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Hi there,
You may have heard a man say:
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“Women claim they want a good man, but then they choose the asshole.”
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You may have even reached that conclusion yourself.
If you are a man, perhaps you treated a woman well as far as you can tell, and watched her choose someone colder, less available, or even destructive to her wellbeing.
If you are a woman, perhaps you have looked back at someone you were deeply attracted to and wondered why you wanted him despite how he treated you.
But women do not actually like assholes. And kindness is not what makes a man unattractive.
In one of the Game Changer lessons inside her Mastering Masculinity in Relationships Course, Teal identifies eight different dynamics that can make it appear otherwise.
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Before we explore them, we want to remind you that tomorrow is the last day that you can join the complete course for $997 instead of $1,997. You’ll receive immediate lifetime access, and payment plans are available.
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What She May Be Responding To
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The first four dynamics involve other qualities the man possesses and what those qualities create for her. Harmful behavior can become packaged together with qualities she genuinely wants or needs.
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1. He has qualities she wants and needs.
The man who treats her badly may also be confident, decisive, driven, protective, socially capable, takes action, and leads.
She may be attracted to his strength and capability, while also being harmed by other parts of how he shows up.
Meanwhile, the man who sees himself as the “nice guy” may be kind but passive, insecure, overly agreeable, afraid of conflict, unable to hold boundaries, or unwilling to take the lead.
Something she needs is missing, and she can't simply decide not to need it anymore. So she may choose a man who has those qualities even when they come packaged with other behaviors that hurt her.
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2. He gives her a greater sense of physical safety.
Teal explains that attraction is also influenced by whether a man appears capable of protecting, providing, and helping a woman face the pressures of life.
When she does not experience these qualities in him, she may feel that she has to manage everything herself. He might be friendly and considerate, but she still feels alone with the weight of life.
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3. His masculinity allows her to move into her feminine energy.
When a man does not bring action, direction, protection, responsibility, or leadership into the relationship, a woman may feel forced to compensate.
She becomes responsible for making the decisions, managing what needs to happen, protecting herself, and keeping everything together.
This can prevent her from experiencing the feminine state she wants to experience and create pain for both people.
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4. Being controlled can feel less frightening than being left alone.
Some women find themselves choosing between two painful experiences:
A man who takes ownership but also controls her, or a man who gives her freedom but leaves her to fend for herself.
In this lose-lose choice, care, capability, and control can become packaged together, while freedom becomes associated with being left alone to fend for herself.
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What appears to be attraction to harmful behavior may actually be attraction to qualities she has not yet experienced without that behavior attached to them.
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Dynamics 5–7
What She May Be Trying to Resolve
Attraction can also be shaped by unresolved experiences and childhood wounds that feel familiar or seem to offer another chance to finally get a different outcome.
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5. He fits the definition of love she learned as a child.
If a woman grew up with a cruel, unavailable, or unresponsive father, she adapted to that relationship.
Those adaptations can later make a similar man feel familiar and like “home” to her. Part of her may believe that if she can change him, win him over, or finally receive love from him, she can resolve the pain she still carries from her father.
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6. Getting him to choose her feels like proof of her worth.
An aloof or unwilling man may trigger a woman’s fear that she is not good enough.
She may chase his attention or commitment because winning him over would temporarily prove that she is wanted, valuable, and special.
The relationship becomes less about whether he is good for her and more about what his rejection or acceptance seems to say about her.
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7. Fixing him allows her to avoid her own shame.
A woman who believes she is not good enough to be with a healthy, desirable partner may choose someone highly dysfunctional and take on the role of fixing or rescuing him.
By focusing on everything wrong with him, she can avoid facing what she believes is wrong with herself. Being the more functional or loving person can also give her temporary relief from her own shame.
Trying to love and repair him may even become an external way of trying to love the parts of herself she believes are unlovable.
If you recognize yourself in any of this, look honestly at what may have been fueling the attraction and what the relationship was allowing you to seek, avoid, or try to resolve.
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When Niceness Comes With a Hidden Agreement
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There is one final dynamic that men and women often avoid looking at honestly.
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8. The openly harmful man may appear more straightforward than the “nice guy.”
Sometimes a man’s kindness is sincere and freely given.
Other times, it contains a hidden agreement:
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I treated you well, so you should give me attention, affection, sex, or a relationship.
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The woman may sense that his friendliness is an attempt to obtain something from her. If she has experienced a man gaining her trust through niceness and later revealing very different intentions, she may become especially suspicious of it.
His openness about who he is and what he wants can make the openly harmful man appear more straightforward, even while his behavior remains harmful and unsafe.
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Together, these eight dynamics expose the problem with the conclusion that women like and want assholes.
There is rarely one simple reason behind the choice.
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If you are a man, look honestly at which masculine qualities you may have suppressed or failed to develop. Also ask yourself whether your kindness is freely given or whether it comes with an expectation you have not expressed.
If you are a woman, distinguish between the qualities you genuinely want in a man and the harmful behavior, familiar pain, or attempt to prove your worth that may have become attached to them.
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This is one of the Game Changer lessons inside Mastering Masculinity in Relationships: How To Be The Man She Can’t Live Without. Across the complete course, Teal takes you much further into containment, responsibility, safety, attraction, emotional responsiveness, leadership, sexuality, compatibility, and the realities men need to understand about women.
Your access includes more than 20 hours of teachings, 25 practical exercises, a downloadable workbook, and the private course community.
The 8-week roadmap gives you a clear structure to follow, but the entire experience is self-paced.
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Tomorrow is the final day to enroll for $997 (and save $1,000 USD).
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