A Reason Good Women Dump and Divorce Good Men — and How to Prevent It

He’s a good man, so why is he struggling to make relationships stick?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen good men kicked to the curb. I look at those women who did the kicking and ask, “What the heck were you thinking?! Why are you wasting a good man?”

In today’s dating market, good men are believed to be rare species. These women might as well have gone over to Yemen and chopped down the Dragon Blood trees…or plucked all the feathers off the white peacocks in Australia.

To toss those precious gems into the waste bin…that just doesn’t make sense.

When I see a phenomenon that doesn’t make sense, I do what any good psychologist would do. I dig around to see what’s going on.

When a woman dumps a good man, she does so fully knowing he’s a good man. That’s why she was with him in the first place.

But knowing he’s a good man…well…she doesn’t want to kick a good man while he’s down. So sometimes she doesn’t tell the good man why she dumped him.

If she doesn’t tell him, he’s left thinking he’s done nothing wrong. If he’s a good man who hasn’t done anything wrong, then clearly she’s the problem.

The superficial answer to why women don’t stick with a good man is that she’s not a good woman. She must be a nut job, stupid, or low value. But I’m not looking for the cheap, simplistic, superficial answers. There’s something else going on here.

Sometimes she can’t even verbalize it. She knows he’s a good man. She knows she should appreciate him. She knows that by giving him up, she’s taking the risk of going back to the wild, wild West of the dating world where she may struggle to find as good a man again.

She knows she’s giving up something she should want…so…what gives?

Turns out, there are plenty of reasons. Here, I’ll show you 3 examples to help you understand one of the reasons good women dump good men. Then I’ll show you what you can do so that you don’t get ditched again — at least not for this particular reason.

Frolicking Deer

I got my first insight into these sorts of situations back in high school when a friend of mine had a big-time crush on a girl in our school.

This guy was a good guy who would definitely eventually become a good man. Undoubtedly. You could sniff the good-man-in-the-making on him. Any dad would be happy to have this guy date their daughter.

Plus this guy was hilarious, the guy voted ‘most funny’ for the senior superlative. This guy wasn’t some nice guy who had nothing going for him other than his niceness.

So when he pursued the object of his affection, it kind of seemed inevitable that he would get her. And he did. He asked her on a date. She said yes. He picked her up. He paid for the date. He opened doors. He was a gentleman. He was so in love with her.

They dated, and he continued being the ultra-good guy on his way to being a good man. The best boyfriend. Heck, he even wrote her poems!

A year later, she ditched him.

At first, I couldn’t understand it. But then I talked to the woman who ditched my friend, and she showed something that explains why she ditched a very good man: She showed me the poems he wrote her.

Those poems…Clearly a lot of work and thought went into those poems. They were so imaginative. So…impressive.

I still remember one of them, all these years later. It was that good. It was about a deer frolicking in a meadow at sunrise.

In the poems my friend wrote, the poems he gave to the love of his life, there was nothing about her walking in beauty, or his arm laying lightly around her breast. He didn’t compare his bonnie lass to a summer’s day nor a red, red rose.

In his poems, he didn’t pay homage to her summer’s honey breath or her hypnotic violet eyes. (And yes I’m rolling my mud-brown eyes because have you ever really seen anyone with violet eyes, much less hypnotic ones?!) But he did give insight into a deer’s thoughts about the crispness of grass.

His poems weren’t about love or romance or relationships…or her. I considered that maybe I was too dense to get some symbolism he planted in the poems, or some inside stories the two shared, but…nope. The poem really was about a deer.

This guy wrote these poems in order to impress his girlfriend. These poems showed how skilled he was. They showed that he worked incredibly hard to construct incredibly good poems. But…somehow…that wasn’t enough to keep her around.

From comments I’m getting I’ve had to learn I have to be a bit more explicit in my writing sometimes. So, to be clear, in case you’re not getting it, she didn’t ditch him for writing a poem about deer. That would obviously be nonsensical and support the claim that women are nut jobs.

The poems are just symbolic of the good man’s tendency to work hard to ‘be impressive’ to the woman he cares about. That makes her choose him, initially, but somehow, that’s not what it takes to make a woman stick around. Let’s look at another example to understand what’s going on here.

Lukewarm Chocolate

I once was friends with a guy for 10 years before we figured out maybe we should be more. That holiday — our first together as a couple — I helped him pick out gifts for the administrative assistants in his office. We ended up getting them some fancy hot chocolate mixes.

Guess what he gave me for a gift that year, our first year as a couple after many years of a warm, supportive friendship?

The same hot chocolate mixes he gave his office assistants.

To be clear: This was a good man. I wouldn’t have been dating him if he hadn’t been. He wasn’t a douche. He genuinely thought he was doing a good thing when he gave me this gift.

I know I’m supposed to be happy he gave me any gift at all…but something in me…flattened inside. Why the heck was I so bothered?

As he reminded me, when we picked them out for the ladies in his office, I’d said that I thought those hot chocolate mixes were a good gift idea. Surely I was being illogical?

If it was such a good gift, why didn’t I feel…special?

I’m not a moron. Actually, ok, that’s debatable at times. But I wasn’t the kind of moron that just bails because he was a bit clueless about picking out gifts. And no way did I express to him anything other than appreciation for the gift.

But…you better believe it was in the back of my mind at times despite my best efforts to not blow it out of proportion.

After a while, I noticed: What he did for me, he’d likely do for any woman in his life.

Was I just the woman filling his ‘insert woman in this slot’ slot?

(Hint: If you gave flowers to your last girlfriend on her birthday, and you’re thinking you’ll give flowers to your new girlfriend on her birthday: Abort, abort, abort!)

P.I.T.A.

Well, I’m on a roll so I might as well give you another example. And yeah, I’ve been known to belabor a point. On occasion I do kick a deader-than-dead horse.

I was dating another good guy. This guy was…quintessential good man.

One time we went roller blading. This guy…he showed up with a backpack full of everything we might possibly need — a jacket in case it got chilly. A thermos full of a tasty beverage in case we got thirsty. And the kicker — a First Aid kit in case we got hurt.

He racked up thoughtful points left and right.

One day I was apologizing for something annoying I did. “I’m sorry I’m such a pain in the arse,” I said. “You can just call me P.I.T.A.”

So he did. That was his nickname for me from then on. It was quite endearing…and lawd knows I earned that nickname.

Fast forward to some time after I broke up with him. Take my word for it that I’m not some nimrod that stalks exes on social media, but I did look him up.

Perhaps I did it out of idle curiosity. Maybe I did it because a part of me wanted to know he was doing ok. After all, he was a good guy and I felt bad for breaking up with him.

Anyway…I was happy for him when I saw posts that showed he was in a new relationship. And then I saw a post with a picture of him and his new sweetie that made me freeze.

In the caption for the picture, he wrote: “This woman can be a pain in the arse, but she’s my pain in the arse. PITA, I’m so happy I found you.”

I guess…pet nicknames are transferable.

(I’ve always wondered if she ever knew that he used that nickname on a girlfriend for her. If she knew, would she have been bothered?)

Boil It Down

Everywhere I look, I see good men doing their version of writing great poems to impress women.

I see them working super hard at their jobs, getting raises and promotions and impressive titles. They hand this success to a woman and say, “I have done all this hard work in your name.” That’s their gift to the women they love.

At home, these good men are helping with the housework — the laundry, the dishes, the meal-making, the diaper-changing, the kid-fight-refereeing. That’s their gift to the women they love.

Good men do what they need to do make sure anyone they care about is warm and hydrated, that their boo boos are band-aided and kissed.

These good men deserve so much credit for all they do.

And yet…the gifts these men are giving…are generic gifts. The truth is, they’d give that gift to any woman they chose to be with. They’d probably work hard whether she was his wife or some other woman was his wife. There is nothing about this specific, particular woman in these gifts.

When you change a baby’s diaper, it’s appreciated no doubt. And in a sense, you’re doing it for your woman because now she doesn’t have to do it. But it’s still benefiting the baby…the family…you…not just the woman. And you’d do that for any mother of your children, wouldn’t you?

In today’s dating market, people keep hearing how good men are a rare species, as rare as the white peacocks in Australia and the Dragon Blood trees in Yemen.

But here’s the hardest truth I think you need to hear: Good men aren’t a rare species at all. I have worked with plenty of good men. I have dated them. I have befriended them.

All good men work hard to pay the bills, put food on the table, and help out at home. And…many of the good men I know are smart and funny, so if you’re relying on your smarts and humor to keep a woman…well…

If you are interchangeable with all the other good men — doing all the same things the other good man are doing — that may help you understand why women ultimately reject you despite all your goodness.

You’re a good man, but you may be a generic good man. Just as surely as a hot blonde is a hot blonde is a hot blonde.

Good men — look at what you do for the women you care about, and ask yourself:

• Is what you do ‘for her’ but not ‘about her’?
• Would you do that for any girlfriend or wife you had?
• Do you tend to believe the way you are — how smart, funny, and hard-working you are — is why a woman should be with you?

If you answer “yes”, that may be why you’re struggling in relationships despite being a good man who works hard, is generally pretty thoughtful, and is called a ‘good catch’. Yet…you keep getting released.

The Fix

I get it. You probably feel like you’re giving your best, and the women are saying, “Your best isn’t good enough”. Or, you start thinking, “These women are just demanding way too much!” They should just appreciate the many good things you do and the many good things about you.

Well…you can keep believing the problem is that bad women don’t appreciate good men. You can keep doing what you’re doing, if you want. But if you’re tired of doing so many good things but ending up in dead-end relationships…try this:

When you’re in a relationship, keep doing the good things you’re doing. But in addition, start doing one or two or three things that are very specific to the woman you love. These are things that you would no longer do — indeed, probably never again do — if you and this woman break up.

I once dated a guy that was into origami. I know, kind of odd, but he folded paper into intricate shapes as a way to calm himself down when he was feeling tense.

While we dated, I’d take pictures of his origami cranes in different places, like in a mailbox (“Get me out of here!”) or pecking away at a Whataburger.

After breaking up, I have never again taken pictures of origami cranes cruising the skies over the Alamo.

Hint: Doing these things won’t guarantee your relationship will last, but this is one thing you can do to make sure the person you love doesn’t feel like a cog in your relationship factory.

This is only one reason some good women reject some good men. There are other reasons that good women kick good men to the curb, and I’ll cover some in upcoming pieces. (How do you like that cliffhanger?!)

For now, learn unique things about the woman you love — this one, complex, annoying, pain-in-the-arse woman — and figure out how to incorporate those unique things into your life with her.

At the very least, pick a nickname you haven’t used on a past significant other, and we’ll call it a win.