When in a fearful situation with your wife who is trying to draw you closer to her, ask yourself, "What am I really scared of?" And "Is it real or is it an illusion?" The results may surprise you. Like me, you may discover that she has far more goodwill toward you than you thought.
When you feel your heart pounding and your mind begins to go wild in a tense situation, call someone you can trust, who’s not another Nice Guy, and bounce the situation off them and then really listen to what they have to say. This will reduce fear’s cataract-like influence by anchoring you in reality.
Focus on Emotions, Not Marital Rules
CNG, forget about playing by all the "rules." I know what you’re thinking. You went into marriage pretty much like our fathers did. If you don’t get angry with your wife, hold down a job, get the family to church, and spend some time with the kids that this is pretty much all that’s required. More so, you think that your wife should "get off your back" when she asks for more. You may well end up divorced if you stick to this failed script because today’s wife wants and sometimes demands emotional closeness. You must be willing to grow your emotions and then express them.
A lot of men still think that expressing emotions makes them appear weak. Not so, Grasshopper. Not only does it make you more like Jesus, who was more emotional than those around him, but it makes you feel alive in ways you never could before.
Emotions, properly handled, make you more manly and attractive. They grow our souls. They make us more loving, protective, authentic, honest, faithful and optimistic, which is important since Nice Guys often suffer from undisclosed depression, addiction, and even impotency, which is caused in part by repressed anger, another CNG characteristic.
For most of my life I never cried at movies. Or funerals. Or when my children were born. Fear and a false understanding of Christian manliness stopped me from being fully alive.
I remember as a Christian Nice Guy watching the movie Sam I Am with my wife. This movie about a mentally challenged father losing his only child has the hanky factor written all over it. But not for me back then. I remained aloof to the emotional overtones and instead focused on the legal and cultural angles. I was proud that I didn’t get caught up in the "emotion." Oh, arrogance and foolishness of passivity and fear.
Then I saw the movie with my wife and kids after dealing fear a substantial blow. I lost track how many times my eyes welled up, laying with my head in my wife’s lap. She felt my tears and wiped with her slender hand.
This free flow of emotions made me want to love, pardon, and protect. I felt alive, like someone put jumper cables on my earlobes. These emotions, fuel to my body, made me a better leader. And, guys, a better lover.
Women don’t find appropriate emotional displays a turn off. It’s a turn on. As the wife of a CNG told me, "Don’t you guys know that if you cried in front of us that we would run into your arms?"
Write down the 10 most impacting events of your life. Travel the spectrum from happy (wedding night) to sad (the day Buddy your dog died). Then share them with your wife over the next two months on date nights. In addition to sharing the facts of these events, share how they made you feel. If tears come, so be it. You’ll feel so much better afterward and she’ll find you more knowable and loveable.
If it Was Right for Jesus…
With a journal in hand, read the Gospel of Mark, which records more of Jesus’ tough and rugged behavior than any other Gospel. Keep track of how often Jesus wasn’t "nice" but good. This will give you courage and inspiration to be like the real tender-to-tough Jesus, depending on what is needed at the time. My book No More Christian Nice Guy, lists plenty examples of Jesus’ tougher side and specific commentary as to why he behaved the way he did.
You’ll see that sometimes it’s wrong to be pleasant. For example, a father is good to show kindness toward a toddler’s common folly. He is negligent and naïve when he shows the same level of niceness to his teenage son who’s doing drugs. Being pleasant when tough love is needed can be a sin.
The Third Path of Us takes time and effort to find. Expect to make mistakes, and take special care to forgive these mistakes. With time, courage, and intent, his war-zone thinking will be replaced by peace-time living, making you both married and engaged.
