Surviving the “Nice Guy”

Janelle Newell | August 22, 2026

"The invalidated child becomes the adult who stays even when they've been hurt."

When you don't know any better, you never think you can find it.

This was the case for the young girl. Ugly, detested little brown-noser, committed to being the best because it was the only way people would recognize her value. He was well-liked and naive, and they both sought control in ways that would hurt her.

She wanted a connection to make her feel like she could be loved, convinced by the world that this was impossible. He wanted to feel like a man. A man who could get what he wanted out of her until there was nothing left. Her youth faded, energy drained like a grape became a prune.

It is a twisted fate that these two met. Something the girl regrets, and her mother blamed her for staying, because after all, it is always the woman's fault.

She was forced to be a woman, but never healed the little girl.

She is convinced that she won't find better. After all, if you see ugly in the mirror, that is all that will ever be. Reflected back to you in friendships, relationships, and life. The naive girl still holds onto the idea of a "prince charming." Southern charm. Chivalrous and masculine.

But I don't want the "You're mine. You belong to me" sort of Gen Z love that permeates the minds of fatherless women who were never chosen. But that she is. And one must ask the question: will she ever choose herself?

I cannot be forgiving. I wake up at 3am because he chases me in my sleep. In the waking hours, he applies to the job he knew I'd be working at because everything else wasn't enough.

"He's such a nice guy," they say.

She wishes they knew.

Time passes but no amount of therapy, podcasts, or venting will heal her. She must forgive and forget like the white patriarchal Bible (that was used to oppress her people) tells her to do.

She wants to believe. But faith has never saved the innocent man of cancer, nor has it saved the starving child.

He stands by the cash register waiting to give her his affection. "That will be 100 sleepless nights, 1,000 salty tears, and 30 mutual friends lost."

She accepts his "love," but doesn't hear the terms and conditions.

I used to think that if I loved people enough, they would eventually love me the same way. I gave people chance after chance and made excuses because I knew their behaviors stemmed from insecurity- but as the black woman, I must hold others' pain as well as my own.

I thought being able to see the good in someone made me compassionate. Instead, it made it easier for people to hurt me because they knew I would find a reason to forgive them.

I think that is part of why it took me so long to understand what was happening. I thought he was a nice guy. In some ways, he was, at least, at first. But nobody knew how quickly that person disappeared when I wanted any independence.

He constantly told her what to do like she owed it to him. He got mad at her for hanging out with friends ("Don't do that again!"), like he didn't do that all the time. He yelled at her when 12:00pm became to 12:30, because 10 things had to be done or moved around so she could see him when he wanted.

The 3 hours a day were never enough.

"It's okay if I hurt you, because you hurt me." He said this countless times, and it still echoes in her memory.

I didn't realize being late for a meal warranted him publicly yelling at me and scowling until I groveled and made it up to him with another kind of sacrifice.

Whenever she brought up how overwhelmed she felt or how controlling and manipulative he was, he would complain that she always brought it up. After months, they kept having the same conversations, because the issue was never resolved. Despite balancing a million other lives, she always went out of her way for him, but it was never enough.

He saw as her smile slowly faded. She dreaded when she'd see him because her panic attacks started coming back. She started expecting to either be yelled at or given the silent treatment.

She wanted the world. But as women, we must choose between getting on our knees and submitting to a man or having the career and social life we always wanted.

"A man will admire you from below and pull you under when your guard is down."

The relationship became less about love and more about ownership. Her time, energy, attention, and body were his and his alone. She'd spend much of the rest of her time locked in her room with stuffed animals, hoping that the little girl inside could heal, so she would too.

If I wanted to do anything for myself, somehow I was taking something away from him.

Even taking care of herself became a problem. Over spring break, she did not want to drive around all the time. She was tired. School, extracurriculars, and trying to build a business that no one cared about (especially not him) drained her. She was that prune.

Even when she tried to relax and wash and style her hair to feel beautiful, it was an inconvenience to him. He would yell or go silent like he usually did, wanting her to stop taking care of herself so no one else would want her. Not the guys staring at her in the gym. Not his friends who shot their shot when it was over.

Being in control made him feel like a man.

I remember when not going on multiple dates a month made him resent me. I don't have a lot of money. I throw what little I have into building something to help people. It all just sounded like excuses to him. I remember when I was exhausted, my tire was flat, and he was angry I didn't want to travel with him. He gave me the silent treatment until I agreed to go to the beach. When we were in the car, he told me that he once got so mad at someone that he fantasized about doing something so horrible that I can't bring myself to type it now. I've been scared to tell my story for months, especially because everyone still thinks he's a "nice guy."

As a Black woman, I can't separate that feeling from the reality of slavery. Black women's bodies have always been treated like they belong to everyone but ourselves. We were treated as property. Abused and experimented on.

Our ability to say no did not matter.

Our pain did not matter as long as we could continue giving people what they wanted from us.

And it seems that not much has changed.

Even worse, more and more black women are dating outside of their race because black men have internalized that racism, and don't want their kids to look like them. So, we date people with fairer complexions, hoping that we'll be treated better.

I'm still waiting for that day.

There is still this expectation that Black women should endure everything. We should be strong. We should keep working. We should take care of everyone. We should tolerate disrespect. We should forgive. We should move on. We should keep giving even when we're exhausted. But if we let any of that pent up anger out, we will just be another angry, ghetto black woman that will never find a man.

That entitlement over her body became even clearer when she was in the hospital. "It's not even that serious," he said, while she was praying to the white man in the sky to save her from the pain.

He did not visit her at the hospital. He just counted the days until he could have her again. Couldn't wait to experiment with things she'd said no to multiple times.

He wanted it all, but she was not protected (in more ways than one). She pushed him away.

He thought he deserved it.

That is something I still can't get over. While I laid in the hospital wondering if I'd die, he was thinking about when I would please him next. I was only ever an object that he could use and show off to his friends. This may be morbid to say, but I felt like a modern-day Sarah Baartman. I mean, even his friends would joke around saying they wanted to watch. It was never funny, but I pretended like everything was okay.

It's been months since she left, and her mom says she should move on, but her pain has always been insignificant to everyone.

"I wish I was a white woman. Allowed to feel weak."

Why must she (I) swallow this pain?

I am tired of being told to move on.

I am tired of forgiving.

I am tired of latching onto faith like it'll save me.

It's never saved our people.

I don't have forgiveness in my heart. Not for him nor anyone else. I spent too much of my life forgiving people just so they could feel better about what they did to me.

There was so much that I put up with. Several meals with his friend who he knew was racist, but forced me to sit with even though he'd ignore every word I said. Again, my comfort did not matter. My dignity did not matter. I could not inconvenience him. No one cared about my feelings.

There were many times when his anger would scare her. She cannot type the words without fear.

...

This is what makes the idea of the “nice guy” so dangerous. Everyone sees who he is when he gets what he wants. They don't see who he becomes when his girlfriend says no.

Even when he came to my performances, he would tell me how great other people were and rarely complimented me. I genuinely can't think of many compliments he gave me throughout the entire relationship.

He posted ugly pictures of me on his story, never made a permanent Instagram post of us, and treated me like shit, despite expecting me to constantly come over and sleep in his dirty, musty, disgusting room that he let his friends rip through and make a mess of.

When I left him, he had the audacity to tell me not to get my hopes up about us getting back together. I was and always have been way out of his league, and somehow he still managed to frame himself as the prize.

I cried so much because I just wanted to be loved. I had so many panic attacks, quit my job and was going to quit my internship because of all the pressure he put on me. I was already overwhelmed, and instead of making my life easier, the person who claimed to love me became another responsibility. I tried to find safe spaces on campus, but then he applied to work with me as if that wasn't bad enough. It felt like so much was ruined because of him, and I could not bring myself to be around people who still think he's an amazing person. So, I quit.

That is why we need to talk more seriously about the trivialization of domestic violence in college- physical and emotional.

"You owe him your body. You owe him an explanation for why you are late. You owe him an explanation for why you want to see your friends. You owe him an explanation for why you want to be alone. You owe him reassurance whenever your independence makes him insecure."

College makes it easy to normalize this behavior because wanting to be together all the time is seen as romantic. Jealousy means he cares. Getting mad when you hang out with other people means he misses you. Wanting to know where you are all the time means he worries about you.

But there is nothing romantic about constantly calculating how your boyfriend will react before you make a decision about your own life.

No one should spend their entire relationship asking for permission to be their own person.

She still cries sometimes, not because I am mourning the relationship anymore, but because she's tired of not getting justice for all the people who have hurt me. They get to move on. They get to be "nice guys." They get to live their lives while I am supposed to turn everything they did to me into some beautiful lesson about forgiveness.

It is easier to say "she" than "I." It makes the pain feel less real.

She (I) wishes (wish) it wasn't.

I don't want to talk to the mirror on the wall. I already know that nothing in life is fair.

It is always better to be alone than be surrounded by people who don't care about you.

Choose yourself.

Everyone else does.