pretty much all of my friends, and I'm going back now and reconnecting with people and saying, I'm really sorry. I just dropped off the face of the earth. I let myself be. I don't know if you use the word sidetracked, but I let myself become completely isolated. And in sort of classic, you know, domestic violence situations, isolation is one of the major components. So often the abusive spouse will isolate the other spouse from friends, family members, other kinds of connection. And what I've heard often from men we've worked with is it's not that she told me to do it. It's that I was so run down and exhausted and just trying to keep my shit together that I didn't have the Energy to go and tell anyone about what was happening. So it's not necessarily that his wife was telling him not to go see his people, but he was so exhausted. Particularly when you add kids into the equation. I mean, that's just, you know, it's just so tiring to have children in a nuclear situation. But I really wanted to kind of highlight that confusion aspect because I think that there's something. It's confusing and it's confusing on an ongoing basis. It's confusing because sometimes things are going well. It's confusing because sometimes they'll do things that you really don't understand and you don't feel like you can ask about. It's just. There's a lot of confusion in the field around it. And there's a lot of clarity once you figure it out. Right. And I think that was, that's one of the main things. I think that's one of the values of having a label like borderline is, wow, there's a name for this. There's a constellation of behaviors that go along with this. There's a way of explaining this. And I've just been in twisty logic land trying to just survive.
Jason Lange: Yeah, there's, there's patterns that people recognize of behavior, even as volatile as they can be. And you know, I'll just name one more thing you were kind of talking about that I think can add to this confusion is, you know, some of our clients, their, their, their partners they've been with have been extremely successful. They're doctors, they're therapists. They're people, you might be shocked, right. That could have this kind of volatility of oh my God, didn't they go to school and study the mind and all that? And that has nothing to do with your capacity to have healthy attachment systems or self emotional regulation. Right. That's part of, I think sometimes what can be very confusing here, it can show up in so many different ways. But the key thing, like you're saying again is nice guys in this situation, you know, they'll tend to isolate, they'll tend to withdraw on themselves. They'll lose the outside input, outside the relationship that can help them just be clear that something's going wrong, so to speak, or that it's not a healthy dynamic or the very simple. Another way to kind of put this. Even the it's all your fault. The other way that shows up is just almost no reciprocity. So the nice guy is giving and giving and trying to meet her and appease her and then he is getting Nothing back, which might be sexually, might be emotionally, might be just financially around the house. It can show up in different ways. And that too then leads to the depletion, because he's trying to manage everything. There's no time to take care of myself or build friendships or whatever else that might be. Everything gets kind of shrunk down to this one relationship.
Melanie Curtin: That's a really good point. And I want to make a point about boundaries. And you know, what this actually looks like in practice when you're relating with someone with borderline personality disorder and they're not willing to look at their side, which is basically what BPD is, It's that they're not willing to look at their side. That's what makes it pathological. We all have. Many people have a fear of abandonment. Many people are sensitive. Many people feel criticized when they're not being criticized. There's a lot of things that are the same. What's different is many people have the capacity to say, yes, I. I took that personally. I can see that now. People with BPD cannot do that. They. They are not capable in their current state to. To do that. So what you are left with is that the only enforceable boundary is to leave. The only boundary that we have seen work, that I have seen work when someone really has these traits is to exit the relationship. Unless that person is choosing to do pretty intense trauma therapy, personal growth work, really addressing their stuff, it's not possible to make it work where your needs are actually met. And so we have this list. We made a list before the episode of, you know, men that we've worked with in this scenario. And they've all gotten out. All of them have gotten out of the marriage, of the relationship. I think these are all marriages. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yeah, they were all married, married, married for years, sometimes decades, and they successfully exited. And that's when things changed. And I will also say that it's not just getting out, it's also doing your growth work. Right? It's getting out and doing growth work so that you don't attract another BPD partner. If you don't do any of the work, then you'll just keep attracting these kinds of partners. But getting out and doing the work makes a huge difference. What I'm trying to say is you can't stay in with someone that isn't growing and expect to be met. They have to be doing the work. They have to be actually growing. And I think that one of the tough things is that a lot of the women with Borderline, not all of them, but a lot of them. They, you know, they are reading the books, they are, they are doing some things, but it's not getting at the root of emotional regulation and vulnerability, being able to share vulnerability. Instead of going on the attack, they're sort of, their nervous system is wired and trained to go on the attack. And so there's this really fast thing that happens in an argument or if she's triggered about something in the kitchen where she goes on the attack. And it's scary, It's a lot, it's intense. It is very hard on your nervous system. It's hard on the kids nervous systems. It's a difficult energy to be around. And I'm not saying that people need to be perfect, but what often happens is that she goes on the attack and she feels completely justified in it. It's like, yeah, I didn't do anything wrong. Like you, I got mad at you because you fucked up. You know that. That's why I got mad. And so there's no recognition of. I can see how that was really upsetting. You know, I want to work on being softer in the way I communicate or whatever. There's just no, there's no recognition of, of me as part of the equation. It's like, of course I got mad at you. You fucked it up. Why you don't. It's like she doesn't understand. It's like, why would I. What, what are you talking about? Why would I, you know, why would I. I'm not involved in this. You fucked it up. You clearly fucked it up. Look at how you fucked it up. And so that part, it makes it a non starter, right? You can't stay in that kind of dynamic and have a healthy relationship. It's not possible to do so. So given that the move is to exit. I was in a. I was on a film shoot once with a director that had some BPD traits and I remember I was in a, in a car with him. We had just come back from somewhere and he was asking me these questions that were kind of pokey. It didn't, it didn't feel good. I didn't like them. And I said, in order to protect my mental health, I'm getting out of the car now. This conversation is over. And I didn't freak out or yell or scream, but I clearly said, I am no longer engaging with you. I am exiting now. I am no longer engaging with you. I am exiting now. And that is a boundary, right? It's a, it's a Certain kind of boundary. Exiting a relationship is a boundary. It's saying, I'm not doing this anymore. This isn't working. This doesn't meet my needs. I'm. I'm exiting. And I think that one of the things. But I think that the, the hardest part about that is that my needs are worth fighting for. That. My, that my. I used to call it the word personhood. When I was really kind of in my recovery journey from, from being raised by, By a mom that had bpd, I remember thinking my personhood matters. And this was a revolutionary concept for me at the time. It was a revolutionary concept because I. I was trained to sacrifice my needs for her comfort so that I would be safe. Right? So the idea that I had needs or that I would be worth protecting, that my personhood was worth protecting was a. Was just a revolutionary concept. I mean, it just blew my little tiny mind. But then I was like, yeah, I, I, you know, I want to. I want to do this. This is. This is important. My personhood matters. My little vulnerable personhood matters. And so I'll give you one last example, because I think this might be relevant for people out there listening. There was a moment when I had set boundaries with my mom, and for some reason, we were on the phone. I don't remember the details, but she was yelling, and I said something similar of, you know what? In order to take care of myself right now, I need to get off the phone. And so I hung up on her. And I was really scared, and I was really worried because I didn't know, you know, is she gonna kill herself? Is she going to commit suicide? You know, and I think there are a lot of folks that interact with people with borderline, where suicidality is a concern, threats of suicide. You know, a lot of our men have reported things like that. And so, you know, I called my grandma, I called my. I think I called my dad. I called a few people like, hey, can you check on her? Because I don't know what's going on. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because I remember having this thought that at the time, even if she kills herself, it's still not my fault. I'm still doing the right thing by taking care of me. My job is to take care of my precious, vulnerable personhood, and she. And her job is to take care of herself. My job is to take care of myself, and her job is to take care of herself. And I think that that's the fundamental mismatch that happens in these childhood homes. Is what I was trained on was, it's my job to take care of her. It's not her job to take care of her. It's my job to take care of her. And I think a lot of guys out there listening will relate to that. Of if your marriage has become. It's my job to take care of her. It's not her job to take care of her. It's my job to take care of her by sacrificing all of my needs. That's unhealthy. And that's often a repeat of things that we learned in childhood. Not always, but often. I would say very frequently. And you don't have to stay there. You don't have to stay stuck. You don't have to stay in that confusion. You don't have to stay in that marriage. And if you're confused and you're not sure, that's when to reach out to people like us and to get some help and to get some outside assistance and to help walk you through that process. Because it can feel really overwhelming and it can feel really confusing and isolating. Anything to add to that?
Jason Lange: It's pretty hard to do alone. It's impossible. But it's a lot easier to do in community with support and frankly, to just even get connected to the stories and lived experiences of men who have moved through it. Because, you know, for a lot of our guys, when they've been in this particular relationship and it's their. Their time horizon is very small. It's like, no, I am stuck in this and there is no way out. And it feels like that. It really feels like that until you start to add more people to your system and something else becomes available of. Oh, wait, yeah, you're right. It's. It's not my responsibility that, you know, to. To tend them in this way or make sure they stay. And we're gonna figure this out. And wow, talking to someone who did that and is now lit up about his life, holy shit. Okay. That gives me something to move toward that. It's not that there's not gonna be a hard transition, but there's a reward, a payoff, something better waiting on the other side.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I wanna talk about kids for a moment because, you know, thinking about one of our guys that came, when he arrived, he was. He was pretty confused about his marriage. He wasn't sure, like, should I fight for this? Should I stay in it? Should I leave? I'm really not sure what to do. And they had two little kids, and that was a Big part of his equation was, am I gonna fuck up the kids if I leave this marriage? And essentially what happened is he did choose to leave the marriage. And after a transition period, like you said, he got into this really beautiful relationship with this really emotionally healthy partner. He feels really met by her. It's a stable, grounded, uplifting, vitalizing, energizing relationship. And so the kids get to see him in this relationship. And I remember one of his mantras was, my kids are going to be okay no matter what. So as he was transitioning out of his marriage into the new life, all of it, he said. He just kept saying, my kids are going to be okay no matter what. And we linked him up with alumni who had made the transition, who had gone through the portal and whose kids were thriving. So he had a sense of, okay, this is possible. This really can be done. And these men were kind of reporting like, listen, life is so much better on the other side. It's just. It's more stable, it's more grounded, it's more. There's something about being in the orbit of someone who is dysregulated much of the time that is inherently exhausting. And when you exit that, when you're no longer in that field, your system can stabilize and relax. It takes time. Don't get me wrong, it takes months of just, whoa. Every day is just safe. Every day is just okay. You know, it takes a while. And obviously, if you're co parenting, then it's, you know, you gotta figure that out. And we have helped a lot of men with that particular ball of wax. But he is so happy now. He's just so happy now. And the kids are doing really well. They're co parenting well, you know, sometimes things flare up. But he knows how to handle it now. He knows the language to use. He knows how to engage, when to engage, when not to engage. He's not in this dynamic anymore. He has completely graduated from it. And I'm thinking about, you know, this other guy that we worked with was in a marriage where. What did he say? He said it was like he wasn't even living at the house anymore, but he would go over and clean the bathrooms. It was like this bizarre thing where the erosion of sense of self and dignity over time and just that constant barrage of everything's your fault. It's always your fault. You have to kind of constantly be digging yourself out of a hole. That was part of what I remember as a kid was I would do something that triggered. Triggered my mom. I would do something Wrong. And then I would have to go and apologize and kind of like earn the love back. So I would have to kind of do. Do things around the house or, you know, do things in order to receive the love back, to get the connection back. And so there was this. Yeah. Kind of sense of I'm always. I'm always doing something wrong and then I have to sort of grovel. And it wasn't reciprocal like you said, Jason. It was. There was never something where my mom apologized or my, you know, my mom did something that never, ever happened. It was always one side. And that's what I hear from a lot of our men as well, in these dynamics, is. Yeah, it's like I'm just. I'm. I'm. It's just a repeated cycle of me being in the doghouse, you know, and. And it's. And it's really tiring. So I wanted to really highlight that when children are involved, it's actually even more important that you get out. It's actually even more important that you get out and that you do the work and that you can provide a stable. A stable place, a stable environment for the kids to be around. Because, you know, I was talking to a child psychologist the other day and they said something like, any. When. When there's a volatile parent involved, any time with a stable parent or stable adult figure doesn't need to be a parent is going to help to counterbalance that. It's not going to erase it. But it's really helpful for the child's psyche to have a safe place, a safe environment to be in that is stable, where the child can relax, where they're not hyper vigilant, they're not constantly tracking mom's mood. Right. Because that's really what it is, is if you, if you're in a BBD relationship, you are constantly tracking her mood. You are constantly seeing how's she doing, like, what's happening now, what could happen in a few moments. You know, there's this alert. You're on alert. And that's really, really tough on the nervous system, and that's what ends up happening to the children as well. So it's important. It is really important that you get out. And like Jason said, it's really hard to do that alone. It really helps to have support as you're moving through that transition.
Jason Lange: Yeah. So, you know, we're certainly here to help. And, you know, we. I think I've said this on previous episodes, but yeah, sometimes being in this kind of volatile relationships, what you're naming is your nervous system is in a constant state of hyp, hyperarousal and vigilance. Like if you're in a war zone, right. It's actually not safe. So everything is activated and tracking. And for kids in particular, if you don't have a space to come down over that and you're chronically in that, it's extremely, extremely harmful to a nervous system long term. So even like you said, if it's not perfect, but they have a space, you get out and you got a tiny dinky ass apartment. But when they're there, they're in a co regulated safe space. That is such a gift to your kids.
Melanie Curtin: Yes, yes. And it is important that you, that you do the work, that you do, learn about, you know, what happened and why and how to set boundaries and that you practice that and that you actually gain those skills. That's also really, really important. And man, yeah, I remember being on a call the other day and one of our guys said, honestly, life is just so much better on the other side. Life is just so much better now that I'm divorced, you know, now that I'm past that. And you know, even our guys that are embroiled in legal battles, which I just feel so much compassion for these men that are just being attacked again and again and again by these women and their lawyers. Even the. This guy said, even with all of this crap, it's still better being out. It's still better. Like there's something about that freedom, you know, that freedom, you don't need to stay. And I think it's important to, to recognize that. So I think we're going to transition now into the other type of partner that we often see nice guys attracting. And that is the cold, distant partner. The cold, distant partner. This particularly shows up sexually so often. This woman is not interested in sex or closeness or affection, physical touch, cuddling, she doesn't want to do it. And we see this, I would say, pretty often. Pretty often. Can you talk us through kind of what this looks like and kind of maybe how this guy got into this dynamic? Jason, you're muted.
Jason Lange: Yeah. Like you said, there's a kind of different type of mirroring here in that, like I was talking about, one partner takes up all the space, another partner takes up no space. This is kind of what happens if neither partner really takes up space. And so it's not acute or necessarily volatile. Frankly, there can maybe be no fights at all. Sometimes it can be very. Just comfortable, but not very alive, not very connected, and no Real friction. You know, we could be best friends or we could just be living in the same house more often than not. Frankly, what I hear, what we hear from guys is there's actually a lot of love here. We love each other. We love each other a lot. It's my best friend, but there's just something much deeper. Mission. There's no passion there. And so one of the ways we've seen this play out and you know, and what kind of had this even come onto our radar was we do a lot of work with men around sexual shame. Right. So for nice guys in particular, a lot of times, our sexuality, our lower body, our heat, our fire, our boundaries, our desire, all of that has been offlined to keep the peace with whoever, you know, we needed to. That kind of taught us that way of being. So there's no overt or direct or outward facing sexual desire or drive really. There's kind of just this waiting. Now the offshoot of that or the, the polarity of that is then if we don't have our sexuality online, we're going to attract a partner who's really comfortable with no sexual energy coming at them. Them. And who that partner often is is someone who's a little disconnected or asexual or just not interested in that kind of intimacy or closeness. So again, what it creates is it creates a dynamic that kind of works because another man who had that more online wouldn't stay in because he'd be like, no, I, I need this, you know, sexuality, sexual connection, emotional intimacy, physical closeness. These are needs of mine that I value. And I won't be in a relationship that doesn't have them online in some part. Right? But when that's not online for a nice guy, he'll just stay in it. It's. Well, it works for me, it works for her. You know, usually the nice guy will at least have a higher need and desire. But in all the COVID contracts, a nice guy kind of thing, it's not direct. He's often feeling shame about it. Sex is this thing she has to give him or whatever that might be and it can, but what it points to, and you know where you and I dialed in on this before a call, is it creates a relationship of neglect, right? Where again, it's not that she's not necessarily not doing nice things for him. It's not like that. First thing you know, they might be, she might be tidying the house or do, but she's not giving him what his body and heart needs, which is closeness. And when we Say closeness, sex is a part of that, but it's not the only thing. For all of our guys who have been in this situation, they don't just want sex, they want something more than that of which sexuality can be a part. But where there's arrows flowing between and there's connection and intimacy and vulnerability and touch, all of those things. And the challenge, I think with this kind of more neglectful, just friendly one is there aren't the big fights, there's not the volatility. There's never really a huge looming reason why I would need to leave other than it's sexless. We're not as close as I want, but we get along really well. We raise the family really well or whatever that might be. So there's not this like nothing's burning down. It's like actually a very smooth life sometimes. But something's dying inside of the man.
Melanie Curtin: Yes, it's a barren landscape. There are ways that it's a desert and it's not feeding, it's not feeding him. And I want to point out, you know, we've talked about attachment a little bit. I'm going to have an attachment expert on the podcast soon. But this is avoidance. This is when you're with an avoidant partner, they are not going to bring it up. They don't want to talk about it. They will kind of engage sometimes, sort of, or they'll engage, but then nothing will happen. And this is a really hard one because often, not always, but often the woman involved has a trauma background, particularly a sexual trauma background or emotional neglect background, developmental trauma, and she's not interested in addressing it. And that. And she is in her dignity and her authority. She gets to choose her body, her choice. She gets to choose whether she wants to heal or not. The and you get to choose whether you stay or not. That's the deal. And you know, I we have this list here of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 men that we've worked with who, who did choose to get out. You know, they chose to exit and their lives are better, their lives are better on the other side. And you know, it's interesting you mentioned the. There tends to be a lot more, what's the word ease here in exiting is what I've noticed. There tends to be, like you said, often these folks are co parenting well together. Often the partner isn't volatile or punishing or shaming or loud or they're just kind of distant. They're just kind of distant. They're just not quite there. They're not really available for emotional intimacy, for physical intimacy. So again, like you said, Jason, I think it's actually even easier to stay for a really long time in this dynamic because you're kind of like, well, I guess it's okay. It's kind of fine, you know, but. But there's this yearning for closeness. There's this yearning for, for love, for love to flow through the body, for love to flow and be met, for you to have that reciprocal giving and of love. And you know, one of our guys, years ago, yeah, he, he exited his marriage again, very, very consistent. He exited his marriage during the program also, like, am I up? The kids, you know, he had boys and, you know, they were. I think they were tweens at the time. And same thing. We hooked him up with other men that had done it, that had kids that said, I'm on the other side. It's much better over here. The kids are doing well. Yes, there's a period of transition, but it's, it's. It's better. It's better. Life is better. So he gathered the courage, he left, and then he started dating. And he eventually landed in this really beautiful, reciprocal, exciting, passionate, fun love relationship. And again, his kids got to see him happy. You know, they had never really seen him happy. They had seen him flat, they had seen him kind of depressed. They had seen him in this different kind of zone. So it was a win, win, you know, and she's doing well too. His ex wife is doing just fine. So I think there's often shit, if I leave, you know, what's gonna happen to family? What's gonna happen to her? Am I gonna fuck everything up? When actually you taking care of you, you taking care of yourself is the most important thing. That's the most important thing. And everything else flows from that. And I know that those of you that are dads out there listening, you want that for your kids. You want your kids to be able to choose themselves. You want them to be able to take care of themselves. They have to see you do that. It's a transmission. It's, you know, our kids listen to what we do, not what we say. It's really important. It's important that you learn how to take care of yourself. It's important that you learn how to do that. You know, there's another man that, you know. It took him years. It took him years. You know, you get to go at your own pace. You get to go. You are on your own timeline. There's no rush. But I really want to validate that the barren landscape, the barren emotional, physical intimacy landscape that you're in is toxic in its own way. It's really tough. And it's. Again, it's confusing in a different way, because to your point, Jason, there is some connection available in this relationship. And so it's like, why do I feel so empty? Right? Why do I feel so empty? Why do I feel constant? It's sort of like yearning. Like, I just. I want more from you. I want more from you. I want more from you. That tends to be a repeat of your own mom or dad, your own caregiver. You know, it's. It tends to be a. There was some kind of yearning, and you don't have to stay stuck there. You don't have to keep living that pattern. You can get out. It can be different. You can do the work, and it really is better. I mean, there's just man after man. There's another one that I'm thinking of that just recently got married, actually, and is in just a really beautiful relationship now. He had previously been married, and it was just kind of awful. And when you're in it, like you said, Jason, it can feel so endless. It can feel like I'm so stuck. It can feel like, how could this ever be different, Particularly when there are kids involved? And I think that's the thing I really just want to impart more than anything is it can be different. It can. It can be different. And you taking the steps is key. And you bringing in the right support and resources is also key because you just trying to do it alone. I don't know, man. Like, that's really hard. It's really hard. It really helps to have people that can hold your hand and people that can say, you can do this, and we're going to be with you every step of the way. And like I said, those connections of speaking, speaking to a man that really has done it, that really gets it, is a game changer. Okay, this guy's telling me he had little kids, too, or he had tweens, too. And yes, there was a period of transition. Yes, there was stress involved. And on the other side of it, it's so much more vibrant. It's worth it. It's worth it. You can do it. It's worth it. You know, it's kind of like the people cheering you on in a marathon. You can do this. I know it's a long road, but you got this. And it's. And it's more than possible.
Jason Lange: Yeah, I'll. I'll just End kind of here with one. One note about the. The challenge of this is sometimes there can be even with these kind of partners, just a subtle type of gaslighting which is like, why do you need that? Why? Like, isn't this enough? Isn't it like, what's wrong with you? Like this kind of Cause to them in their world, it's actually not a problem. They are getting the level of connection their nervous system is asking for and they, they can't see that your higher desire or need or closeness is an issue because for them they're like, no, I feel complete, I feel good. Like, this works. Why would you like da da da da. So I just want to name that. So it's. It's not as an overt a thing. But some of our guys like it's crazy making in its own way because they're like just there's no problem. Why do you keep bringing this up and then just to tie it into what you closed with. Yeah. I mean just, you know, if you're a man out there listening in this kind of situation or I mean either of those situations, you know, we definitely take a stand for. You deserve to have warmth, reciprocity, connection, physical, emotional and spiritual intimacy with a partner. Like that is. That's your birthright as a man. And it doesn't make you some kind of man pig if sex is a part of that. If you. Like I said, for none of the guys we've worked with has it come down to just that. The closeness goes much deeper than that in we want you to have that.
Melanie Curtin: We really do. We really want you to have that. And we really have seen many, many, many men go through the transition and there's so much more fulfillment on the other side. And what I would say is that part of the transition involves, yeah, healthy risk taking. Healthy risk taking. Which is I'm taking risks and I have support with me as I'm taking those risks. So yeah, we would love to hear what you think. You can always get me@dearmen podcastmail.com and if you are interested in coaching, you can go to Evolutionary Men Apply.
