Either way, it works out.
This seems ridiculous to me, but not impossible. Maybe women are different outside Europe and South America. What do I know how things work where you are.
Could it be a cultural thing? I’m American and I’ve always lived in major coastal cities.
They’re your exes… how can you be so confident that it was positive for the relationship?
Possibly—I’m from a Muslim country. I’ve seen my dad cry twice, once when our dog died and once when his mom died. He had a good relationship with his own dad but didn’t cry when he died. My mom would probably freak out if he expressed more weakness than that.
But to my point, Americans in major coastal cities are a minority in terms of culture. And I assume you are white. Even in major coastal cities, non-whites typically have more traditional expectations about male behavior.
Even just the category itself kind of makes the point. The original claim way upthread was that women find guys who cry repulsive. I would assume this is roughly referring to guys crying when they run into a problem in life instead of dealing with it, that sort of thing. The examples in your link are, like, guys who gave their whole lives to a sport, everything's on the line, maximum skin in the game, and their crying is a show of strength, the raw emotion of someone at a peak/climactic moment.
It would falsify this if you found examples of our culture supporting guys just going through their daily lives and crying as an accessible reaction to random things that make them feel bad, almost as a sort of banality. (I think this is the bar, since culturally we're okay with women doing this.)
> Boys don't cry. It doesn't matter the circumstances; shedding any tears is the ultimate no-no in terms of what you can and can't do as a man. But sometimes... sometimes... sometimes there comes a time when a man's emotions deny any other form of expression, and they pour forth—prerequisite impassioned speech may or may not be present—by cascading down his cheeks. And crying does NOT make him any less badass in the eyes of the audience, but in fact may even reinforce this status. In other words, Manly Man-Tears Of Manliness.
...supports rayiner's point. Men aren't generally allowed to cry; when they are it's for exceptional circumstances, when the beauty of life so overflows one's cup that it becomes an expression of peak experience, or something like that. But the subtext is that everyday crying is taboo.
Look from their perspective.
"My man is so smart, competent and emotionally stable. I can rely on him for anything!"
"Oh no he's crying, does this mean our family won't survive? What do I do?"
It's not anything more complicated than that. Women can probably chime in to tell me if I'm right or wrong, but this is a human perspective, because children will feel the same way if the father cries.
Crying is an expression of bottled up emotions, not an acceptance of defeat. Someone can cry and be invigorated to try harder to deal with their problems or they can cry but still be supportive to their spouse and provide emotional stability.
Womens' reactions are dependent upon their personality, their values, their view of the other person, the environment, their current emotional state, their biology and a lot of other factors at any given moment. This explains the fact that some people in this thread talk about how their crying led to more fulfilling relationships why others talk about break ups and loss of trust.
Even the point about children is completely arbitrary. Will children feel that their family won't survive due to their father crying about a lost relative? Doesn't it depend on their age? Furthermore, children need to see that their parents are humans and how to express their emotions. The alternative is that they find more indirect ways to do that like alcoholism, abuse, self-harm, extreme escapism and many other banes of today's society.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: you've broken the site guidelines so badly that I've banned the account. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34669955.
You covered some reason for it on the woman’s part. While he (OP) seemed to only be talking about the man’s reason (motivation) to not act like that.
And when she can no longer rely on you being the same person as you have been for 5-10 years, then she might not think rationally.
Of course, rational thought would say "he's been good for so long, this is probably just temporary, I will help him through this" but are women generally known for rational thought?
That's beyond the pale and we've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
So it was the illusion of strength and stability that propped up trust in the relationship? How does crying destroy trust? There had to be more to it than just that.
In addition to being romantically fulfilling, relationships are a market negotiation. Each partner is looking to evaluate if the other is a good deal/fit for them, given their own value. As partners become more invested in the relationship, being more and more vulnerable is acceptable, as for the other it's a sunk cost to leave and start over.
If you're not able/willing to see trust in monogamous relationships as at least partially an expression of this, then it's difficult to wrap your head around imo.
If you were projecting social competence and emotional stability in the idiom of your culture and then you start acting like an upper middle class Californian your spouse may want to join you in that. Or they may view it as some combination of a huge red flag and an utter betrayal. Imagine if a (secular, orthodox or religious) Jewish Israeli told his wife he was a Muslim now. That’s what abandoning the cultural scripts a relationship was built on is like. If you’re not actually the person they thought they were in a relationship with they may be willing to try and make it work. Or not.
Sounds like another relationship built on illusions.
At some point in your life you might need support to go through dark and difficult times - you want people who are there for you throughout those periods.
On the flip side, now closer to an emotionless robot due to such experiences, I find people relying on me for my emotionless roboticism.
Lol no. Your “whole self” is your problem. Maybe your parent’s. Maybe your spouse’s. Most people don’t want to deal with other people’s problems, and that’s entirely reasonable.
They especially don’t want to deal with your “whole self” if that wasn’t the terms of the relationship originally. People make friends with other people for reasons. Sometimes it’s because they’re funny. Or a good drinking buddy. Other times it’s because they’re emotionally stable, or practical, or a good listener, etc. If you change the parameters of what you’re offering in the relationship, people will reevaluate their reasons for being in it.
Emotional vulnerability and honesty is a pretty frequent example, which is a shame.
The acceptability of your crying depends on the reason for the crying. As a man it's totally acceptable to cry in certain scenarios (your mother dying, your child being born, etc).
However, many scenarios where it may be fine for women to cry it would be awkward or strange for a man to cry (have a hard day at work, hate your job, boss stressing you out, argument with a friend, etc).