For the person identified as a good guy, there is a general rule that stipulates they must always be smiling. Others are allowed to be troubled; others are allowed to screw up their lives in all kinds of insane ways, but not the good guy. The good guy is not allowed to be anything but happy. Many who finally make it to therapy will literally say, “I’m tired of wearing this fake grin all the time.” I’m always glad to hear that, because it means that they are beginning to wake up to who they actually are.
The lie here is that the good guy’s life is one of ease and grace. This means that since she has no problems whatsoever, others feel comfortable dumping their life’s burdens into the otherwise empty but competent hands of the good guy. The lie has a double whammy attached to it in that the good guy feels that the lie both pushes her to perform for others and simultaneously rewards her through some sense of a stronger, more reliable identity. In other words, she feels that she is strong enough to handle it, and she feels that because she is, she must handle it.
Of course the good guy’s life is far from one of ease and grace; she is just not entitled to talk about it or show anyone that this is so. Not only is the good guy burdened with all that she feels she must do for others, but she’s got her own issues of anxiety, sorrow, financial burdens, career issues, parenting, and marital issues, just like everyone else—she’s just not supposed to talk about it. So this feeling that she is stronger than others is personally gratifying, while simultaneously damning. The truth is that she is no stronger than anyone else. She was just assigned this role of fake strength so that others could dump their stuff on her.
The good guy is definitely taught to suffer in silence. The feelings of guilt she has for accidently letting someone know she is troubled can be enormous. She feels that she has burdened them. But she has not even stopped to consider the enormous burden for other people’s emotions, poor decisions, etc., that she carries all day, every day.
When the good guy begins the process of becoming aware, she will very often complain that she is not allowed to have any problems or issues. She has to be present and forthcoming in the resolution of other people’s problems, but they are not even going to let her hint at the idea that she might have some. This is role reinforcement at its finest. It works like this:
Your role is to be the good guy, so you will be the good guy. Nothing that you do or say that does not fit that role will be rewarded, and it might even be punished. So you learn to fall into the pattern designed for you. As you grow, you will become more and more adept at being there for others, who will not be there for you. You come to expect that this is normal and you also gain some sense of capacity, for you come to believe that you really must be stronger and more capable than others, otherwise they would not be able to lean on you the way they do. This is constantly reinforced by everyone that you know since you have peopled your world with those who will prop up the identity you think is your survival. So you smile and smile and smile.
But eventually you begin to feel some resentment about the fact that no one is ever there for you. You grumble about this to yourself for several years until finally one day you blow off a little steam and you say something to one of your friends about needing her to be there for you. She is entirely insulted and cannot believe that you would ever say such a thing to her. She tells you that you are being “so immature,” and she stops speaking to you for a few days—only to call you shortly thereafter to tell you about some problem she is having.
You are shocked and utterly hurt, for now it seems clear to you that no one really loves you; they are just using you. But you feel unjustified in having such thoughts because they’ve been so troubled, and you are not supposed to be judging people anyway. You feel terrible for having resentment in the first place, because that isn’t very loving. You feel even worse for having said something about it. Further, during the few days when she was not speaking to you, you were in agony over the possibility that you might have lost a friend. So, when she finally calls you again, you are so relieved that you just fall back into the same pattern of being there for her and never asking for something for yourself.
But the external world is not the only one with a say here. There is also the voice of the authentic Self, who, after a while, will no longer be hushed. She will speak, and maybe for a while you’ll be able to lock her back in the closet, but she will speak again. Eventually you will either lock her up so tightly that she cannot be heard at all, or she will begin to speak so much that you cannot shut her up. You may seesaw between the two for a while until you decide to fully bury her or to set her free. If the latter, you’ll seek out ways to develop some new, more authentic patterns meant to get you out of the mire of darkness created by the good guy. The next section will respond to this seeking.