Some men may get uncomfortable and withdraw when women have strong feelings. This is particularly true when women are upset, but men may also feel uncomfortable when women are excited, full of joy, or even really turned on.
Men are often particularly uncomfortable whenever their partners are feeling anxious or distressed. It does not even have to be about them. Women can endlessly reassure their male partners that they are just upset, not upset with him, but that is not often reassuring enough.
Why is an openly emotional woman upsetting some men? Why do some men find women’s emotions impossible to ignore? As with most relationship-related questions, the answer is complex and multi-layered.
Simply put, men are often raised to feel responsible for women’s happiness. If their partner is unhappy, men sometimes believe they have failed in some critically important way.
Many men are also less familiar with and less able to talk about their own feelings, so they can feel disadvantaged when the conversation with their partner becomes more emotional and often defensively insist that the conversation with their partner remains “rational.” This is something like an American traveling abroad who wants other people to speak to them in English rather than trying to learn at least some rudiments of the language spoken in the country they are visiting.
Men are often socialized to be less emotionally fluent than their female partners because our culture stereotypically considers the world of emotions to be “feminine territory.” From early childhood, men are often derided or mocked for showing signs of emotions other than anger (the one emotion allowed to men). For example: “Big boys, don’t cry.” “Don’t be a sissy.”
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