Good Girl No More: What It Means for Relationships Today

There’s a big shift in the air—can you feel it? It’s been building for decades (actually since the dawn of humankind in many ways), but we’re living in the crescendo. In my couples practice over the past five years, there has been a marked increase in angry women. The heterosexual couple sits in front of me, and this is the picture: a confused man, trying very hard to get it "right," desperate to give what’s being asked but despairing (and then getting angry themselves) because nothing lands. They continue to fall short, get it wrong, and end up feeling like "a bad boy."

I had a mixed response When this dynamic began emerging in my practice. On one hand, I was enthralled by the sisterhood standing up to 'the man', asserting their needs after years of suppression. On the other, I felt a deep sense of protectiveness towards the men—because, if you know the drama triangle, this dynamic places them as the Victim, the woman as the Persecutor, and me... the good ol’ Rescuer. (Read More Here)

To be clear—neither of these polarised responses is better than the other (in fact, true wisdom here is in the both/and - this is a moment to celebrate, and we need to course correct to make this shift in right relationship). This dynamic is not a broken machine I need to fix by determining what’s wrong with her or him. It is a miraculous moment in which something new and wonderful is wanting to be born. But anyone who has ever given birth vaginally (yes, I said the word) knows that the moments just before the push are the most disorientating, scary, and powerless. It ain’t pretty, and it ain’t fun. That’s where we are at in this shift.

This topic is so big and important that I’m going to break it into parts. In this piece, I’ll explain what happened to the Good Girl and why what she’s doing now is an important step on the journey but is not the destination. It is not working for anyone, least of all her. In the next one, I’ll explore what might want to be born next—if only she had a safe space, other women at her back, a trusty midwife, and a loving, patient partner by her side.

The Good Girl Before the Shift

The Good Girl was taught to focus on others, to keep her own needs tucked away. She learned to be accommodating, always prioritizing the comfort of those around her. But over time, something began to shift. The quiet discontent that simmered beneath the surface slowly grew into a restless frustration. She started noticing the cracks in the façade—the ways in which her needs were continually ignored, both by herself and by others. This realisation wasn’t immediate, but a gradual awakening to the truth: the role she had been playing was unsustainable. The weight of this role became unbearable, and it left her empty with nothing left to give. Eventually, the Good Girl had no choice but to revolt.

The Inevitability of the Good Girl Revolt

The revolt was inevitable. Years of swallowing down her own needs, desires, and voice created a pressure that could no longer be contained. This anger didn’t appear out of nowhere—it’s the culmination of a lifetime of compromises, of being told to smile and endure, of having her worth measured by her ability to please. Her fury is not just a reaction to her partner’s failings, but to a lifetime of feeling invisible and unheard. It’s the desperate cry of someone who has been dismissed for too long, finally demanding to be seen and valued.

But this is where the pendulum swings to the other extreme, and she arrives in Righteous Rage. Here, her fury is directed squarely at her partner, and it’s hard for her to see anything but his shortcomings. In this space, she becomes almost blind to his efforts—the devotion, the attempts to meet her requests, all seem inadequate. It’s not that she doesn’t want to acknowledge them, but the intensity of her anger has made it difficult to see beyond the pain she’s carried for so long.

Don’t get me wrong—women have every right to be angry. Things were not okay, and anger rises to state that and demand change. Anger, when it is clean, is good. But who is she to be angry at? The whole. The whole includes her partner, yes, but also herself, her parents, her grandparents, that brilliant teacher at school who always went quiet when the headmaster came to check the class, and the headmaster himself. All of us are responsible for this one. 

What it is like for her partner

Men do not get demonised in my practice. Held accountable, yes. No more, no less than a woman. It is important to note that much of her valid anger, disappointment, disgust, and fury directed at her partner is often misplaced. Like her, he too has been marinating in the same cultural soup—just as she was taught to be the Good Girl, he learned to play his own restrictive role, and now finds himself confused and defensive when confronted by her anger. His frustration mirrors hers—both are caught in roles that no longer serve them, both are struggling to find a way out.

The Struggle to Connect

Couples come to me wanting the love, connection, and supportiveness that have been missing. The Ex-Good Girl desperately wants these things, like she’s been in the desert for eight weeks and is beginning to hallucinate the oasis. But by becoming the polar opposite of what she once was, she cannot receive the very things she’s been desiring. She ends up stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by water that she cannot drink—a metaphor for the deep yearning that remains unmet because the approach to meeting those needs has become distorted by anger.

She asks for things which she then rejects:

"I want closeness," she says, but every attempt to connect is met with a wall of fury that says, "It’s too late... Can’t you see how much pain you left me in?"

To recap, the journey from the Good Girl to Righteous Rage is one of reclaiming lost parts of herself, but in the process, both partners often become caught in new patterns of misunderstanding and frustration. This isn’t where the story has to end, though. With awareness and support, there’s a way out, a path that leads to a more balanced, fulfilling connection.

What Comes Next

Before we dive into what comes next, I invite you to reflect: Can you see traces of these archetypes in your own life or relationships? How has anger—yours or your partner’s—played a role in your interactions? What would it mean for you to step beyond these roles and meet each other in a new, more authentic space

In my next piece, I’ll discuss what else is possible here—the evolution that is being asked of us in our relationships today. 

Women ARE being asked to birth it (they are the only ones who can). But it isn’t all on them to sort this out. Men stand on the precipice of a massive transition too, one that requires them to step up, to move beyond their the roles they've been playing, and to embrace an authentic supportive role as his phenomenal partner changes the very fabric of our world.