Caretaking Prevents Nice Guys From Getting Their Needs Met

One of the most common ways Nice Guys use covert contracts to try to meet their needs is through caretaking. Nice Guys believe their caretaking is fundamentally loving and is one of the things that makes them good people. In reality, caretaking has nothing to do with being loving or good. Caretaking is an immature and indirect attempt to try to get one's needs met.

Caretaking always consists of two parts:

1. Focusing on another's problems, needs, or feelings in order to
2. Feel valuable, get one's own needs met, or to avoid dealing with one's own problems or feelings.

Reese, a graphic designer in his late twenties, is a good example of the extremes to which Nice Guys caretake in their intimate relationships.

Reese, who is gay, lamented in one of his therapy sessions, "Why can't I find a partner who gives as much back to me as I give to him?" He went on to describe how all of his boyfriends seemed to be takers and that he always did all of the giving.

Within a period of a year, Reese entered into three intense relationships. Each began wonderfully and seemed like the partnership he had been looking for. Each failed because of the same scenario: Reese picked men who needed rescuing or fixing:

• The first boyfriend lived in Canada and had recently gotten off drugs. He came to live with Reese but never applied for a work visa and struggled to stay clean. Reese went out of his way to be supportive of his boyfriend with the hope that he would find a job and stay off drugs. Finally, Reese sent him home to get his life straightened out. Later, he found out from a mutual friend that the reason his boyfriend had never applied for a work visa was because he was HIV positive, something he failed to tell Reese.


• The next boyfriend was of a different race from Reese and had never come to grips with his homosexuality. His parents and religion kept him in constant conflict. He was never able to commit to the relationship. Nevertheless, Reese went out of his way to be supportive and giving, all with the hopes that his boyfriend would eventually get things straightened out and become available to Reese.


• The third boyfriend was in the military. He was living on base, some 40 miles from Reese's apartment and had no car. Reese had to take the initiative in getting together and would often shuttle his partner around. Because Reese made more money, he always paid when they went out. Reese frequently bought his boyfriend gifts and loaned him money. When this boyfriend got transferred to a different state, Reese quit his job, sold his car, and moved along with him, only to return in three months because his partner started running around on him.

"Caretaking has nothing to do with being loving or good. Caretaking is an immature and indirect attempt to try to get one's needs met."

During this 12-month period while Reese was so busy caretaking the needs and problems of his boyfriends, he gave up his job and alienated most of his friends and family. Reese's caretaking allowed him to stay oblivious to his own self-destructive behaviors while investing tremendous energy in trying to fix others. As is true for most Nice Guys, no matter how much he gave to others, Reese never felt like he got as much back in return.

Caring Vs. Caretaking

Though Nice Guys see everything they do for others as loving, caretaking has very little to do with caring. Here are the differences:

Caretaking

• Gives to others what the giver needs to give.
• Comes from a place of within emptiness within the giver.
• Always has unconscious strings attached.

Caring

• Gives to others what the receiver needs.
• Comes from a place of abundance the giver.
• Has no strings attached.

Nice Guys caretake for a number of reasons, none of them having anything to do with love. For them, even the most innocuous and subtle act often has some string attached. Nice Guys give in the ways they would like others to give to them. They give gifts, affection, back rubs, sex, surprises. They will encourage their partner to take a day off, buy a new outfit, go to the doctor, take a trip, quit a job, go back to school — yet would not give themselves permission to do any of the same things.
Rob Glover