“You Are Not Good Enough, You Never Will Be.”
He yelled across the room, making sure she heard exactly what he said and that it made an impact. This actually happened to a female friend of mine recently.
And unfortunately some women tolerate this type of behaviour from their man for way too long. When a man has low self esteem, it’s important that you see it, feel it, and be aware of how it will affect you, long term.
A man who is masculine at his core would never admit to having low self esteem, so it often comes out in very controlling or even abusive ways.
In this article, let’s look at the 5 most telltale signs that your man has crippling low self esteem.
Table of Contents
the 5 telltale signs that a man has crippling low self esteem.
Hey it’s D. Shen here. I’m the founder of Shen Wade Media & Commitment Triggers where we teach you how to show up as a high value, high status woman who easily attracts high quality men into your life and inspire them to want to commit deeply to you.
I want to share with you these 5 telltale signs so that you would never get yourself in that situation where you trade your confidence and self esteem for a man’s approval or momentary pleasure.
See, the biggest problem with a man who has low self esteem is the fact that he simply cannot be with you, be there for you and want the best for you.
It is even very difficult for him to truly fall in love, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he would have too many subconscious emotional barriers that would prevent him from letting go, becoming vulnerable and letting that natural process of falling in love occur.
(We all know it takes a huge amount of vulnerability to fall in love, the same applies to men!)
A low esteemed man would be too worried about himself
A low esteemed man would be too worried about himself and how he fits in this world than to truly appreciate your existence, your radiance and love. As a woman, it is critical to be aware of low esteemed and low value men because just sometimes their existence will eventually become the cancer to your own self esteem and self worth.
But the biggest problem is that these low esteemed men will often times lie to your face to keep you around and drag things out, making it as painful as possible for as long as possible.
Time passes, and the damage is usually not perceived until much later on. It’s always harder to see things objectively when you’re clouded by emotions.
So today, I want to help you become more aware of these behaviours of low esteemed men.
Let’s not waste any more time.
Low Esteem Sign 1) He secretly enjoys putting you down.
No, I don’t mean putting you down in a playful “throwing pebbles” type of way. I mean directly or indirectly putting you down, adding unnecessary fears and insecurities into your life.
There’s a very specific term that is used in the scientific community, and that is “low mate value”. And plenty of scientific research now has shown that men with “low mate value” behaves in a very different manner to those men who have “high mate value”.
In a study by Emily Miner and Todd Shackelfod and Valerie Starratt, they concluded that men of low mate value deploy more partner direct insults than men of high mate value… and it’s independent of their partner’s mate value.
In other words, bringing their partner’s esteem down as a way to control them and keep them around.
It’s a way to control You & keep You around
Another way to look at this is… Imagine you’re an 8 out of ten, and your man feels like he’s a 6 out of ten. He would naturally feel as though you could easily leave him, and that perhaps he doesn’t truly deserve you regardless of how you feel about him.
(By the way, I hate this out of 10 rating system, but for the purpose of this example, it’s easy to demonstrate using simple numbers. Now of course, how we rate out of 10 has nothing to do with your looks or your personality.)
It has everything to do with how you show up, the context and your mindset… Perhaps we can touch on this topic in another article in the future.
He can raise you up or put you down
So if a man feels like he’s a couple of notches below you, on this imaginary scale of desirability and mate value, then he has two choices:
Choice number 1, he could take the high road and do everything in his power to increase his own mate value to match yours. He could become more resourceful and keep taking action despite his own fears.
He could stop drinking beer on the couch and start working out. There’s a million ways he could start showing up in a different way, a more high value high status way.
But of course, this choice is energy and emotionally intensive. It’s not always to be resourceful when all you have is fear and insecurities. It’s not always easy to get your butt to the gym when you’re exhausted.
This choice, this path is not only difficult but also full of uncertainty. This choice exposes him to his deepest fear of what if he just was never enough in the first place.
That’s where choice number 2 comes into it. He knows he’s only a 6 out of ten, so he does everything in his power to drag you down with him. If he isn’t going to risk increasing his own “mate value” to match yours, then he might as well pull you down to match him.
It’s less risky to drag you down
After all, it’s less risky and he gets to exert more of his “value extracting” dominance in that relationship. Yes that’s right, “value extracting” dominance. If he’s able to keep you small, then there’s a significantly smaller chance that you might leave him.
If he’s able to rip apart your self esteem, then you become more reliant upon him and his approval of you. Low value men and low esteemed men are very good at tearing apart someone else’s confidence.
(After all, they’ve probably had a lot of practice before you came along.) This often extends to verbal abuse, emotional abuse and even physical abuse. That friend of mine I told you about at the start?
He kept her small for years to keep her around
She was kept small and insignificant by her boyfriend through direct verbal abuse and manipulation.
Her boyfriend repeatedly told her that she was fat and needed to go to the gym.
(And the funny thing was, she was never even close to fat. But he said it so many times that she started to feel like it was the truth.)
He also told her that she wasn’t good enough to go out with, and that she wasn’t social enough, wasn’t “cool” enough for his friends. After a while, she just got used to the feeling of “not being good enough”.
And of course, years down the track they finally broke up… only to leave her with zero self esteem and zero respect for herself. She used to have dreams of starting a business, and changing the world, now she only has confusion and insecurities.
And I’m sure she isn’t the only one to go through that.
Sometimes you can’t see the damage a low esteemed man could do, until much later. A high value and high esteemed man would never do this. Instead, a high esteemed man would lift himself and you up, instead of keeping you small. But to attract a high value man, you need to start showing up in a high value high status way.
(We’ll talk about this topic later on in another article.) Let’s move onto sign number 2.
Low Esteem Sign 2) When he speaks, people don’t listen.
A low esteemed man cannot command the attention of others for long. He doesn’t have enough intrinsic value to offer those around him. He lacks social value.
People don’t pay him much attention because they sense this from a long way away. We, humans are extremely social beings and we naturally gravitate towards those who offer the most presence and value.
Low esteemed men know that they can’t hold people’s attention for long, so they are constantly looking for the attention of new people. It’s always those who don’t get enough attention that seek attention without end.
Low esteemed men can’t hold people’s attention for long
High esteemed individuals who can easily command attention find no need to go out of their way for attention. Let alone, do it in a low value way.
…And as a result of all this, sometimes low esteemed men will tend to avoid situations where he’s in the presence of more confident and high esteemed males.
He’d want to hide away, leave and not be seen. Perhaps it’s a party where he won’t know too many people. Perhaps it’s refusing the opportunity to speak in front of a group of people.
After all, his comfort zone is only so big. And he doesn’t like to and is afraid to explore beyond the boundaries of that. Just look around you next time you’re out… look for the types of men that naturally command attention, in contrast with those men who speak but nobody listens.
Look at their body language. Look at the way they speak. Look at where they focus with their eyes. You’ll start to see the difference real soon.
Low Esteem Sign 3) He exhibits sexually coercive behavior.
If a low esteemed man isn’t able to naturally draw out the sexual energy of a woman, then he will try to pressure it out of her. It’s a “last ditched effort” type of strategy used by low esteemed men because they know they don’t have the value or status to make women swoon.
They can’t add any value to the woman so they might as well take value from her if possible. After all, she is probably going to leave anyway sooner or later… By pressuring for sex, the man is making a last ditched effort to extract as much value from the woman as possible, before she moves on.
(This is the difference between investing in a woman versus exploiting a woman, the two mindsets of which men look at women from, that we will explore later in another article)
It’s like when you’re travelling to those touristy places where they know they’d never see you again, so they might as well try to rip you off and extract as much money from you as possible before you leave.
Sounds bad, I know.
Even scientists have come to the universal conclusion that low esteemed males use more sexually coercive behavior because of their relative inability to attract and retain faithful sexual partners.
That’s why low value men love to get off on “easy women”.
A high value high status woman sees right through this type of men. She would never fall for his bullshit.
Low value men don’t approach high value women often, they know their games don’t work on these women.
Again, another reason for you to show up as a high value woman. Of course, for men this is only ever a short term strategy. You can only take value so much until people catch on and pack their bags right?!
This type of low esteemed man typically goes through lots of friends. They’re always out to “meet new people”. And yet at the same time, they’re metaphorically burning those around them and leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth (pun not intended).
(By the way that’s why he needs to go out to meet more new people, otherwise he’d be forever alone.)
On the surface, he may seem to have “many friends”, but in reality he has zero true friend and constantly taking value from those around him.
Low Esteem Sign 4) He loves other people’s failure a little too much.
We all have a need to feel significant. And yes, it’s our right to feel important and significant. But low esteemed men don’t have as many intrinsic ways to feel significant about his life and his existence, so he looks for external cues to feel this sense of significance.
Seeing others fail gives the low esteemed men instant pleasure as if his life just became infinitely more important due to the events of someone else’s life. He feeds his own self esteem upon other’s failures.
(Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success, does it!?)
Reminds me of the time I once visited a colleagues home and he kept trying to show me #epicfail videos on YouTube over and over. I was not impressed or entertained.
Highly esteemed men don’t have a need to see others fail.
Highly esteemed people in general don’t have this incessant need to see others fail to be entertained. Like you and I, us high value individuals don’t need to feed our souls from other people’s failures.
We create our own path, our own significance by building ourselves up and not from tearing others down. Highly esteemed men are going somewhere, they’re not static. They propel themselves forward, they don’t look at those who have fallen behind and feel good about themselves.
Highly esteemed men don’t bother with keeping the status quo. They don’t want things to stay the same.
They value growth. So take a moment to listen to his words and how he speaks. How often does he talk about other people’s failures, downfalls or misfortunes? Does he love to see others fail?
Low Esteem Sign 5) He can’t appreciate a woman’s true radiance.
As you have probably gathered from everything up to this point, low esteemed men are all about themselves and what they can take from the world and from women.
These men are too caught up with their own need to control and feel certain that they can’t step back and really appreciate a woman’s true feminine energy, and true radiance that has no boundaries.
They can’t appreciate it because it’s not about them.
To truly appreciate is not to take or to think about what you can get out of this situation. To truly appreciate is to observe, feel and to enjoy. It is to be grateful. It’s to know truly in one’s heart how special this moment is.
Sometimes a low esteemed man may even feel angry about very radiant very attractive women. He knows that she is way out of his league and he brews this sense of resentment towards high value radiant women.
“Why should she get all the attention and not me?”
(Again, from point number 1, low esteemed men naturally want to drag others down to his level.)
This anger and resentment often manifests itself in very pathological ways. Ie… becoming abusive to women in general, making it wrong for the woman to be and feel attractive, and to reject her need to express and feel her emotions.
I remember this one time, with the same friend I mentioned earlier. She just had gotten a phone call that she got through to a job interview at her dream job.
As you can imagine, she was ecstatic.
But her boyfriend didn’t share her joy.
She wanted to dance around spontaneously in the food court, because the joy was too much to hold it all in. He didn’t want that.
So instead of celebrating her joy, he said in this nasty critical tone… “Why are you doing that? Stop dancing… Don’t you know it’s inappropriate. You’re making a fool out of yourself…”.
“It’s a stupid job, the salary is too low and you’re going to hate it soon anyway.”
(What a dampener to the mood!)
MORE: 10 Types Of Guys Who Stay Single & Why Nobody Wants Them.
He wanted to suppress her feminine energy to keep her small.
He wanted to suppress the natural spontaneity of her feminine energy to keep her small. A low esteemed man doesn’t know how to appreciate the true radiance in a woman.
The radiance can even becomes a threat to him. Click here to know if your man is commitment phobic.
Because in that moment of full feminine expression and radiance, she becomes a 10 and he’s still stuck being a 6.
(So he freaks out… “Quick, drag her down before she realizes how low mate value I am in contrast”.)
Now just take a moment right now, close your eyes and feel how much this has resonated with you. Feel where all of this is true in your own life.
Take this moment right now to do this, and let all of this sink in. Now that you’ve absorbed all this information, here’s what may just happen for you.
Over the next 48 hours, more and more things will subconsciously start to resonate with you. Ideas will start connecting for you.
…And hopefully you will gain some new awareness into everything I’ve mentioned.
The cost of a low esteemed man in your life long term
Sometimes we’re so caught up in the moment to think about how things will be years down the track.
So if you’re in a relationship where things don’t feel right, you don’t feel supported or that you’re starting to question things… take the chance right now to ask yourself…
“If things stay the way they are right now, where would I be in 5 years time? Where would my self esteem be in 5 years time?”
You will know the right answer deep down in your heart, and in your gut. And you need to trust your gut, because your gut has never let you down. Low value and low esteemed men can cause enormous damage to your self worth and esteem over time.
The best way to avoid this altogether is for you to show up as a high value high status woman. It will not only repel those low quality men who love to drag others down, but also it is the only way to naturally attract a man who is also high value and highly esteemed.
Why do I attract guys with low self-esteem?
There are many different reasons why you could be attracting guys with low self esteem.
You could potentially have insecure attachment patterns & feel subconsciously not enough when you’re in the presence of highly esteemed men.
You could be attracted to low esteemed men’s “surface” displays of dominance. For example, a man with low self-esteem is typically louder and displays more “peacocking” behavior than men who are emotionally secure and well-esteemed.
Low esteemed men may get that big truck or fancy car in order to feel more worthy, whilst highly esteemed men may not see a need, especially when the truck or car may come with a hefty repayment plan.
Low esteemed men find all sorts of ways to “compensate” for their lack of esteem, most in which are to enhance their exterior image. (Obviously their exterior image doesn’t equate to their intrinsic value as men.)
However, sometimes what catches your eye as a woman is not a man’s real substance but rather his exterior persona, the image that he’s created for himself.
So in order to attract a man of high esteem, you have to look deeper. Look at the substance of the man, not the external shells he’s created for himself.
Test him with your banter and your gestures. Throw him off his game and see who he is deep down inside.
What if I’m dating a guy with low self esteem?
Now with everything I’ve mentioned in this article, it’s very easy to think that any time you catch a glimpse of a sign of a low esteemed man, that you should pack your bags and run.
That’s not at all what I am saying… I put together this article so that you could be more aware, but what you do with that awareness is your choice.
You can go take this awareness and judge the men that you come across like I’m sure some women would do, or you can take this awareness to improve the relationships you have with all the men you know…because now you have more insights and understanding into the situation.
If you’re dating a guy with low self esteem, ask yourself…
“Do I love this man enough, to see him through this, to help him through this, to grow together with him?”
The answer isn’t always going to be a YES! (And that’s OK.)
It is especially important if you find yourself in an abusive situation where your health and safety is compromised. In any abusive situations, always get yourself out of there first.
You can’t help anyone if you can’t help yourself first.
Always take the high road. Always give more value than you take.
As a man, we get down sometimes. We lose our direction and focus sometimes. We forget important things and we have bad days too.
Sometimes all we need is someone special to see through our behaviour and love our soul so deeply that it inspires us to become more.
Sometimes we’ve grown up with little secure attachment and plenty of criticism. Sometimes we need someone to believe in us and see the best in us.
Here is my advice, always take the high road. Always give more value than you take.
Always look after yourself first because if you don’t look after yourself, there would not be anymore YOU to give to others.
You don’t have to tolerate bad behavior let alone abuse in order to give more value in any situation. You can love someone from afar. You can love them by not tolerating their behavior.
You can love them by breaking up with them. (*shock face*)
But it’s true.
You don’t have to be a pleaser or an approval seeker in order to give your love. Remember that.
As always, sending you love and I’ll talk to you soon.
D. Shen
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David is the founder of Commitment Triggers & co-founder of Shen Wade Media where we teach women how to show up as a high value high status woman whom easily inspires a deep sense of emotional commitment from her chosen man. Together with his wife Renee at The Feminine Woman, they have positively influenced the lives of over 15 million women through their free articles and videos as well as 10’s of thousands through paid programs through the Shen Wade Media platform.
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We need more men like you buddy, Godbless amazing article!
very good article. I don know how to help low value man. Haiz. Heart Pain
Thank you Shen, your input on this topic is breathtaking! I needed help to go inside myself and your expertise on the topic nailed it. I must say, you are gifted and definitely knowledgeable. I have always presented myself as a high valued along with high status person but on a subconscious level unknowingly, I believe to men. So, when I met my boyfriend, I eventually experienced him having all the characteristics of a low valued man. Shortly, after reading your article, tears came into my eyes, the feeling of truth finally hit me. I was awaken to new knowledge… Read more »
Thank you very much for writing this article! It was a great read! I thought it was just all in my head but I picked up on a few red flags 2 months in and I knew I didn’t want this for myself so I left.Everything mentioned is spot on, makes so much sense now. I’m so glad I did not settle for what could have turned into an ugly, messy relationship. My advice to any girl out there, just leave! You’re better, stronger, worth more than that! Stay close to your family and friends, don’t isolate yourself from people… Read more »
Super article, spot on. Had a series of men with low self-esteem, the only thing that bothers me, is that i also have low self-esteem..which makes me insecure to choose the men i really want. I am looking for love in myself now, accepting myself completely and wow what a beautiful feeling THAT is…never better <3
I know you said this article is only useful to women but I think it’s extremely important for men to look for similar qualities in their male friends. I have a friend that seems to display all but #2 and I feel I should limit my exposure to him. Every time I start talking about something I want to do he always has some interjection about why I can’t do it or why I’m not smart enough, how i haven’t really accomplished anything, if I was going to accomplish my goals I would have already, etc. I don’t actually feel… Read more »
This really opened my eyes to some men I dated in the past. Thank you very much for this article. This helped me A LOT! It also really explains why I have a hard time dating here. It all makes sense now.
this seems strange to me, the people who seem to treat women the worst are confident men, i have rediculously low self esteem and i would never treat a girlfriend like that, ever ! whats so sad is men with low self esteem have a hard enough time getting a girlfriend and articles like this make it even harder ! thanks.
I really enjoyed reading this & it took me back to all the hard work I’ve put into this 3 year relationship to inspire & make the man I love better b/c how I found him was broken, bitter & insecure I couldn’t help but to cry knowing how true yours words are this whole time I thought it was a woman writing this no offense but to find out it was you was awesome & refreshing thanks for being honest & I so agree got to look out for yourself I always tell myself don’t loose who you are… Read more »
I have really appreciated this article. I dated a man recently that I really liked, and in a fairly short period of time he put me down in a very big way. It was hard to understand what was happening at the time – he did a real number on my head!!! Although I’ve already gotten myself mentally and emotionally back on track, so to speak, reading this has cemented it somehow and made me feel much, much better. Thank you!!!