Confessions of a former lady’s man

Bad boy turned good

 

John Berba, a former lady’s man, is probably well known if you’re a guy and interested in dating techniques and advice, but maybe not to you ladies! To give you a brief bio, he has taught a lot of men how to overcome social anxiety and approach women. So, you can imagine, he has also had many relationships with women.

I thought there was something to be learned here by listening to Johnny’s dating stories. I was talking to him and I suddenly thought “Oh my God… this is what is happening on the other side!”.

 

You may have heard about my dating history through my TEDTalk, but in case you haven’t, I have had my share of dysfunctional relationships. Of course, in these relationships, both partners have a part to play. Sometimes you get sucked in and then the behavior escalates and you help each other out to create toxic patterns.

 

Awareness

The lesson that we want to talk to you guys about today is that of awareness. If you’ve had some crazy relationships- you know the kind: the screaming, the shouting, the slammed doors, the “I’ll never speak to you again” type of relationships- you need to know that you didn’t just happen to meet a bad guy. You don’t meet bad guys like you meet bad eggs.

In this podcast, John explained that he has made several mistakes in his relationships: that he was dominating and sometimes even afraid to go out with his girlfriend because he was scared he would lose his temper if someone approached her: “Because I was vulnerable, I was also attracting damaged women. I didn’t trust myself enough, and I hadn’t realized that.”

Truth is, when you really want (or even need) a relationship, it’s hard to recognize it when your sexy and romantic partner turns toxic, or even psychologically violent. This is especially true for relationships that started off great! You want to meet the perfect partner. So as soon as you meet someone who looks great, you want to trust that he’s that perfect person. He also wants you to think that he’s that perfect person. If dating was a sprint race, that would be fine!

 

But dating is a marathon!

This means that dysfunctions in the relationship will start to show at some point. And Johny captured this perfectly! He explained that didn’t trust that women were attracted to him for who he was. So, he would engage in behaviors that he thought were perceived as attractive (i.e. Being nice and romantic). He didn’t realize that this was a form of manipulation and that, on a deep level, he wasn’t respecting himself.

 

“To be truly kind to someone who takes massive courage and it is the most attractive thing to do. And so many people struggle with it.”

 

So our lesson is this:

Toxic relationships create cycles of self-loathing, lack of self-awareness, and emotional turmoil. If someone is not behaving towards you in a way that’s loving, remember that people behave badly when they’re not fond of themselves and living in fear, hate, and unhappiness.

If you’re realizing that your relationship sounds something like this, you have got to accept that this person is not going to change overnight and become the person that you need them to be. He needs to sort his stuff out and so do you. And that’s going to be done independently and probably over a very long period of time!  

 

If you want to learn more from the former lady’s man, follow Johnny on Twitter!

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And don’t forget, if you have any questions or want to work with me, you can always book your session on my website!