Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - Men Who Self-Sabotage: A Field Guide

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

If you've ever thought, 'Why does he keep ruining this?' — grab a notebook, ladies. You're about to get a field guide." With love, Nixalina. For more awesome content to read including beauty, fashion or dating & love features, please do head over to my digital platform www.nixalina.com. Don't be shy, come say hai! Head over to my Instagram or Tiktok @nixalina to slide into my DMs.

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listeners. This is the Can't Keep My Mouth Shut podcast, and I am Nick Salina. hello it's nick selena welcome back to can't keep my mouth shut today we're talking about men who self-sabotage a field guide hmm oh sighing sighing already we're diving today into a very special type of man the self-sabotaging one you know the type the one who's doing everything right you feel like you've met the one they're acting like they're your one they made it very clear that they feel the same about you too and then somehow everything's ruined chaos bomb blows up you get the perfect moment and then you get immediate chaos disorder and usually a vanishing act

this guy the self-sabotage dude usually seems like a catch but then they can't help destroying what could have been it's a shit idea right like who the fuck self-sabotages their own happiness that makes no sense nicks i thought so too but reality is is actually quite a common personality. And women are dating these types more and more and more, hence why I'm here, ladies and gentlemen, to help you through this. So if you have ever thought to yourself, why does this guy keep ruining this? Then grab a notebook, my darlings, because you are about to get my field guide. We'll start with pointer one, and we'll actually talk about what self-sabotage actually looks like. Okay, so let's first identify the behavior. So how do you know if you're dating

a self-saboteur? Yeah, I said a self-saboteur. Try and say that and repeat when you're drunk. Okay, so here's my quick cheat sheet. Point one, there's hot and cold cycles. One day he's all in, he's texting you, he's planning things, you're his everything. He wants to do these big grand gestures he makes all these future ideas and plans and he won't stop calling and ringing and then nothing tumbleweed ghosting avoiding disappearing that's your standard hot and cold cycle and it'll be on repeat on repeat on repeat on fucking repeat when they disappear you'll overanalyze you think you did something wrong you'll assume they've gone forever you'll start to get sad then they come back and then they've got all these excuses and then they're full on again

and then you're back on that dopamine high again and you think okay this time he went away but he knows what he's got this time this time nope avoidant ghosting incoming point two timing is everything but wrong he does something so reckless so damaging I laugh it ain't funny but I'm just thinking about my personal experiences he does something ridiculously chaotic right when things are about to get serious when you're ready to commit when he says he's ready to commit when you're at that okay can we relax into this yeah we can relax into the huge chaotic ridiculous self-sabotaging behavior right usually it's another woman or just running away or some ill-timed trip or suddenly wants to quit his job and it just is something huge, right? And you're

like, what the fuck was that? Point three, fear of intimacy. He pushes away anything when it gets real. The self-sabotage guy usually sits well slash better where he doesn't need to be emotionally present and emotionally accountable. If it's real between you two, he has to be both of those things you see him right you see who he is you see the depth you've given himself all of you that requires him to show the fuck up and that's the one thing he can't do because there's a deep we'll get to it later a deep internal wound and a fear of intimacy point four drama magnet somehow some fucking out there's always a drama there's a crisis is. There's a fight. There's something chaotic going on. Always something that kicks off just

when things are beginning to settle and smooth. And you're like, how did everything become so bum-fucked? What? And point five, perfect on paper, chaos in action. I've said the word chaos, chaotic already within the first five minutes on repeat. That's pretty much what it's like when you're with someone who self-sabotages but this dude perfect on paper chaos in action is basically he says all the right things he says all the right things and that's it right and we all know actions speak louder than words these men the self-saboteurs they're not evil well unless it's This is tricky. They're not evil unless it's combined with, say, a dismissive, avoidant archetype with high narcissistic traits.

Then that's another monster altogether. But what happens if we go in with just a baseline self-sabotage kind of guy? They just can't handle the good things. And they can't handle being vulnerable. Vulnerability terrifies them. let's move on to the next point as to why men self-sabotage okay why this gives us an understanding into the psychology of this dude which what I hope will help you and kind of save you a few tears a few sad nights alone if we understand why this is happening reason one fear of vulnerability

very baseline the closer things get the more intense the more deeper your connection is the more scared he becomes he's afraid of being exposed rejected or hurt so he pulls away honestly it's something he subconsciously does it's not an active decision it's actually not personal and I hope that helps hearing that it's not this is a pattern of behavior because your connection required him to show up if you're like but nicks he's been in long-term relationships before me so why well maybe he didn't have to emotionally show up in the same way maybe it was a more superficial relationship maybe she didn't probe didn't see him maybe she had less self-awareness or maybe she trusted easily i don't know i don't know what

happened before but just know that like honestly it's not personal the only personal aspect to this is that you require the depth which is a very good thing reason two low self-worth these men don't feel that they deserve love or stability how sad is that right i want to give him a hug come here come to my bosom. They don't feel that they deserve it. Deep down, the real him, not the charming, superficial, charismatic, confident guy, not him. The core deep down feels like he doesn't deserve the kind of love you're offering. So when that love appears, boom, they find a way to destroy it. Reason three, avoidant attachment, which is something I literally touched upon lightly earlier. It's the classic avoidant behavior. Emotional closeness triggers anxiety,

so they sabotage before the relationship can threaten their freedom. Avoiding attachments, often that's subconscious as well. They probably don't even know they have an avoidant wound And they're like, hell, of course I don't. I've been in this relationship and this relationship, yeah. How comes they all keep fucking up, bro? How comes you keep cheating whenever things are good, stable? How comes you chase dopamine highs and validation everywhere you go? Sadly, avoiding attachments,

they're going to do this to you on a cyclical behavioural pattern until you cut free. And that's just the shit facts of it, really. Reason four, learned chaos. So many of them grew up in a dysfunctional environment where love came with conditions or drama. They had to feel that they had to earn love. They felt growing up in a household where they weren't freely loved for who they are. They weren't the person, the child, the teenager that their parents wanted them to be. They had to become someone to fill the parental acceptance. Love was conditional. It was not unconditional.

It's sad when you realize these self-sabotaging types, they don't really know healthy and healthy relationships feel foreign and scary to them. And that kind of hurts my heart. If they weren't such assholes, I actually have a lot of empathy for him. Reason five, identity conflict. He likes the idea of being in love, the thrill of the dating, the chase, but he actually doesn't want the responsibility or emotional labor or accountability that comes with real love. So think about it like this. The self-sabotaging man isn't trying to hurt you on purpose. He's scared of himself. He's scared of love. He's scared of the version of himself he needs to be to show up for you. and he's trapped in lifelong relationship patterns that he doesn't even understand.

So let's move on to the next part, the patterns you will recognise. So here's the kicker, right? Once you know these patterns, you see them everywhere. You can't take those glasses off. So I'm going to detail five core patterns of the men who self-sabotage. obviously always designed to help you free yourself from toxic cycles before you get in too deep first pattern of behavior bread crumbing he gives you just enough attention to keep you hooked we all know what bread crumbing is that's it crumbs of affection of attention peppered

throughout your relationship but not not consistent not sustained not too much but never disappearing. When he ghosts, he's always coming back. Breadcrumbing. Fucking ate it. Pan two, test your patience. Deliberately or not, he pushes boundaries to see how much you'll take. He'll do and say shit to you to see how far he can push you, to see how much you love him, to see how attached you are to him, because that gives him validation. he knows he cannot reciprocate but at that point it's not about it's not about you and what you deserve it's about what you give him savvy pan three mixed signals he says he wants you but his actions screen otherwise i love you baby i love you baby i love you oh sorry i'm gonna disappear

for a week i love you baby i love you oh yeah i'm on a dating app still well you know i just gotta shop around baby I love you I love you I love you baby oh yeah I lied to your face and I got caught out oh I love you baby I love you baby oh I never said that oh no I love you baby I love you baby I love you baby assholes man mixed signals is a fucker and it can keep you mentally hooked on these dudes for quite a while um please just take note it's a pattern and you if you quietly observe you'll see it you will pattern four pull back moments every time you get comfortable he withdraws every time you relax into it are we a couple we're a couple yes baby we're a couple gone what wait what yeah oh wait i thought we were a couple oh you're just not

gonna talk to me for a week where the fuck are you oh you just got away on a trip oh okay wait what is another woman all right then it's not funny it's not funny it's just mad to be on the receiving end of it it's fucking mad and finally pattern number five self-fulfilling prophecies he expects failure and then he makes sure it happens that's it really I can't really elaborate on that that's it he thinks it's gonna fail he thinks he's not good enough he thinks he doesn't deserve your love. So he makes sure it fails. He's not good enough and he doesn't get your love. Wild, right? Honestly, it's exhausting. And that's why so many women feel like they are fucking crazy when dating this type of man. I promise you it's not the case. You're just

reading the pattern that he has been repeating since forever. Okay, so how do we handle a self-sabotaging man. How do we handle this? This is the crux of it, right? We've spotted the self-saboteur, so now what? Step one, don't fucking chase. If he's pulling away, don't double down. Chasing just reinforces the pattern. It's like, I always use this analogy, my Saluki dog. Salukis are greyhounds right but just as fast and um he ran out the front door ran down the road right i lost my shit ran after him i can't chase a fucking saluki imagine me running with a greyhound type dog it ain't happening but i ran chased after him terrified he's gonna run into the fucking road and kill himself and then how would I explain to my mother that I killed the family dog anyway I run

he runs more I run he runs more he's now outrun me right I can't see the little shit so I just stopped turned around begged in my head that this would work and walked back up the road I couldn't see him I didn't know what was happening yeah that little fucker come running right after me he thought it was a game hi I'm back and I was like thank god I stopped chasing I turned around I walked the opposite way he come running right back home that's the same as a self-sabotage man is a saluki dog I did not plan for that analogy but yeah if you chase they double down same as running after a running dog. Step two, set your boundaries. Decide what behavior is acceptable and stick to it. They're so good at coming in with their old breadcrumbs and their little

mini declarations of love. And it's believable. It is. You then lower your boundaries again. Or you go, right, never talking to him again. And then he's like, hey, baby. And you crumble. for me it's always long paragraphs of declarations of love I am a romantic I am a writer right I love handwritten notes I love letters in the post I love emails of love declarations that's who I am and that's how they reel me back in like if a guy's just like sup yo what you up to that don't work on me it's the oh my god I'm so sorry and I love you and you were everything and you were the best woman I ever met and our connection scared me and all that jazz it fucks me over and I really had to learn to try and ignore my boundaries because I'm like I could set a boundary they do

that and then i'm like i love you step three observe actions not words words are cheap actions reveal intentions if he says i love you but you find out he's balls deep in some other bird that's not love is it is it if he says i love you but you find out he's on fucking hinge that's not love is it the fact that you have to say this in 2025 is insane if he says i love you but you realize he's off on a lad's trip and when you say lads it means he's with another woman traveling around the world that ain't love is it no don't listen to what comes out of his mouth It's very easy to say shit these days. Watch his actions.

Step four, don't over explain. He doesn't need your therapy. You don't need to fix him. You cannot fix him. If he doesn't even recognise he has this wound, you're fucked to begin with. Don't bother. Save your breath. Step five, recognise your patterns.

Are you attracted to men who can't hold their fucking shit together? if so figure out why work on your wound your inner wound that's attracting this to style and this type of man and then rewrite your own love blueprint step six and walk away if needed sometimes my darling the best love story is the one that you don't star in he has to go off and do the work on his own. Let's be real. If he can't keep himself together, he sure as hell ain't keeping you together either. So let's end this as this, right? I want to let you know that a man who is consistently self-sabotaging your relationship, your connection, and his own life, it's telling you the truth he's not ready for you even if he says he is and darling you cannot

love a man out of his wounds you cannot fix patterns he doesn't see self-sabotage is not about you it's about him if you want love that lasts choose a man who shows up consistently choose the man who doesn't need the chaos to feel alive choose the man that doesn't need multiple sources of validation choose the man that doesn't love bomb ghost love bomb ghost love bomb ghost and honestly in my opinion if you have to leave a self-saboteur behind that's not failure that's progress and uh it's survival of your future happiness too so thank you on that note for tuning in to can't keep my mouth shut as always if you need more help on this topic or you want to discuss something going on with you your end i'm here you can always dm me on instagram

Well, I say that. I say that. Your girl ain't on Instagram. Do not slide into my DMs at nixalina, N-I-X-A-L-I-N-A. I'm not there. That will be another discussion later on. So if you need me, email me is all I can say. Go to nixalina.com. You'll find a way to contact me go get some peace some clarity and maybe go find a man who doesn't trip over his own ego and with that i will see you all next week thanks for listening to the can't keep my mouth shut podcast produced and hosted by me nick selena i'm recorded in the splice car studios in singapore i'm available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, and all major podcast listening apps. Do subscribe to

enjoy a new episode every Monday evening. Please do give me a five-star review. It helps other people also find my podcast. For more content and features to read, you can check out my website, nixalina.com that's nixalina.com i'm also on social media simply search at nixalina n-i-x-a-l-i-m-a to find me don't be shy come say hi