4 Reasons You're Only Letting Yourself Down When You Marry The 'Nice Guy'

Women don't always friend zone nice guys. There are cases when they actually marry them. There are certainly many reasons behind this. Among them are social pressure, feeling the need to settle, giving up on love and reacting to a certain incident like heartbreak.

First, allow me to define a "nice guy." He's a nice person. He probably has many other traits, but none of them appeal to you. This is not because he isn't attractive, but because different people are attracted to different traits.

A few days ago, a girl in her mid-20s posted on a Facebook group that she was engaged to this absolutely nice guy who wanted nothing more in the world than for her to be happy. Yet, she couldn't stand him, no matter how hard she tried.

She was asking for advice. Apparently, she was in a huge dilemma about whether to break up with him or stay. I went through all the 86 comments, and the feedback from other girls was mostly as follows:

“Be thankful you found a nice man who's ready for marriage. Hold on to him and never let go. Thank God every day for this blessing.”

“Marry the man who loves you, and not the assh*le who wants to control you with your love for him.”

“Don't be stupid. It's not easy these days to find a nice guy who's mad about you.”

“If he treats you right, then you will love him for sure. Love happens after marriage.”

“We girls always prefer bad boys who treat us like trash! Give him and yourself a chance. You need to be with someone who loves you, and not someone you love.”

Only one girl wrote, “If there's no chemistry between you two, then leave him. You won't be happy, and you won't make him happy. Chemistry matters, and no one is obliged to marry anyone.”

Months ago, I went through a similar dilemma. Only, I didn't get engaged. A supposedly "nice guy" who'd been trying to woo me for about a year proposed to me. I didn't like him, nor did I find him attractive by any means. There was simply no chemistry between us.

But after almost a year of him not giving up on trying to woo me, I thought I should maybe give him a chance. However, I could not force myself to respect or like him.

Yet, I asked my family and friends for their opinions. I'm usually not someone who asks for other's opinions when it comes to personal matters, but because I had no feelings whatsoever for the guy, I had to listen to what others had to say.

Some said they found him perfect because apparently, he wanted me so badly. After all, he was "a nice guy.” Others thought he was an awful match for me, and that I was out of his league.

People will encourage a girl to marry "the nice guy" for the following reasons:

1. They love her and believe that as long as she isn't in love, she won't get hurt. There is no chance she'll get her heart broken. Many of the people around us believe our life choices are wrong and that they know what's best for us. So, they encourage us to stay on the safe side. This can be boring.

2. When it comes to relationships, people get absolutely jealous. Even the closest of friends could get envious, and thus, they encourage a woman to marry "the nice guy." This is because it would kill them to see her get the dashing man of her dreams.

3. There are always those pessimists who don't believe in true love and happy endings. They don't want others to believe in them, either. They're afraid optimists will disrupt their pessimism.

I did my homework. I went online and Googled whatever keywords I could think of regarding marrying a nice guy. Many women were complaining about being married to nice guys. They disliked everything about them.

They were not satisfied. They started feeling remorseful and worried they might end up breaking those nice guys' hearts. Not to mention, they were even more afraid of cheating on their nice guys someday.

Thus, I couldn't find one satisfying answer. What I found was mostly women asking, “I am with this nice guy who loves me and treats me right, but I can't love him, and I'm afraid of breaking his fragile heart. Please help me. I don't know what to do.”

Some say you should marry the guy you friend zoned because he's a keeper. He appreciates you, he loves you and he's a good listener. He's always there for you. It's as if all that matters is how he treats you, and not what feelings you have for him in return.

Why be thankful for being with a man you don't appreciate? Why stress over trying to love someone you can barely stand? Above all, why marry a man just because he's "nice?"

I'm not suggesting you marry the douchebag who broke your heart, the moron who took advantage of you, the narcissist who's draining your energy, the player who cheated on you or the guy who deceived you. We're all looking for nice people to socialize with. But, finding only one good trait in someone – aka, being nice – is just not enough.

Don't assume any man you fall in love with must be a guy who controls you, brings you down or hurts you somehow. There is a huge difference between obsession and love.

You can be obsessed with a mean guy, but there is no way you can continue to love one unless mean guys are your type. There are many reasons why a woman would stay with a guy like this, but true love is certainly not one of them.

Society puts so much pressure on women. It makes them feel as if being single is equal to being worthless. They are encouraged to believe only marriage can give them some status.

The right time for marriage is when the right man walks into your life. Besides, no one said it was a woman's duty to get married at a certain age. In fact, no one said it was a woman's duty to get married at all.

So ladies, please don't settle for the nice guy. These are the reasons why:

1. It is anti self-love.

If all you want from a man is for him to be nice to you – and that's it – then you think little of yourself. You somehow believe you don't deserve the man of your dreams, with all his amazing traits and lovable flaws. You believe you must be realistic and thankful that some nice guy was generous enough to like you and propose to you.

It's about time you learn to love yourself and believe that you deserve the very best. Besides, only you can decide who is best for you.

I'm not saying you should marry the person who crosses every item off your checklist. But, there are certain traits that can attract a woman to her significant other. The law of attraction suggests you write down everything you want in your future partner in order to manifest the relationship of your dreams. It also suggests you be the person you want to be with.

You can't ask for a man to love you when you don't love yourself, and you can't ask for a man who treats you right when you don't treat yourself right. Be the person you'd want to spend the rest of your life with, and the right person will fall in love with you when you least expect it.

Buddha actually said something great regarding this:

What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.

If you think you don't deserve something, you don't. If you feel bad about yourself, you won't attract good in your life. If you imagine you won't find the man you want, you won't.

2. It is selfish.

If you marry someone you dislike just because he makes you feel like a princess, you're being selfish. You know you can't love him. Yet, you're sort of promising him there might be hope.

If you feel, deep inside your heart, that a man isn't for you, then he isn't. Your gut feeling is always right. So listen to it, and listen carefully.

You are wasting this nice man's life. There might be someone else out there who'd fall madly in love with him. You're denying him a chance at true love and happiness. Instead, you're imprisoning him in the hope that maybe one day, you might somehow like him.

If the traits and flaws of this guy don't appeal to you, you can be sure they'll definitely appeal to someone else. If he didn't know better and married a woman who doesn't love him back, do him a favor and leave him. He'll thank you for it later.

3. You're sentencing yourself to a lifetime of misery.

No one said it better than Alfred Lord Tennyson:

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

To love is to experience an exotic kind of happiness for no reason at all. A woman in love is a beautiful butterfly with beaming eyes, rosy cheeks and a charming smile that almost never abandons her lips. When you're in love, your life is automatically set to music. Every color looks 10 times brighter than it usually does.

If you marry the nice guy you don't love, you're sentencing yourself to a lifetime of misery and pain. You're even denying yourself the luxury of dreaming about some unknown Prince Charming and fantasizing about a dazzling love story where you're the heroine, the narrator and the writer. Even the slightest dream of love is an absolute luxury.

Besides, imagine sleeping with this nice man and fantasizing about a different man. Isn't that just sad? It happens a lot, and it breaks my heart to know there are women who choose to lead such lives.

Say you married this nice man to get back at the man who dumped you and broke your heart. He might get upset for a few days, but then, you'll be history. You'll be the one left with a man you dislike.

4. How can you tell he's nice, anyway?

Some people are so cunning, they're ready to act for years until their prey falls into their trap. His tenderness and extreme romance might be nothing but an act. Maybe he's after your money, your fame or even your status. It could be anything.

If you marry a man just because he's nice to you, and later, it turns out he was a fraud, what are you left with? Nothing.

Don't listen to the pessimists and non-believers who tell you to marry the man who loves you, but not the man you love. Yes, among most couples – if not all – there is always one person who loves the other more. But, at least there is love between the two.

Your significant other is somewhere out there. You should just have faith. Be patient and enjoy your own company.