The Biggest Mistake Good Men Make in Relationships

On this episode on The Tony Bova Show, Tony & Sabrina breakdown what makes and epic relationship and the simple things that most guys miss that could change the game for them. 

Take Tony & Sabrina's FREE Respect Assessment To See Where You Stand HERE: https://respectgains.com

Explore Tony’s Breakthrough Blueprint and Community here: https://tonyjbova.com

⸻

Connect with Tony:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyjbova/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tonyjbova

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyjbova/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So this is one of the most important and biggest ways that I feel really safe in this relationship with Tony. And one of the main things he does is he holds space for me in a very safe way. And it's not just about holding space or listening to me, it's about how he does it. And we joke and say that this is like floorplay for women, right? Women's the feminist priority is to always feel safety, specifically emotional safety. And how do you do that as a man? Right? One of your main one of the main things for the masculine is you guys are so solution driven and you just want to fix problems, but you can't use that tactic with women, which is why you know a lot of the businessmen or entrepreneurs or those high-performing men have some of the most complicated relationships because they are so focused and driven and solutions-based, and they're trying to use the same strategy with us women, but we don't respond. We're not a business, okay? We are not a business plan or a blueprint. We we operate very differently.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

So well, you could be a business, it's just a different kind of business.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

It's just a different, but yeah, but if you bring the same strategies that you can't bring the same strategy, so it's uh it's so it's not a same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Well, you can, it depends on how it's looked at. So if it's about a drawing and an attraction, like that's all the laws of of of attraction, all all energy and how things are how things are done. Like you can actually probably look at a business that's not functioning properly, and it's actually it might be a leadership issue, and the leadership issue is the culture, and the culture is energy.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So the same thing is true about inside of relationships, you know, especially it's not how you say it, it's how it's said. And so, like, we could give you like very point blank, like, hey, this is what you say when she's like this. But what's actually happening is how you say it is how it's what's gonna how it's gonna come across. And I want to be very clear from the very beginning of this particular conversation is that you are already safe. It's not a matter of like, oh, you're not a safe man. We know you're a good man, we know that you you want good things, you wouldn't be listening to this if you didn't want to have an extraordinary relationship where she felt safe and she was drawn in, and it's not just about like fucking her more, it's more about like connecting with her and actually experiencing deep intimacy at the end of it.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Because yes, it is about the intimacy piece, but it's you know, if she was just laying there like a dead fish, well, intimacy can mean very like you know, some people think intimacy is just purely the physical sex, but that's not what we mean when we say intimacy. Well, it's the deeper connection with your partner.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Well, that's also but also there's a component for men that they want to feel as they're the king of like what's going on. If she's not actually enjoying, like we can feel it when you're not enjoying it, yeah. And so like it's not about quantity or how frequently, because if she's just taking it and she's not enjoying it, right? Like, that's why a big component of why guys watch porn is not necessarily to watch intercourse happen, but the way that it's that that porn comes across is like you're you it's either a secret or you're the king, and like they want to feel as though they're they're the leader of the relationship, and like that that's the kind of what comes through in pornography is like, oh, I feel like I'm the fucking I'm the man, like we want to feel like the man, and so like being able to do that, you know, moving with aggression or power or strength, like if you go to the gym and the more you lift and the bigger your muscles get, it's pretty simplistic. Like it's an A plus B equation that equals C. And if I'm consistent about it, then that then this is the results I'm getting. But when it comes to relational dynamics, it's a lot more complicated because a lot of you don't actually understand what is causing the disruptions or the the ruptures that are happening inside your relationship because as men, we actually weren't really taught a lot of this stuff, and it's not something that's intuitive to us. Like, you know, Sabrina just said that we're solution driven. So the solution-driven piece of that is is like, you know, like oh, I want to fix this, and sometimes actually the thing that is required in the situation is to not fix something in order to draw her in. It's to lean out of what your natural tendency is and it's counterintuitive. Like, does that resonate?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, it does. So I guess let's let's go back to the beginning of what our intention is for this is how do the how do you make me feel safe by holding space for me? Let's say I'm let's say, for example, like last night, I had a pretty rough time at with, you know, I have a lot of family issues. Like one of my ultimate lessons in this lifetime is family and specifically mother stuff, but it's okay, mother and father. But um, I I went to my mom's last night for a little bit and I struggled. It's like a lot of stuff came up, and I didn't share with him last night because I I usually take a little time to process things and share because I don't have the words for it. That's just how women operate is we don't always have the language, it's just the feelings. And so this morning on our walk, right well, right now, um, I had kind of shared some stuff on how I was struggling, just seeing a lot of things I'm not too thrilled about, and like similarities that I have within my mother. Some are beautiful and some are pretty hard for me to accept. And the way you handle those conversations is go ahead, explain your part.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, so there's a two there's two pieces that are really important, but very specifically, the one thing, and I've had to train myself to do this where it becomes natural, and like I be I do it without thinking, is I tell myself to shut the fuck up. So I I basically am like, this is not my story to try to fix. It's like one the first thing about holding spaces is like I'm not going to fix her in this moment. You can actually, by doing what I'm at what I'm what I'm sharing and how I'm instructing you to do this, and you start to figure it out in your own unique way with your relationship, you can actually fix the situation because you're allowing her an opportunity to alleviate the pressure that's that's inside of her. Feminine energy has a tremendous amount of power inside of it, and a big mistake that we try to do as men is try to like encapsulate that and try to control it and try to protect it and try to fix it because we don't, you know, because when we were younger, you know, we had a we weren't as powerful and strong and and um as capable as we were when we were children, and you know, we see our mom and and you know, we we you know your mom breastfeds you and you're sucking on her nipple, and like like you feel very connected to the feminine. So you want to honor the sacredness of the feminine because of your mom. Maybe you didn't have a mom, I don't I don't really know your story, but for most of us, that's what's naturally ingrained inside of us. So it's our you know, I look at my seven-year-old, and the moment something's super heavy, and Sabrina picks it up and she goes, Oh no, it's so heavy, and like my son, who's seven, just naturally runs over there and he wants to protect her and he wants to he wants to do it for her, and then you know, part of that is I can do it, I can do it, even though it's like double or triple his weight sometimes. I and I, you know, part of that is me teaching him and him seeing me do that for her, but it's also ingrained in him naturally, and you know, he's carrying a bag that's probably half of his weight, and he's hung over and the the side to kind of carry this thing, and it's like literally looks impossible. Like Sabrina could definitely do it way easier than him. Be like, no, I'm gonna handle this for you, Sabrina. And that is the that's the essence of where we're coming from. So you're coming from a good heart when you want to do those things, but when we're learning something new and how to actually do it the way that's actually gonna get the results we're looking for, it's counterintuitive. We actually have to break up the fact that, like, instead of it being frustration, that oh, like I'm trying to, I'm trying to give you this solution so that I see the problem, like my brain is logical. I see, like, okay, you're telling me this story. That well, the simple solution is this. How come you can't think of it that way? And it's not that's not what she's looking for. What she's looking for is for you to hold space and allow her to alleviate that energy without adding more energy into it, because you're a container. I want you to start to think of yourself as a bucket where she gets to pour this water in there, and then you go out into the world with your purpose and your mission and what you're driven towards, and you expel that energy out into the world. Because uh, the same way as if when she's sharing things that are hard for her, she's also going to start to fill your bucket up with a different energy if you learn how to do this. And this is like the foreplay piece that we're talking about, where this is gonna draw her in in a way where she's like, Who the fuck is this man? Like, this man is incredible. Like, I would never contemplate ever leaving this man or what or or challenging his authority. And like there's these little moments, like Sabrina has moments that come up here and there because she's we're all human, so we gotta leave that piece for imperfection. But the container is what you start to build, and when you have that container and you start to become solid in yourself, and you build yourself up and you know who you are and you're able to hold grounding, then you can start to do what I do with Sabrina, which is very specifically when she brings something like this to me, what I do is I just start asking questions. I tell myself to shut the fuck up and I start asking questions, and I get really curious with her, and I don't like try to attach any solutions or ideas to what it's supposed to be. Typically, what happens is I was like, Well, okay, well, why do you think of it that way? Or you know, why is it why is it that you feel like that with her? Or is it possible there's something else for you underneath that? Or like you start to ask these questions. Now they might be triggering questions, uh, they might be uncomfortable questions, but our job as men is to challenge perspective. And we do this in a safe way by challenging perspectives so that we're not doing it as in you like you need to do this. Influence is asking questions and getting curious and not having a particular outcome in mind for that person because the sooner you separate your journey from her journey, is the sooner the two of you can get closer together. Because if you're trying to force each other into the same journey, into the same perspective, you're gonna have such a hard time because you guys are both designed designed so differently, and you think about things so differently, and you want to see that as a mindset shift into that's an incredible thing because if you had two similar minds thinking exactly the same way, it would be a really fucking boring relationship, first of all, and then you never get to play on each other's strengths. So she has strengths inside of her that are going to multiply your ability to operate business or to step into your profession or into your mission or into your family that are very unique. Like the radiance that your woman can bring to your life will exponentially increase the quality of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Or it could be quite the opposite, which is not serving you.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

So well, you you might be listening to this because you don't feel that.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yeah. You might you might you might feel as though we have the power to either exponentially tenfold your your life in a positive way or also destroy the fuck out of it. So that's that's where the choice comes in of first of all, it all depends on how who are you drawing in. There's a reason why you attracted that certain type of woman in, and a lot of you will now a lot of you message me and say, I don't know why I keep dating this kind of woman, and I'm pretty direct with you guys, like it's you. Um, and I know that's hard to hear, but there's a reason why you're drawing that kind of woman in, and that that really radiant feminine woman we're talking about, you can't attract her in unless you've you've like grounded and regulated yourself and done the deeper work.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Well, part of part of that too, and I want to just like be able to bring that full circle, is it's not that her behavior or her disrespect is okay. It's it's not that like, oh, it's your fault like that. What what but what's happening is the if you can take responsibility for anything, the one factor you can take responsibility for is you're still there. And so, like, if you're present inside of that relationship, like you have the option to leave it. And I've you know, the the guys that I work with, I talk a lot about the fact that like it's really hard for you to leave that because instinctually it doesn't actually feel good for us as men because we have good hearts and we want to serve and we want to be able to protect and provide. And so for us to leave, it feels like this thing, like we're almost leaving her to die. Because instinctually, if you go back hundreds and thousands of years, that's literally what we would be doing if we left a relationship, is we'd be leaving her to die because she can't protect herself like she can today. We lose sight of the fact that that instinctual peace is still deeply inside of us, so it's hardly, but you have to take responsibility from the fact that you're still there in order for you to be able to be like, okay, why am I drawing this in? Why am I attracting it in? And actually kind of leads into this thing that I was sharing with with my guys last night was this analogy of I want you to see your relationship as you're you're the frame of the house. Like you're literally the the the two by fours and the walls and all of these different things, and then there's a doorway to this house, and the doorway's open. Like you the door is completely open, meaning you're not like trying to make anybody stay, you don't have a lock on it, like it you but the house inside the house, anybody steps in that door, they're dead. Like you you you already have that under control. But the moment somebody steps outside of the house is the moment they're not under your protection inside of the frame. And this is metaphoric, it's energetic. It's not like, well, you didn't listen to me, and therefore you're outside of my protection. It's it's it's this thing of like, well, you're free to go inside of this relationship. And if you do go, I'm no longer responsible for what happens to you. And so it's not like the same thing as like, oh, she went to work, and then therefore you're not responsible for like protecting her emotionally and all these different things. No. If she's like, oh, you know what, like you're you're not showing up, this is like blah blah blah blah blah, she's like just tearing you apart. This is the reminder that the door is right there. Like, well, then why are you here, hon? I'm not really sure why you're here because I want to create something absolutely magnificent with you. I want to be deeply connected with you. I want to share a life where you know we're you know we're we're enjoying each other physically and like drinking each other almost like we're cups of wine. And that that type of like because that really speaks to her heart, like she wants she wants that with you. But what she really wants more than that is for your ability to know yourself and inside this frame and for her to know that she's not being controlled, but she wants to come into the house. She wants she wants the invitation to come in because there's no other house she wants to be inside of, and because the reason the door is open, it gives her the option to leave the house, but she doesn't want to leave the house because you're creating such an incredible environment inside, and this starts in your internal to be able to hold your frame. Where if you do this and all of a sudden you're like, you know, you say, Well, you know, the door is right there. You're not saying it like that, but you're like, Hey, you know, honey, you don't have to be here. I'm not forcing you to be in this relationship, and then she calls your bluff and then you freak out. Well, that's that's manipulative because you're not able to actually hold to what you're saying. As a man, we have to hold to our word more than anything else because we are consistent and women are consistently inconsistent, and that is a biological fact. Every week she has a cycle that her hormones change. We are on a 24-hour cycle, and yes, like you know, you have more testosterone or less testosterone throughout the day, but it happens every 24 hours, so every day is like the same. But for her, every day is not the same, and so biologically it's already built into us, and then you have to start to see, okay, I need to be consistent, I need to hold my word. I need to not be so worried about the fact that maybe she doesn't hold her word the way that I want her to, like we still pay attention to that, but we also what we do is we leave room for the fact that she's making decisions emotionally, and that's okay. We start to change our mindset around that because let's be honest, if she started acting like a dude, like you know, some guys are that's cool, like I'm totally cool with that, but then to go date dudes. But if you want to date women that and you want femininity and you want a woman that is super feminine, and you want all of these things from her, like, where are you showing up in that equation to attract that end? Like, that's that's the thing that we don't understand and we don't want to hear because what's like, oh, I don't know how to do that. Well, we we know how to do that, and you should be listening to this stuff. This is the stuff that will actually change the trajectory of your relationship. If you start to understand it's more about how you show up and your decisions, then you're gonna start to see her get drawn into you. Like I see I see this with my clients all the time. Like they're like, they're like, Oh, how am I gonna do this in the very beginning, and then a couple months in, it's like all of a sudden something snaps and it shifts, and like, holy smokes, this works. And that's the kind of that's the kind of things that we're talking about here because as men we want to see it on paper. We want to see the logistics of it. How do I do this logically? It's not logic. You have to learn how to regulate your nervous system. Part of learning how to regulate your nervous system is doing something for yourself that expels the energy that you carry from inside the relationship, from work, from out the outside, like going to the gym, uh maybe meditating, maybe doing yoga. Like there's a bunch of different things that you can do. But it feels daunting for us to do some of those things, and we need to do them consistently over a period of time where you're separating yourself from your phone. Because literally, you can look at your feed right now, and it's gonna tell you exactly how you think. Because it's that smart that you think it's reading your mind, but honestly, it's just it's telling you it's reflecting yourself subconscious. It's reflecting the 85% of the 35,000 decisions you do a day, not knowingly, and it's telling you what's inside of your mind. So if you want to figure out like why this isn't happening, take a pay, pay attention to who you're following, who what what reels come up on your your feed, and like what are the what's the information that they're sharing with you? Because I could tell you my feed is filled with positive things, my feed is filled with things around business and personal development and and fitness and exercise and nutrition and like how to live a better life. Like, that's what my feed's full of because that's what I'm thinking about all the time. Is like, how do I become the best version of myself in every single moment that we're interacting? And this is the thing that we're talking about here is like gives you the ability to hold space. You get to hold space for her, and then you start doing things like and let's kind of get back into that piece of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Like, does that kind of touch on I think you you gave them enough, I think it answered, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Well, give let's give them a little bit of like a more like a a role play on what that looks like so they they can kind of see like it's it's gonna be a role play because it's and we'll catch one of them at some point when I'm actually doing that, but or actually how about this? You you share how you feel when I'm doing that, like what happens for you.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Um well some it I guess it it can be different sometimes. It really depends how I'm feeling too, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

But if like if I'm feeling open to receive well, maybe not in the moment, but how does that make you feel generally? Because sometimes it does take you a day to be like, oh, you know what, I really appreciated that.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

So being able to understand there's like a delayed gratification piece to it, like it doesn't have to happen instantaneously.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah. Um, well, generally it makes me feel connected, and I feel very like um, I guess the word would be held if I can say that, and just like seen, heard, all that shit. Um, but I feel very safe to where it's like you've never made me feel wrong or judged for my feelings, even though sometimes I'm being very dramatic. Or um my emotions are just dramatic. Yeah. Well, sometimes my my emotions are just so strong and it feels like I'm gonna die, which I know I logically understand that's not true, but that's how it feels, and so I can overreact sometimes with my emotions, or I get super worried or anxious about certain things, and he just kind of like sometimes he'll giggle and just be like, Oh honey, I love you, and I'm like, Why are you laughing? But at the end of it, I appreciate it because the opposite reaction would be that he's frustrated and angry and judging and like uh yeah, blocking out how much he appreciates that about me, but that's because he's just so safe in himself and he doesn't allow my emotions or my my stuff to get in his way, where he knows I'm just being like super feminine and anxious and worried because that's just part of our nature, and so he doesn't really take that on. He just knows how to, like you said, hold the frame. Because, like, the way I describe it is you know, I always ask like some of the clients, do you prefer a tree or a riverbank, right? Most people say a tree for some reason, but like think of a tree. I mean, you see a bunch of them behind us, like you men are the tree trunk with the roots into the ground where you don't move, whether it's snowing, windy, raining, it's like you stay very grounded, literally in the ground. Whereas the feminine is the leaves and the branch, and we just we like flow with whatever weather is coming. And so that's like that's how I explain it to the men I work with is that like you guys are supposed to be the tree trunk. So whether I'm in the wind or it's raining or it's sunny, um you remain the same with us and you don't let us break down the trunk, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

So Yeah, I think it's important. Also to like kind of touch base on like I also won't allow you to make me the reason why you feel the way you do.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yeah, that's one of your biggest things of like right.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

So it's like you can express yourself and what you're feeling and like what's going on, but the moment you're like, Well, this is your fault that I feel this way, yeah, is the moment I'm like, no, I'm not taking responsibility for that. Yeah. Because I have no control over how you feel, I can simply control how I react to how you feel. And so part of that reaction is like, well, you can't speak to me this way because for me that's disrespectful. And if I allow you to disrespect me, then you're always gonna think it's my fault and it's gonna build momentum in that. And so it's it's more about being able to set the frame of that piece than being able to um, you know, it's not just a lot about like allowing her to experience what she's experiencing, it's also making sure making sure that she doesn't um put that on me because like it's something I actually don't even have control over. So, like, like that's another piece too, because like I'm I'm saying, hey, take full responsibility, right? I'm telling you, like, hey, you gotta be take full responsibility, but then also on the other hand, it's you're not taking responsibility for that because it's not so black and white. It's like being able to carry two troops at the same time. It's like you are fully responsible for your life and your choices and your decisions, and on the other hand, you're not in control of her decisions, her thoughts, her emotions, and then understanding both of those at the same time gives you the ability to show up grounded like this, where you she can express herself, and then you'd be like, Hey honey, by the way, you can't say it like that to me. I appreciate that. Um, you're feeling like this. Can you be vulnerable to me? Show me show me how you're feeling, and then we start to you know the thing I I tell my guys is you have to have other conversations later, not inside of the moment that she's experiencing it. The moment she's experiencing it is unless you're very skilled with this stuff, like some of the guys that I've been working with are starting to pick up on a little bit. But until you're very skilled with that, it's very hard to do this in the moment like this. You have to come back to it later. And so you have to build up credibility with her that you're trustworthy to be able to have for her to hear those things in those moments because she knows if your frame is so solid, if she pushes against it, she's gonna be out the door, and that's not what she wants, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah, no, I think that's very helpful for them to hear, and I think in a nutshell, that's basically what it would look like to hold space for a woman and make her feel safe. So thanks for joining us today and listening.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Yeah, so if you if you don't subscribe to this channel, if you we're you know, we talk a lot about masculine and feminine dynamics, and we talk a lot about like relational dynamics, and we talk about how to have extraordinary relationships and how to get more tangled up in the sheets and what it's for play and all of the things that you want inside of your relationship, and then also the things you don't you want outside of your relationship. How do you live a freed life where you're making more money, where you get to you know do what you want, when you want, with who you want, whenever you want. How do you build a life like that where you have your health is in line and you have uh your relationships in line and your purpose is in line, and you're actually having money come in that's actually adding value to your life. You want those things, follow and subscribe to this channel. And the other thing is if like things are resonating for you and like you have this situation that's coming up, and you feel like you need some support or some help on figuring out how to do that, there's a link down below. You can figure out how to work with us. Uh, we don't take everybody. Uh, we are very selective with guys that we work with because we want to make sure that we can help you and actually get you what where you want to go. We're not about trying to just uh take anybody and everybody. So we have a process for that, and it's a very safe process. Just as we're sharing this information, like we hold true to that process with the people we work with. So if you're interested in that, please find that link below. And I hope you you're killing it today.