Nearly every man you know has either directly experienced or witnessed this, not to mention messaging they get from society about it. Even when you hear women say they find it endearing when men are vulnerable, it's often still framed as a way of him displaying strength. He's "strong enough to be honest with his emotions or cry". If he's not emotionally expressive enough at the right times, he's "insecure in his masculinity (not strong)". It's also often with a backdrop of "it's special because he doesn't normally open up like that" aka he has to be strong 90% of the time otherwise instead of appreciate his rare vulnerability she'd be "man keeping" of he'd be "making her his therapist/mom".
Women not being able to understand or empathize with this is similar to men not being able to understand the fears women have around safety or societies expectations about beauty and other feminine performance. Because they haven't experienced it, it's hard to imagine the magnitude of it and how it impacts your thinking and behavior.
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empathy for each other really is important in a relationship. if you don't care to try and understand—or aren't even curious—how your partner is experiencing things, then you've got a lot of growing up to do.
but i do think most women feel like @librekitty was expressing. the problem with a lot of guys (myself included) is that we tend to avoid or repress a lot of emotions until we just can't. many guys can't even put into words what they are feeling, so it comes out unprocessed, unfiltered, overwhelming, and poorly timed. it's possible to be very emotional and also grounded.
often what we tend to think is emotional restraint is really emotional withdrawal. i confused this for the longest. you burden yourself when you put all this overthinking into expressing emotion—"must be vulnerable," "90% must be strong," "must be expressed this way," "sometimes that way is fine," etc, etc.
the best way i've found to remain steady is learning how to feel and process.
great post, btw.
thanks for sharing~! ^^