why do people hate nick so much

[[deleted user]]

Nick was a normal bloke who marries who he thinks is a normal, fun loving girl. He's worked his way out of the small town he was brought up in to work in the big city as a journalist. He's proud of his accomplishments. He comes across as arrogant; a fault he recognises in himself, 'I have a face you want to punch'. He over compensates with charm which he knows can appear smarmy, and by smiling too much. He shows a self awareness that actually works against him later in the novel. He just wants to be liked. Amy recognises that, for him, to be hated would be as big a punishment as going to prison.

For the first two years of the marriage he adores his clever, beautiful wife. He seems slightly besotted and bemused by her beauty and her intelligence. He says she brings out the best in him, and there's no indication that he simply married her for her money.

But Amy Dunne isn't the normal fun loving girl she has been pretending to be, and two years into the marriage she realises she can't keep up the pretence any longer. This more or less coincides with Nick losing his job and everything he's worked for and is so proud of. Not only is he devastated by the loss of his job (remember he poignantly sits in his car guiltily reading back copies of his magazine articles). Not only is his pride dented by the fact that he is now living off Amy, but she has completely changed her personality and her reactions to him. She was always demanding (the treasure hunts that he agonises over), but now she's the Amy she was at school and college where she sets a man up for rape and a girl up as a stalker. She's not normal; she's a sociopath.

She's no longer the fun loving, happy girl he married. Even she admits that later in the book. Nick didn't sign up for what he got. She calls him everything beginning with 'un'. He's undeserving of her, he's an underachiever etc etc. But she says he's also stopped trying to be a better man and make her happy. As far as he is concerned she is no longer in love with him. She says herself that he constantly told her he wanted her to be happy, but her change back to her real persona meant he could no longer make her happy. Eventually it seems he gave up.

He then heard that his mother was dying. Not unnaturally he wanted to be near her. It also gave him the chance to get back into employment. Both he and Amy were unemployed at that stage, her parents had virtually bankrupt themselves and needed Amy's trust money back. Amy and Nick were broke, save for the $70,000 she put into the bar ($70,000 that she would get back if they divorced). What was he supposed to do? He's blamed for moving Amy to a backwater town, but that backwater town gave him a job and a business at the height of the worst recession in history. Amy made no attempt at getting a job and helping him out. She relied solely on him to keep her. He didn't force her out to work, yet it's Nick who is constantly called lazy.

Perhaps Nick was selfish in taking Amy to his hometown, but it seems they had little choice. Perhaps he wasn't an attentive husband any longer. He had faults. But how many couples are as attentive two years into a marriage as they are at the start? Amy had massive expectations, which Nick could not hope to live up to. On top of which she seemed surprised that Nick couldn't adapt to the fact she was no longer the woman he married. His failure to live up to her impossibly high expectations led her to be angry and bitter. He no longer loved her but his lack of ability to cope with confrontation made it hard for him to call it off and ask for a divorce.

So he took a mistress. That can't be condoned, but in reality isn't that his only really unpleasant act. It's not decent or honourable for a husband/wife to cheat on their spouse, but people do it, and they still don't deserve a death sentence. Amy would happily have seen her husband die as a convicted murderer. I read comments that Nick deserved what he got and that he has to share part of the blame. Nick is called a bad husband, a cheat, a bastard etc, but I fail to see that. Yes he gave up on a demanding and unresponsive wife. yes he committed adultery, but at what stage did he do anything which warranted the punishment he was given? How does finding out your husband is committing adultery exonerate you from planning his death? I find it bizarre that any non-psychotic can think that way.

I also hear comments that Nick hates women and has a poor opinion of them. Yet he was close to his mother and adores his twin sister. Although his father was a pig of a man, Nick constantly battles not to be that man. I think he fights to be a good man, and that his intentions are good. The only woman he hates is Amy, and he only fantasises about killing her after what she does to him. Hardly surprising in the circumstance. On the one occasion where he rants about the women in his life, he is horrified when he sees himself in his father, and fights against it, determined not to succumb. Isn't there more to be admired in that than criticising him for it. To fight against your upbringing is courageous and worthy.

In a nutshell Nick committed adultery, lied in a police investigation to protect himself, hates confrontation whereby he couldn't bring himself to ask for a divorce (thereby can be seen as weak) and became a distant husband after his wife totally changed her personality. Like Amy he was selfish, and when faced with a charge for murder he ditched his mistress like a ton of hot bricks (although he does at least have the decency to apologise to her towards the end of the book) . Other than the adultery, he acted like most of us would given the same set of circumstance. Human beings are very often selfish, more so when facing a possible death penalty for something they didn't do. All of his flaws are very very human. I don't see him as a horrible person or even an unlikeable person.

Other than the adultery, what exactly did Nick do to deserve the abuse he gets from people who read this book? He didn't kill anyone, abuse anyone or assault anyone despite intense stress and provocation. The only time we 'see' Nick being nasty to Amy is in her made up diary. Can we really trust anything she says in that?

I seem to be in the minority in feeling sympathy for him. And at the very end he feels trapped into staying with the she-devil, partly because she would ensure that he spent the remainder of his life as a social pariah, but mostly for the sake of his unborn son. He was desperate for a child, and he's desperate that his child won't be brought up solely by a psychotic mother who will teach the child to hate him. I have enormous sympathy for the character. It is hard to see how he and Amy could be compared to one another. Nick may have had his flaws and faults, but they, like him, are very human

[Fernando]

I liked them both! I would never want to be close friends or in a relationship with either one, but I thought they were great characters. Just because they have qualities that make for an unpleasant marriage doesn't make them bad characters imho. Darth Vader wouldn't have been a great dad but he was a cool villain.

[Karen]

Nick was a likable guy complete with all his flaws, which we all have. What I didn't like was his refusal to even try to expose Amy for what she was. She was 'amazing' alright... I have no respect for him for continuing to allow her to control him. How could he live the rest of his life in fear of making one wrong move as her husband? That's no way to live out your life. She needed to be put away.

[Dmitry]

I don't hate Nick at all. He is a victim in this story. Yes, he has cheated his wife, but isn't it a common sin? Amy, from her side, make her husband to the death sentence and killed a man. Although she's still pretty hot.

[Paula]

Nick is definitely not one of my favorite heroes. He came off as an opportunist and he was definitely a cheater. BUT Amy was most certainly not a saint in the whole saga that is Gone Girl.

[Bulbul]

Can Amy and Nick be compared to each other? Nick didn't know Amy was "evil" or psychotic when he cheated on her. And he continued to cheat for ONE YEAR instead of doing the decent thing and asking for a divorce. But divorcing her would mean that the bar would have to be sold off so he can pay Amy back. He used Amy for the money. I admire Amy for having the patience and enough hatred to make Nick pay. I mean c'mon, haven't we all wanted to do something really horrible to the guy who broke our heart? This woman actually did it.
Sure, Amy is a complete psycho but Nick is an asshole.

[sublimosa]

Would you rather be married to a psycho or an asshole?
The asshole can be shed without much trouble, the psycho might kill you.

[Dana]

Plenty of men cheat, who would never kill you.

[Mayor]

I didn't dislike Nick. I didn't think his character had much dimension -- I thought the author did a much better job with Amy than Nick. It didn't make sense to me that they were married except as a plot device. You could tell the author was having a lot of fun with Amy's character. Nick was just the straw man.

[Alis]

Monica wrote: "I don't hate Nick; I think that he just got unfortunate with Amy and she's so powerful and manipulative that she'd never allow him to leave her like at the end she traps him into staying with her. ..."
I totally agree with u.i dont hate nick either!!

[Mayor]

i didn't hate Nick, I just felt that the authored devoted 90% of her energy to Amy and Nick's character wasn't as well-developed and as others have said, it wasn't believable to me that he would stay with her at the end.