The Grief of Loving a Shame Avoidant Good-Guy

I’ve been sitting with a very particular kind of heartbreak lately.

The heartbreak of loving someone who seemed like a good man

kind, gentle, thoughtful on the surface

and realising, slowly and painfully, that the “good guy” was a shield.

A protection.

A performance.

A way of staying safe from shame.

I didn’t see it at first.

Good guys are easy to love.

They’re careful. They’re considerate.

They want to be seen as good.

But as I got closer, something in my body tightened.

A subtle bracing I couldn’t explain.

A quiet sense of: he’s here… but he’s not.

And this is where the grief lives:

When someone builds their whole identity around being “good,”

they have nowhere to go when they get things wrong.

There can be no repair

because repair requires admitting impact.

And the “good guy” can’t have impact.

There can be no accountability

because accountability means facing shame.

And the “good guy” can’t feel shame.

There can be no deep intimacy

because intimacy requires being human.

Messy. Flawed. Tender.

And the “good guy” is terrified of being seen in those places.

The truth I learned is this:

The good guy isn’t good — he’s defended.

So you end up in this strange, disorienting reality:

You’re dating someone who looks caring…

but you don’t feel cared for.

Someone who looks safe…

but your nervous system never quite settles.

Someone who says all the right things…

but nothing ever really changes.

It’s the illusion of closeness without the substance.

And the grief is real

because a relationship without repair

is a relationship without safety.

And a relationship without safety

is a relationship without a future.

The moment everything landed for me

was the moment I realised I was working harder for the relationship

than he was fighting for his own growth.

And what hurts the most is not that he was unkind.

It’s that he was unreachable.

Not because he didn’t feel for me,

but because he couldn’t face himself.

If you’ve known this heartbreak too, it’s not because you ask for too much — it’s because your body recognises the difference between real intimacy and the performance of it.

That is the heartbreak I’m sitting with.

In the end, I wasn’t grieving the relationship.

I was grieving the intimacy we never got the chance to have —

because shame got there first.