Nice guys aren't nearly as nice as we think we are. That's the paradox I got into with Lauren on this episode of The Connection Podcast, and it's one I've lived through myself. We talked about where nice guy syndrome actually comes from, not weakness, but an old survival strategy. A lot of us learned as kids that our needs threatened the very connection we depended on, so we learned to abandon ourselves to keep the peace. I shared my mentor Dr. Glover's idea of covert contracts, doing things for people in hopes of getting something back without ever actually naming what we want, and how that quietly builds resentment and erodes trust in a relationship. We got into why a partner can't trust a nice guy's yes if they've never once heard him mean no, why people pleasing shows up everywhere from the bedroom to the workplace to parenting, and why healthy anger, when it's owned and spoken instead of stuffed or discharged sideways, actually brings people closer instead of pushing them away. I also talked about the two energies every man needs online at the same time, an open heart and the capacity to hold a boundary and lead from love instead of fear. And we got into the bigger picture too, the epidemic of male loneliness and why so many of us wait until our bodies force us to slow down before we ever ask for support.
This one got personal for me. The story about staying on the phone with a telemarketer for 55 minutes because I didn't know how to hang up still makes me cringe a little, but it's a pretty honest picture of what collapsed nice guy energy actually looks like.
Where in your life are you doing something for someone while quietly expecting something back, without ever having said so out loud?
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Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Welcome to the Connection Podcast. I am Lauren Dry, also known as the Connection Catalyst Connection. And this podcast for me is personal. As a driven professional, I found myself an expert in all things work and business. But it was at home that I really needed clarity and ease. After finally finding it one marriage breakdown and one marriage reset later, and finally discovering what really works to have connection in modern relationships. Using science, simplicity and soul, our signature program, Rise into Regulation was born. That's giving so many others in modern driven relationships back clarity and ease for good on the podcast. Today we're going to dive deep together on all things relationships, business, identity and leadership. And clarity and ease is at the heart of it all. And we are so happy to be with you so that you can have what you need in connection, mind, body and soul too. Hi. I'm so happy to have you back on the Connection Podcast with us today. We have a really exciting episode that I've been really looking forward to covering. It's been very popular over on the socials, over in the conversations with clients as well recently. And that is the difference between a nice guy and a good man. And welcome you on the podcast today. Jason Lange, a men's embodiment coach and Certified no More Mr. Nice Guy Coach who has trained with leaders like John Wineland and Dr. Robert Glover, and he spends his time helping men move out of people, pleasing into real presence, intimacy and connection in their lives and relationships. Jason, a big warm welcome to the Connection podcast. I've really been looking forward to this and I would love to hear a little bit more about you for anyone in the audience who hasn't met you yet. And also a little bit from you about why you think that this is the episode that the Connection podcast audience has been waiting to hear.
Jason Lange: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here. This is stuff I love to talk about and I love live every day of my life. I'm a men's embodiment coach, relationship coach, kind of all the above. But I work with men to become the deepest, most powerful present version of themselves. And through my own journey, what I discovered was the, the route I kind of had to take was a more and more common route for so many of us men, which is what we call so called nice guy recovery.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I think that's really interesting what you just said there because I think almost everyone listening has heard the phrase nice guy, but I think we've misunderstood it. Most people hear nice guy and imagine someone who's kind, but what we're really talking about is someone who's learned to earn love by performing. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and help us understand the difference?
Jason Lange: The root of nice guy syndrome for so many of us men is, and I experienced this in my own life, has actually to do with connection. And right. As human beings, when we're born, we have two primary needs, connection and authenticity. So we're really unique compared to pretty much any other creature on the planet. We come out and we're totally helpless. So one of the first things we learn to do as babies is to connect with our caregivers. Right? What does it mean for me to stay connected here? Now we have this other thing, which is I have my own internal needs, drives, impulses, wants, feelings, desires. And normally, ideally, in a caregiver relationship, I'm able to bring those forward without it threatening the connection. What happens for nice guys, often from a very young age in their families, and then, if not in their families culturally, is what happens when my needs threaten the very connection I need to survive. And so for a lot of nice guys, whether it's an anxious mother, explosive, angry father, or any mix of either of those from a young age, what they learn is in order to keep the relationship, the connection, alive, I'm going to change how I behave. Dad needs me to be a certain way when he gets home from work, or Mom's sad, so I need to cheer her up. And what that starts to do is it prioritizes the other person's state of being over our own as nice guys. And I did this in my own way, coming from a household of neglect where my parents were around, but there wasn't any physical touch or emotional intimacy in particular. So I learned to be the kid with no needs. I'm just going to kind of be quiet, be in my own space, and never ask for anything, never be a problem for my parents, so I could get the little threads of connection I could from them.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah, I'm really curious about that. So on your journey to finding this work and before you became a coach in this space, would you say that you were a nice guy? And what did that actually look like?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I'll tell you a pretty embarrassing story. When I was about probably 21 or 22 years old, I was living in California on my own. And I was so collapsed in my nice guy, meaning one of the big areas, we see this complete lack of ability to set boundaries or say no. And so you kind of got to imagine technology was a little bit different back then. The Internet was a little newer and it was the age of telemarketers on phones, and I'm like, 21 years old. I'm living in California. I get this phone call from a guy who, like, wants to sell me magazines or just some stupid scammy. You get on, like, a membership and they sell you all these magazines no one wants. And I could not get him off the phone. I did not know how to end the connection. And I ended up staying on a phone call with a guy I had no desire to talk to for 55 minutes. And I gave him my credit card and signed up for something I absolutely did not want. Because I had no capacity for dealing with conflict or saying no. It just wasn't in my nervous system. I look back and I'm like, oh, my God, what was I doing? Just hang up the phone, like. But even that musculature was, like, frozen in my nervous system. And for a lot of nice guys, it can come down to conflict avoidance or that secret desire to get people to like them.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah. I'm curious, what does this look like for the partner of a nice guy?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, it's a big one. And it's what drives a lot of men to work with me, frankly, is long term. What I like to say about us nice guys is we're actually not that nice and we're not trustable. And what I mean by that is. So my mentor, Dr. Glover, who literally wrote the book, he came up with this incredible term covert contracts. And once I saw it, I was like, oof. I do that everywhere, right? Wow. A covert contracts. Basically typical nice guy stuff. I'm gonna do this stuff for you in hopes you're gonna do something back for me. But here's the key. I've never actually asked you if you agreed to that contract. So it's covert. So I'm secretly doing all this stuff to try to get something from you, but I haven't asked you about it, I haven't told you about it. And what makes that challenging is often then you don't give me what I want, and lo and behold, I get resentful. I'm doing all this stuff for you, but I'm not getting anything back. And that is so common for nice guys. And for their partners, it can be really frustrating because they often don't actually know what their partner wants. Their partner seems to be trying to get something from them. This shows up huge for nice guys around sexuality in terms of, well, if I'm just super nice to you, particularly to women, then you're going to have sex with me, right. And then if you don't, I get mad about it. I'm doing all this stuff around the house. I'm trying to. Da, da, da. And that will tank a relationship. And even deeper than that, what I'll share is part of what makes a nice guy untrustable is if you're my partner, right? And I am constantly. And this is the downside to nice guys. They live by the platitude, right? Happy wife, happy life. So I'm just going to do whatever you want. Right. What that teaches you and what often your experience is as my partner is he can't stand up for himself. He's just going along with what I want. And if he can't stand up to me, how is he going to stand up to all the other things in the world I need him to stand up to so we can create a deep relationship or a happy family or protect our kids or whatever that might be? So the essence, you know, of this in a lot of ways is nice guys continually abandon ourselves.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah, Right.
Jason Lange: So we have a need or want, an impulse, a truth, and we just let go of it in order to try to keep you happy. But long term, what that tends to create is deep resentment, lack of trust, and honest to God. And a lot of men I work with, long enough term, their partners actually start to kind of disgust them. It's like a sense of disgust of like, oh, my God, just stand up for yourself. Tell me. No, Right. Like it literally comes through the body because without that, they can't trust anything.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I'm wondering, did anyone ever maybe lovingly call you out on this pattern? Was there a moment in time where you started to see that this was a problem as opposed to something that maybe was benefiting you originally?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I would say my early intimate relationships, I would say in my late 20s. How it would show up is I just wouldn't talk directly about things that needed to be talked about because I was afraid if I mentioned something, it would create conflict. So a lot of nice guys are deeply conflict avoidant, just like I was, or deeply codependent, meaning, okay, I'm terrified of conflict because if we get into conflict, you might leave me. And because I'm codependent, if your emotional state is dysregulated, I become dysregulated. So I don't want you to get angry, upset, sad, whatever, because I can't handle that in my emotional body. And I had a lot of that. I would kind of end relationships in very sloppy ways. Because I wouldn't talk about them. I wasn't clear with what I needed with partners. They showed up professionally for me. I was an entrepreneur at the time and I had, I was, I was doing more web development at that time and I would just do whatever a client wanted any time of day. I would answer, you know, answer emails, do the work for them. And my life quality just tanked. I wasn't charging enough money. I was just trying to constantly please and appease. And that's one of the really dangerous things for so many of us nice guys. And then I got into men's work, right? I got into men's group and guys actually started reflecting to me what they were seeing of like, hey, all this stuff is happening to you and you're complaining about it, but you realize you're part of the reason that's happening. You're not actually talking about what you need or what you want or setting a boundary in this sense. And I had to wake up to, wow, I don't know how to set boundaries in my life and I don't know how to be clear and direct with what my desires are.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah, I hear you with that. I'm curious. Something that I often see for men who have this nice guy pattern right down the end of the spectrum is that often this can relate, often this can evolve into things like infidelity. Another symptom that I often see is this dynamic where the woman has signed up for this loving, caring, nurturing guy who goes above and beyond for her. And then when the relationship starts to settle, often she comes last in the interests of pleasing everyone else around the couple. I'm wondering, have you ever noticed this pattern and can you speak into how and why this happens and can be so common or at least at the very end of the spectrum for nice guys?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, people pleasing. You said it right. There is another way to think about nice guy syndrome. And it does not just mean in our intimate relationships, this rolls into every relationship, often for nice guys, including parenting. A lot of nice guys I work with, they don't step in to the boundary setting role in their family and then that has to default on their partner. Right. They're the kind of easy one, just go with the flow. And that can have disastrous consequences, just even for kids. And then in the workplace, oftentimes, yes, nice guys will have a really hard time advocating for themselves and may stay in a job that's not particularly good for them and their family where they're getting underpaid, overworking too much but again, they're too afraid of speaking up. And so I had one client who he came to the States probably in his early 20s and we were working together and he, he had pretty strong nice guy syndrome. And he was an extremely hard worker, but because of his people pleasing tendencies, by the time he got to us, he had been at this job for about 25 years. And as we were working together, he was, he was starting to come alive, right, Realize, hey, I can't do this anymore. This is pretty dysfunctional what I'm doing. And what he realized was in 25 years he had never once asked for a vacation. So he was from Eastern Europe and he had not been back home to see friends and family and people he really cared about because he was terrified. Oh my God, if I ask for time off, they might fire me. Da da da da. As he kind of got his center, he was able to do it. And for the first time in 25 years he said, you know what, I need time off to take care of myself and I want to go home and see my family for a month. And his employees were like, in that instance, they were like, great, go for it. And what he realized, as many nice guys do, is oh, the limitation there was actually me. There's so much more available around me. But my terror about boundary setting conflict, my codependence, I allowed that to lead. And that can show up in relationships, right? Where a nice guy is, is just falling prey to the needs of everyone and everything around him. And if finances or something are involved in that, let's say, then yeah, he's going to prioritize that over the well being even of his own intimate partner. Because particularly if they, you know, not all the time, but oftentimes nice guys are codependent. So they will polarize somewhat codependent partners who also have a certain level of need and fear because of that. It creates a kind of odd safety where the nice guy can start to neglect that partner. And then once again we have a partner who doesn't feel loved, doesn't trust their partner, doesn't feel cherished in the ways they desire.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah, I think that that's really interesting how that people pleasing desire can start out with such good intentions and also be the very thing that's most destructive for the highest goals and the deepest desires of a person who is the people pleaser 100%.
Jason Lange: You know another way this showed up for me right in my relationship and I've been married now for almost 10 years. Essentially people pleasers, we just say yes to everything. Right. Because we don't want to disappoint people, particularly in the relationships we care about the most. The challenge with that long term. Right. Is it comes from good intention. I care about my wife. I want her to be happy. Right. But if I cannot say no in our relationship, if she does not trust my no, no, I will not do that. No. That doesn't feel right for me. No. I don't think that's a good decision for us. She cannot trust any yes. I. I'm saying because she doesn't know where the yes is coming from. Is the yes actually coming from my discerning wisdom or is the yes coming from my fear of her upset, her anger, the consequences in our friend sphere if other people are involved, et cetera. So that's part of where this distrust starts to build up is no one ever really knows where a nice guy is at and, and that's what makes him not so nice. Another way to think about this is if all I'm doing is changing my behavior. So you feel a certain way I'm actually controlling and manipulating you. I'm trying to control you to keep you a certain way. And that's the dark shadow side of us nice guys. People don't want to talk about that. Sometimes we're actually. It's not very nice for me to pretend a certain thing because what I'm really doing is trying to control your behavior.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah.
Jason Lange: Your experience. And when people feel controlled, they certainly aren't attracted to that person in terms of an intimate relationship. Absolutely not inspired to trust them at a deeper level.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah. Reminds me of that really powerful phrase, honesty without kindness is cruelty, but kindness without honesty, it's manipulation. I think that that's powerful picture of why nice guys can be so dangerous. I'm curious. Often at the breakup stage, that's where these patterns become most obvious. Have you ever watched someone genuinely believe that they did everything right while their partner was dying inside the relationship? What was he missing at that time?
Jason Lange: So the challenge with us nice guys in those circumstances is oftentimes nice guys are not leading. We're putting the leadership on our partner, which in a heterosexual relationship often does not work long term. If we're constantly asking our wife or partner to make the decisions and lead because we're afraid that if we make a decision they don't like, guess what, it's going to create conflict. All that codependence is going to come up. And so for many nice guys, they think, well, just earning money is enough. But that's not actually leadership in the relationship, talking about hard things, having vulnerable emotional conversations, getting in there and dealing with conflict head on and frankly, continuing to live a life as men. So this is what I had to do and what I teach men on For a lot of nice guys, like you said, we start with great intentions. And when we're single, we have male friendships, we have passions, we have hobbies, we have things we care about that as we do them, provide us energy and nourishment and frankly, make us feel alive and attractive. What most nice guys do is the second they get into a long term relationship, they start letting go of all that. Like, I can't go out with the guys because I gotta be with you tonight or I can't take that trip because I gotta take care of the kids. And they start to drop all of the support structures around them where everything often reduces to work, family. And over time, what that does is it doesn't make a man very attractive if his whole life really comes down to just this small family unit. It's pretty intense. Because then what pressure that puts on, particularly our partners, our intimate partners, is, well, if I'm not happy, then his life sucks. Right? If our relationship's not going well because he has nothing outside of here. And when a man has nothing outside of the relationship, it's not that inspiring. So for us nice guys, another way to think about this that we talk about in men's work is there's kind of two primal energies we all need as men. Right. We need our heart. We need the capacity to be open, sensitive, attuned, caring, kind of kind, like you were saying. But then we actually do need, so to speak, our balls. This is actually the lower part of our body. It's the part that can say no or I want this or hey, let's talk about it seems like you're really mad at me right now. What's going on and can actually step in to that directive. More present, confrontational place in a sense, but confrontational from a place of caring and love.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): That's true.
Jason Lange: And this is also as nice guys where our sexual energy comes from. So most nice guys are terrified of that. Because we don't want to be a creep. We don't want to be a me too guy. So more and more nice guys are afraid to lead in relationships.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah.
Jason Lange: Feel a deep amount of shame about their sexuality and then get stuck in the so called friend zone or a sexless marriage. And they're like, why doesn't she want to have sex with me? And it's like, because. Because you're totally shut off from your desire in your body.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I think that speaks into the confusion around masculinity right now. Some people think that the opposite of being a nice guy is becoming dominant or even aggressive. And others think that it's becoming emotionally detached. So what do you think that healthy masculinity actually looks like?
Jason Lange: Yeah, that. It's such a great question. And it's the. For us men, it's. It's the work of this day and age. And yeah, it's being able to do both. It's being able to be in our hearts attuned, caring, and in our power. It's our ability to say no. It is actually our ability to use force when necessary to create safety for the people we care about the most and not just constantly being a pushover. And as I like to say, the work I do with nice guys can really be summarized down to one thing. These days, you don't have to stop being nice. You just have to stop abandoning yourself. That's the whole key. So if every. If I'm being nice and being a yes man in the whole time, I am abandoning myself, taking care of my needs, my wants, my desires, my truth. I am actually not being kind to the people around me. But if I include myself doesn't mean I have to become a macho jerk, you know, 1950s kind of domineering, patriarchal guy. We can be something more than that. That again, has that capacity to be in our power and our desire and has the capacity to care about the people around us. And when that's online, something else becomes possible for us. In the work I do in men's groups, we often talk about this as it's one of the places we get to train this. And I jokingly call it the spinach in the teeth moment. Right? You and I are going through our day. We meet up maybe for a late coffee, and I'm. And you're like, hey, dude, Jason, realize you got a big, big piece of spinach in your teeth. You've been walking around like that all day. And I'm like, oh, I feel some shame, a little bit embarrassment. I climb cleared out. But then I look at you and I say, hey, thanks for telling me. I've been walking around all day and no one else told me, but you cared enough about me to confront me with this hard truth. That's just one example of that. But that's something us nice guys get to step into where having access to our power, our desire Our no, our sexuality does not have to be a binary with our heart. And it's when they're both online that I can hold the space of a sacred no or direct my relationship towards something deeper and real that us men become really powerful. And this is where I argue. The world actually needs a lot more men like this. There's plenty of the old kind of cavemen yapping and yammering about how you're supposed to be tough and just don't. Dominating everyone. And then you have plenty of nice guys who are just a pushover. And when they're not showing up, the women in their lives are having to show up and hold all that space alone. And that leaves them feeling alone, unsupported, and isolated. So us nice guys being able to step into our power is actually a gift to everyone around us. And this was very real, lived feedback. I started to get that, like, scrambled my brain as I stepped into this work, both from my wife and from the men closest to me, is when I learned how to healthily. So this is different from what most men are taught. How to healthily engage with my anger and actually share my anger in the moment without displacing it or discharging it in an aggressive way. People around me liked it. They were like, oh, my God, it's such a relief to feel that you care and know what's going on inside you. And I actually feel closer to you and trust you more, knowing that you're mad at me for this thing rather than what most nice guys would do is pretend it's not in there and tiptone around it, ignore it, but then be frustrated and a little mad on the outside. And you ask me, are you mad at me? No, I'm not a. No, I'm not mad at you. Everything's fine. And you're like, no, yeah, you're mad at me. That's another example of how nice guys can't be trusted, because particularly in intimacy, if our partner has more authentically naming what we're feeling than we are, she can't trust us. She's more tied in because she's like, if you aren't even willing to admit what you're feeling, or worse, you're not aware of that, I got to get out of here. The most dangerous man is the man who looks at you and says, I'm not angry when you ask him. Right. But pretty clearly he's angry. That's the guy you want to run for the hills from, right?
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah, absolutely. I think some of what you're speaking into is such a powerful reflection of some of the work that my husband has actually done. He's one of the male mentors inside of Rise. And one of the most important turning points in his own journey for working on himself was the first time he stepped into something like a men's group. I'd love to hear what that moment was like for you when you decided that you were either ready or you maybe even had no other option to seek support from something like a men's group. Because what often the women I speak to find is that there may be some level of awareness from their husband that things need to change. But shame, regret, grief, and a sense of failure prevents them from ever reaching out for any kind of support. What was that turning point moment for you when where you felt safe enough to seek support and what would you say to someone in that exact same space as well?
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm wondering what happens on the other side of the fence when a relationship starts to improve because a man is starting to become more authentic, have a more healthy relationship with masculinity. I mean, I'm curious about your experience in coaching men in this space. And do you find that in some cases it can initially create more conflict before it creates more intimacy?
Jason Lange: Absolutely, it can. And to be brutally honest, one of two things happens. The relationship gets better or it ends. So another thing that happens, like I said, is nice guys in particular. One thing I've seen now in doing this work for a few decades is, is we will attract and polarize often a certain type of partner, a certain type of partner who actually likes not being around someone who can set boundaries oftentimes. So not this isn't all the case, but a fair amount of nice guys I Work with actually end up in relationships with partners who have borderline personality disorder. Because if I can't set a boundary, I'm going to attract someone who, who doesn't care about boundaries. And so they have these extremely volatile partners who someone who could set boundaries would say, hey, the way you're treating me is not okay. I'm not down to be in this relationship. But because nice guys can't do that, they're one of the only people that'll stay in relationship with a narcissist or a BPD partner. And so for many men I work with, they start to set boundaries and their partners get really upset, say, oh my God, you don't love me anymore. Da da da da. And that relationship ends. Other partners, same thing, will have told themselves a story. They want a man who has a backbone, and then he starts showing up with a backbone, and they realize, oh my God, I have to change now too. I'm getting some things reflected to me about my behavior in our family or relationship, and if the partner doesn't want to look at that, the relationship will end. But the best case is, is that yes, oftentimes there's this kind of. It's like if you haven't worked out for a long time and you get back at it, your first couple workouts are like, oh my God, I'm really sore. Wow, I can barely walk. And then over time, you're like, okay, I can work out heavy, and I don't do that. So a lot of couples will have this backlog of old boundary violations, things you never talked about, crunchy conflicts, lack of truth telling. And this initial period of the man starting to speak up more, own his truth, speak his real experience, be in his power. Can create some friction initially, but if you know how to navigate that as a couple, what it leads to is much more depth and honesty and vulnerability and truth and frankly, much more closeness. Because then rather than me constantly trying to manage your experience, you actually get to know what's going on inside me, and I get to know what's going on inside you. And as a nice guy, if I particularly learn to not be afraid of my intimate partner's emotions, which so many guys are particularly nice guys, I don't want her to get upset. I don't want to beat her sad. So I'm just going to try to fix the problem or do whatever she needs. As we learn to be in that, our partners feel more safe, known, and like they can be themselves. Oh, yeah, I'm allowed to be mad. It's okay. I don't need you to fix anything. I'm just mad right now. Okay, you're mad right now, baby. Let's just be mad. And it becomes a. Actually, it can become a playful connecting thing where instead of having both partners to stuff their emotions, they can come through. So long term, it's absolutely possible to vastly improve the relationship when a man can step into his power, set boundaries, and more than anything else, start to be honest. The thing about honesty and authenticity in this sense is it either brings us closer to someone or it ends things. Because what we find is, wow, my authentic self needs choices. Your authentic self needs choices. They're not a match in many nice guys because they don't start a relationship with that will spend decades in a relationship with a partner who actually didn't want to be in relationship with them because they weren't being themselves. So they start to be themselves and their partner's like, actually, I don't like that. I don't like you. And it will bring things to a close. But the good news is a man who's done this work well has really tried, showed up. It's a much more freeing experience of, wow. We both really gave it a go in what we just found is it's not a good fit on that side of things or. And this absolutely happens, turns out it is a good fit. And I actually really like this side of you. It turns me on that you can stay in your power, that you can set boundaries, that sometimes you can take the lead in our marriage or family or intimacy, and I just get to relax for a while. So there's definitely a bit of a turbulent period in the transition. And last thing I would say is if you. It's very challenging as a man to do this alone because Nice Guy syndrome is going to be connecting to your deepest attachment wounding. And that's where you need some kind of support system around you, whether it's a therapist, a coach, or what I would advocate for a men's group.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I think what is so important for men to have a picture of as well is how Nice Guy syndrome affects the next generation and their own children. As a father yourself, how do you feel about fathers who don't heal this? What did their sons learn and what do their daughters learn as well, and what do they need to be aware of in terms of breaking that cycle?
Jason Lange: We kind of named it earlier that what you're teaching your children, what you're modeling for them is self abandonment, that my needs are less important than the needs of the people around me. And that does go down generationally in terms of kids in particular, getting into relationships where their own desires don't matter, and so they stay in unhealthy or dysfunctional or codependent relationships. There's a direct chain of that oftentimes in these kinds of family situations, and even earlier than that, right? Again, one of the words most closely associated with nice guys is boundaries. And kids who do not have healthy boundaries in their family system, whose parents cannot set that, they suffer. All the research shows they suffer. They feel more anxiety, they act out more, they don't know what the limit in their lives is. And if they're not getting a strong, firm, guiding, sturdy kind of parental presence in their life, they often have to go outside the house to try to find certain needs and nutrients they need. So I see this a lot. I live in Colorado, in the US in kind of one of the more hippie liberal towns. And there's a huge problem, right, of kids being not giving boundaries and little dictators, as we say, right, who just get everything they want and if they don't get of it, they have these huge tantrums and the parents just cave and fold. In some sense that is disastrous for a kid, as is for a young man. You know, in particular, seeing a father who can't stand up for himself and doesn't stand up for me, that teaches something to our children. So there's a lot of disastrous consequences for not dealing with this stuff because really, like I said, it's kind of strong, languaging. But boundaries in a lot of ways, sometimes at the extreme end, we have to be willing to use force to create safety. So my 2 year old, if he runs and tries to grab a knife, I don't say, hey, could you drop the knife, son? I have to actually grab it out of his hand and remove it from him forcefully to keep him safe or to grab his body and move it away from a street in a dangerous situation. And nice guys are often afraid of doing that kind of thing again. They just try to please and appease everyone around them. And it creates a lot of dysfunction in their families and relationships. And the challenge with so many nice guys is it eventually creates a lack of trust and respect as well. So a lot of guys I work with had the nice guy father, and it crushed them that they would see their father cave repeatedly in things in his life and not stand up for himself. And when he wouldn't stand up for himself, what they learned is, well, I'm probably not someone worth standing up for because my parent can't, my dad can't stand up for me. And that goes right into all of our own inner self esteem. So getting over nice guy syndrome is crucial to becoming, I would say, a good parent and a trusting and a loving parent and father in particular.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I love that. I'm curious, for a man who's perhaps listening to this episode and is curious about exploring authenticity in small ways and, and begin identifying safe conversations to start experimenting, breaking these patterns, what would you invite him to start exploring, considering, thinking about, or experimenting with Today for nice
Jason Lange: guys, the first place I would say is the, the kind of gold that's going to point you towards everything you need often as a nice guy, is resentment. Where are you feeling resentment in your life? Oftentimes where we're feeling resentment is nice guys. That is a direct pointer to somewhere in our life. We're not setting a boundary. And so you can literally just sit down, I'm resentful about this relationship, about this deal I have, or whatever it is. Write down all your resentments and what you'll likely find is you're not setting a boundary there, or you're not clearly and honestly and vulnerably directly asking for what you need. You're running one of those covert contracts, right? And just doing that can start to really wake things up for a man. As the other one I would say is if you have a. A spouse who's open to it, think about, where are you withholding? It's another way to think about this. What withholds are you carrying from the past, from the present? And consider sharing about some of those. Sometimes as men, we think, well, I didn't share that back then, I can't talk about it now. But withholds in resentment, all the research for healthy relationship shows those are the greatest poisons there are. They will kill a relationship. So your willingness to create a safe space in your relationship of hey, I want to try something new, this isn't about attacking you, this isn't about making you wrong. This is about me owning my truth. And I want to share some things I've been withholding from you right now. I don't need you to do anything about it other than just hear me. And then I actually want to make space for you to do the same where you can share anything you've been withholding from me. And I just want to hear it right. And we're not going to try to fix it tonight. We're just going to kind of get it out there. In that level of honesty can really start to change things. It's something I see actually for a lot of guys on the. At the tail end of a relationship when it starts to end and it becomes really clear it's going to end. It's really confusing for some men sometimes where because the relationship's over, there's no longer anything at risk and they start telling the truth more. Both partners just start telling the truth more and more. And paradoxically, it starts to create a level of closeness they haven't felt in years. And it can become very confusing like, wow, I'm actually attracted to you again. I'm feeling close to you because we're being honest even though the relationship's over. And that's the impact this kind of direct honesty and vulnerability can have. When we start sharing withholds, when we start sharing resentments. And for a lot of us nice guys, even more vulnerable than all that is when we start directly sharing our desires. What we actually want in the first person. I want X. I'm afraid to share that with you because I figure you judge me or you wouldn't like that or it's going to change our schedule or whatever. But it creates so much more vitality in a relationship long term when a nice guy can start to do that.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I love that. What I always like to help the audience to summarize from the episode as they're considering all of these ideas and maybe taking away some life changing new nuggets is dive into some questions that really help summarize things.
Jason Lange: Beautiful.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): The first question I have for you is what's one sentence every nice guy desperately needs to hear?
Jason Lange: You don't have to stop being a nice guy. You just have to stop abandoning yourself.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Love that. What do you think is one behavior that women mistake as emotional maturity that
Jason Lange: actually isn't a man keeping everything bottled up inside and never showing his softness.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah. What is one behavior that men mistake as kindness that actually isn't anyone trying
Jason Lange: to manage another person's experience?
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): What do you think is one uncomfortable conversation that every man should have this year?
Jason Lange: What he really craves sexually?
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Yeah, that's really interesting and important. Finish this sentence for me. A good man is someone who.
Jason Lange: A good man is someone who is connected to his deepest truth and is willing to share that and listen to how it impacts the people around him.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): And one more sentence to finish. The moment my life changed was when
Jason Lange: I learned to say no.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): That's huge. I'd love to leave a takeaway that I feel is so important for this episode for anyone listening. And then I have one last question for you that I'm really curious for your take on. I think for so many men listening to this episode, if you could magically remove every single woman's expectations tomorrow and no one could reject you, no one could leave you, and no one could judge you, I'm curious, and I'd love to hear from you. How differently would you live? Because whatever your answer is, that's probably where the real you is hiding. The final question that I would love to ask you, Jason, is a question that was left by my last podcast guest, not knowing who the next podcast guest was going to be. And that question is, what is the greatest gift that this life has to offer?
Jason Lange: I would say, for me, the greatest gift this life has to offer is the very thing right there in the word of your podcast, which is connection. It's the feeling of being connected to other people and not feeling alone, which is, as a man, one of the deepest journeys we can go on of. Oh, actually, I am part of. And it's okay. And the connection will deepen, paradoxically, and has in my life the more authentically I show up and stop trying to. People, please. Hmm.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I love that. That's really beautiful, Jason. I'd love to hear. Not knowing who the next podcast guest is going to be on the Connection podcast. What question would you leave the next guest?
Jason Lange: Yeah, my question would be, what truly creates safety in relationship?
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): And I'd love to ask you, Jason, what truly creates safety in our relationship?
Jason Lange: Gonna kind of ring the bell here once again, but connection. Most people think it's the absence of conflict that creates safety in relationship, but it's actually the presence of connection, meaning conflict. As simple as it is, it's you want something and I want something, and they're different. And real safety is you're allowed to want that, and I'm allowed to want that, and we can stay in connection. And when that becomes possible, children thrive, marriages thrive, work, relationships thrive because we're not having to manage our experiences with each other. And we can be honest. And if there's anything the world needs right now, it's the ability for people to stay in connection even when there's conflict.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): Absolutely. I really second that one. Well, thank you so much for joining me today on the Connection podcast, Jason. I feel like this conversation is really going to impact so many, not only men, but women as well, who are going to feel so seen in these patterns and experience so much validation, but also hope about what relationships in the future can look like with just a few little nuggets of awareness and wisdom and the freedom to begin exploring. Asking for help. If there are people who are listening to this episode who would love to stay in touch, how can they reach you?
Jason Lange: Jason yeah, best way to keep up with me is at my website, Evolutionary Men. On there you can see all the programs. I have my own podcast and if you're a man who really kind of wants to dial into some of your issues, there's a free quiz on there for you at Evolutionary Man Quiz, and it'll show you your real edges as a man in terms of where you need to grow and some of what your deepest gifts are.
Host (The Connection Podcast - Lauren Dry): I love that. And we'll make sure we pop that in the show notes as well. Thank you so much again, Jason for coming and hanging out with us. And if this has brought up anything for you today and you'd like to take the conversation deeper, if you want to share some of your biggest nuggets that you've taken away from this episode, please feel free to drop them in the show notes or come and join me over on Instagram at Lauren Underscore Dry to keep the conversation going and let us know what do you want to hear next on the Connection Podcast. We are so blessed to share this space with you and can't wait to join you you over on the next episode of the Connection podcast. Big love.
