Don't assume that I'm automatically insensitive because I am a male. I was the person who submitted this article!

I wasn't planning to say anything about my own situation when I posted it, I felt embarrassed to do so, but also compelled when I saw other people with a viewpoint like yours write vicious insensitive comments that I felt compelled to speak up about. (I wound up posting to the main thread because the comment was deleted)

There is nothing hypothetical about this scenario, it is one that I am living. I have stuck with my wife through thick and thin and I am completely dedicated and want to grow old with her. There are members of my extended family (who I love and am proud to know and would hate to be separated as much as I would from my wife) who had the same experience and suffered dramatically.

Men are continuously told that we need to open up emotionally (my mother-in-law felt that way about her otherwise upstanding husband) but we're always wary that it is another cruel trap where we get punished for showing emotions.