REAL MEN CRY

Ladies let me ask you…

·         Is your man unable to discuss his feelings?

·         Is your man determined to avoid his feelings?

·         Is your man unable to express love, sorrow, or pain?

·         Is your man unable or unwilling to cry?

·         Is your man insensitive to your emotions?·         

           Does your man physically leave the room when emotional issues are discussed?

·         Does he lighten the mood or change the topic when emotional issues are discussed?

If you answered yes to one or all of the above questions then you are not alone. In our experience helping couples in their marriage and relationships, Grace and I have found that this is a common complaint among women. Their men can’t, NOT just won’t, open up to them. Why do I say that? Some men, in fact a majority of them want to open up to their wives but just can’t. They are unable to or don’t know how to. 

According to Relationship Expert Dr. Gary Smalley, a man who can cry is a man who has learned some secrets about intimacy. But sadly, for many men it takes something tragic or life-changing before they understand this truth. Yet many boys emerge from adolescence with a strong sense that being strong and unfeeling is the “masculine” thing to do (no wonder the other day when our Deputy President cried in public it was deemed to be culturally offensive). When a male brain is saturated in testosterone, it doesn’t take much, even from well-meaning family members, to give a boy the message that emotions and feelings are only for girls.

Then when a man enters into a relationship with a woman and even marries her she expects him to show the very emotions and feelings that as a boy he was told not to show. For this to happen, the man must be willing to undergo a serious paradigm shift in order for him to now accept that it’s okay for a man to cry and openly show his feelings. After all contrary to what we have always heard, real men also cry. This paradigm shift is important but not easy and once it is achieved it can release a man to open up and become emotionally intimate, truly one with his woman like never before.