That day I got furious because he had forgotten to stop by Target AGAIN, and get the ingredients for my cake. It was for our son’s birthday and I planned to make a cake the day before. I shouted and called him names, and noticed his face was all shriveled but he didn’t say anything.
After a few weeks, his colleague’s wife told me they had a very upsetting situation at work. He was stressed out and disappointed but wouldn’t say a word about it. If only he had told me what happened. I would understand and support him.
It’s a well-known fact: men are incapable of speaking about their emotions. A male vocabulary doesn’t contain words that describe their inner impressions and feelings.
Gurl, pay attention – lack of verbal exchange creates a crack in your relationship!
Relationships are perpetual physical, verbal, and emotional dance (it takes two for tango!) At least, this is how it should be. When there is an imbalance in exchange it can cause the relationship to become unhealthy, where one side suffers in silence and the other one is acting tough.
A woman, named Katie Hanlon, opened my eyes. In a reel on TikTok, she highlights some probably unobvious factors that can cause relationship disruption. She refers to research circa “normative male alexithymia”, and explains it’s a psychological term for “not being able to name or talk about your emotions.”
In short, men do have feelings but they’re unable to name them and verbally express them. As if they are emotionally illiterate, I would add. Katie is quite convinced that men’s restraints to articulate emotions are the reason why relationships float through rough seas sometimes.
“Men feel the emotion and they just don’t know how to talk about it, or how to garner empathy from each other about said emotion.”
She also stresses that the issue will not disappear over time, and couples should not ignore and underestimate the danger behind it.
Also, men who are prone to holding in emotions tend to pass on this habit to their spouses too. That’s why some women choose to endure the storm and hide the emotional grief as they can’t expect any understanding or dialogue with their partners.
“All the couple’s humor in the world does not take away from the fact that you’re just not interested in us.”
This sounds like she believes men are actually not really interested in women and that’s the reason why they rather make jokes instead of having serious talk about what bothers them.
Sounds familiar? I know when I try to talk to my hubby about how he feels, he will just start joking or change the subject. He will not feel comfortable discussing emotions, nor tell me if I hurt him (accidentally) with a bad choice of words.
He won’t communicate the emotion and I’m unfortunately not a mind reader. That creates a crack that becomes bigger every time he keeps it all to himself. Over time we become more distant and our relationship suffers.
What he won’t admit is this: it destroys his masculine self-confidence. We know well, that it’s all rooted in the patriarchy and traditional masculinity. While at the same time:
“I know for a fact there are wives all over the world who regularly cry themselves to sleep over their marriages”
My husband thinks he needs to withhold his feelings and be tough, and it’s forbidden to show any “female-like” traits such as sensitivity or crying, etc. Self-censoring or hiding any weakness prevents men from making meaningful relationships and suffocates any emotional exchange within.
Katie believes that if men are not eager to speak about their emotional needs, then couples can’t start resolving some other common issues such as unequal involvement in child care or housework, and mental workload (project manager of all family activities!) that’s usually more of a woman’s burden in marriage.
A public opinion on TikTok strongly agrees with Katie’s assumptions, and one of the commenters, a woman, named Anu, shared her story:
“I left a 25 year marriage because of this. I cried on the regular and was always sick. It’s been 6 years and I’ve never been better.”
A user whoisandrewblack underlined the problem with the social norms that makes men behave like they do:
“Not only are these things not taught/modeled to men, but they are also actively repressed by our society. Each man is completely on his own in this struggle.”
Another person, jpickle3, made a comment about how men usually don’t start talking about emotions first, but they do react to woman’s emotions:
“When they do talk about emotions it’s when you talk about yours first and they’re upset and express how bad that makes them feel about themselves.”
In the end, I will say that men really need to become friends with their emotions and understand their masculinity will not be compromised by showing vulnerability. You are humans, for God’s sake!