Why Not the Nice Guy?

Nice guys always complain that women prefer to be with assholes. It often does seem true--good women being treated like crap by their boyfriends and likewise, nice guys stuck with women that treat them horribly. We have all seen it and wondered why? Do we have to treat our significant others poorly in order to get a good one? I think maybe I have finally figured out the phenomenon.

My last one was about as far from a nice guy as you can get. He would regularly scream at me that I was crazy, that no guy in their right mind would want anything to do with me, that I was lucky to have him because nobody else could possibly ever put up with me. I was ugly, fat, a joke of a therapist--the list goes on and on of the daily put-downs and self-esteem shatterers that I lived with.

After him, I vowed that it was nice guys from here on out. I vowed never to be hit again after the six year relationship of black eyes and bruises on a weekly basis and twelve years later, I am still free from abuse at a man's hands. It came close to crossing that line more than once with my last one but I managed to leave before it moved beyond him grabbing me in anger.

Since him, I have exclusively dated and spent time with nice guys. Now that I am in a "healthy" relationship with a nice guy, I am baffled. I find that I am now the bad person in the relationship. I have mood swings, I am unpleasant to be around, I am all of the things the last one said I am. I don't know how to fix it--it's horrible. I love this one so much and am terrified of losing him, yet I feel myself sabotaging it no matter how I try not to. Is it that I feel I don't deserve to be treated well? I think that is a major piece of the puzzle.

All of my life I have been told how horrible I was. By my parents, my father's family, eventually boyfriends--it is a script that runs in my head and is extremely difficult to escape. A part of me knows that it isn't true. Part of me knows that I am a good, worthwhile person but over thirty years of being told otherwise does not vanish overnight. So what happens when you are with someone that treats you well and has faith in you? It goes against everything that you have been taught. I feel like I am deceiving him. I feel like eventually he will see how horrible I am and he will leave me. I will be hurt worse than ever because he is worth keeping.

Does this mean I like being with the abusers? Good lords, no. But it is where I belong. My nice guy belongs with a nice girl. I keep waiting for him to just not come home, to find someone else, to discover it has all been lies. The others all did that, too. I don't know that I have ever been with a boyfriend that was faithful. Surely that too, was because of how horrible I am? The last one beat that into my head, also. Of course, he even convinced me to befriend his ex because she was still such "an important part of his life." How great it was discovering the extent of his life she was a part of. Perhaps one of his best lines: "There are three people being hurt in this relationship--you, me and her." "Why am I here then?" Funny, when he finally ended it with her (or so he said) he told me that I won. Like he was some great prize. I knew he wasn't by that point. Wow... sorry for the tangent there...

My point is, as someone that has been told forever that I was horrible, isn't it awfully damn selfish of me to be with a nice guy? Shouldn't I stay away from them? They deserve better than the likes of me. I think I have always came across as the nice girl with an asshole simply because they were beyond nasty. Anybody could look nice next to them. But in essence, they were most likely right--I probably did deserve their treatment. I sure don't feel like I deserve the nice guy.

Gods, how I hate this. I know I need intensive therapy--probably ECT, a lobotomy or such. Positive thinking works for a while, but the voices of parental units and ex-boyfriends seem to be much louder. While I pray it works out with this one--I pray he is strong enough to ride this out--my faith is slipping. What is there here to be worth working for?

So yeah, message to you nice guys that wonder why we don't pick you--maybe you should be glad? Maybe we are saving you from something you don't even realize is bad. Maybe it is just that "the grass is always greener" deal. Whatever it is, consider yourself lucky...