If your husband never cries, is that something to be worried about?
It was one of the dilemmas up for discussion on this week's 'So You Think You're An Adult' slot on Moncrieff.
Here's the listener's email:
I don’t really have a complaint as such, I more want to try to understand my husband better and don’t know where to start. We have two kids together and have been married for 9 years, together for 12 years. My issue I guess is that in all the years I’ve known him, I have never seen him cry. Ever.
The birth of our kids I was a blubbering mess, he was as dry as a Jacob's cream cracker. Our dog was knocked down and while I mourned him for weeks, there was nothing from him. Covid hasn’t seemed to affect him one bit while I’ve seen other male family members really struggle and find not being with one another tough.
I don’t get where he gets his robotic nature from? He is a caring and loving man and relay knows how to make me laugh but nothing brings a tear to his eye. I did an experiment with him and used tweezers to pluck a nose hair I pretended was bothering me. That didn’t even release a reactionary tear. It's baffling.
I don’t know why this concerns me so much, but it does. I fear he is bottling up his emotions and one day he will just burst. I'd be much happier knowing that he wasn't holding back and can release his emotions when he needs to. Should I explore this more?
Barbara Scully had a few bits of advice in response.
She said: "The thing that jumps out at this letter for me that I think is really weird is that she decided to pluck hair from his nose in order to see if she could make him cry - I think that's more problematic than the fact perhaps he doesn't cry as much as she would like him to!
"But everyone is different. Little boys are still being brought up today... to be taught don't cry, be strong, be stoic. Perhaps that is what has happened here.
"I think in general men - particularly men of a certain age - don't tend to emote in the same way."
Barbara said that having a happy marriage with a husband is kind and loving is 'really enough'.
She also suggested that minor annoyances can start seeming like much bigger things during lockdown, when you're spending so much time with someone.
She told the listener: "By all means talk to him about his emotions... but he might just be someone who is not comfortable crying.
"The more of an issue you make out if it, you might actually have the opposite effect to the effect you want to have."
Listen back to all this week's advice below:
