Why Men Don’t Talk About Their Feelings

Perhaps the most important book to read to understand men’s relationship to their emotions is Terrence Real’s “I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Covert Depression.” This book offers crucial insight and invaluable guidance to the phenomenon of “men who don’t talk about their feelings.”   It is filled with moving, real-life stories, as well as probing analysis.  If you are frustrated by your partner’s lack of emotional communication, or if you or your male partner suffers from any degree of depression, I would highly recommend this book.

Here is a synopsis –

There are some men who would rather have dental surgery than talk about their feelings.  Why? Because a man’s calling card is his emotional disconnection.  Men are socialized from an early age to repress those aspects of themselves that express dependence and vulnerability.  In order to achieve masculinity, boys learn to repudiate all things “feminine.”  Being a man means being independent and strong.  Being a man means being tough.  Being a man means to exert control.  Men are taught that their sense of identity will be molded by what they achieve professionally and not by what they experience intimately.  Relational and emotive skills get quashed to make room for performance and mastery.

Men have been taught from a young age to suck it up and not be a “girl” – i.e., not to feel or express vulnerable emotions which would indicate being “weak.”  Pain or sadness is a condition to be “gotten over.”  This is why men tend to intellectualize their feelings – they go into their heads to “solve” their emotions or to get rid of them.  (This is why men, when confronted by their partner’s sadness or frustration, often try to “fix” the issue rather than to simply listen.)  Men are not sharing their feelings with their partners because they are not even sharing their feelings with themselves.

But the problem is, as men soar away from the orbit of their inner world, they leave behind an ever-present, emotional void.  And that void can become depression.

Depression is like a black hole.  It is the absence of emotion. It is a void where there should be life.  Instead of experiencing their feelings (e.g., grief, sadness, or fear), depressed people are trapped in their heads (thinking hopelessly about the future) and in their bodies (unable to escape their lethargy).

To fill or escape the void that is depression, men often bury themselves in work, seek constant stimulation, or numb themselves with alcohol or drugs.  Because they don’t know how to seek solace interpersonally, they withdraw relationally.  And those unexpressed emotions lie dormant, like volcanoes ready to explode (which is why their partner is much more likely to experience a man’s anger and frustration than his sadness).

So what guidance does Terrence Real offer to men who are disconnected from their emotions?

Men need to unearth and own their sadness – both present and past.  For some, they need to ventilate the trauma of their youth, when they suffered physical or verbal abuse, witnessed domestic violence, or endured the rage or rejection of their parents. For most, they need to acknowledge the pain of trying to be strong when they want to be weak, the loneliness of being self-sufficient when they want to be dependent, and the sadness of keeping inside what they need to share.

When these vulnerable emotions are FELT (no matter how painful), the cure to depression begins.  Experiencing them is cathartic.  This is the crux of the therapeutic process – to gently acknowledge and FEEL one’s pain.  Once men learn how to relate and have empathy for their own pain, they will heal and have a renewed capacity for intimacy.

So let’s rediscover those “feminine” aspects of ourselves that society urged us to cast off.  Let’s stop the legacy of emotional disconnection handed down from father to son.  We have a responsibility to ourselves and our children to break the cycle of “men who don’t talk about their feelings.”  As stated by Terrence Real –

“[I]t becomes clear that boys don’t hunger for fathers who will model tradition mores of masculinity. They hunger for fathers who will rescue them from it.  They need fathers who have themselves emerged from the gauntlet of their own socialization with some degree of emotional intactness.  Sons don’t want their father’s “balls”; they want their hearts.  And, for many, the heart of a father is a difficult item to come by.”

How to Help Your Child (or Partner) with ADHD

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) negatively impacts both the person with the disability and family members who live with him.  If the family works together with the proper mindset, however, a lot of frustration, anger, shame, and guilt can be avoided.  This is why I consider ADHD a relationship issue.  Relief is available if this disorder is treated as an individual problem with an interpersonal solution.

So what is the fix?  It is creating short-term incentives to motivate your child or partner to action. Why is this effective?

Books will tell you that the most important thing you need to know about people with ADHD is that they have a cognitive impairment in their frontal lobes that affects their executive function.  But a more useful way of understanding this impairment is that people with ADHD are not motivated by long-term rewards.  In most of our brains, the neural pathways connecting immediate tasks with awareness of long-term rewards flow smoothly.  But for people with ADHD, the part of the brain that connects up the thought process “If I do X now, I will reap the rewards of Y later” does not work.  This makes it challenging for them to plan for future-oriented tasks because the benefits of this organization lie so far off on the horizon that they are effectively out of the ADHD person’s cognitive field of view.

Here, for instance, is a common scenario.  Parents take the time and energy every night to help their ADHD child with his homework.  After a month, these parents get a call from the teacher who says: “Your child is failing my class.  He hasn’t handed in homework for the past month.”  “How is that possible?” exclaim the parents.  “We’ve been sitting with him at the kitchen table every night until he completes each day’s assignment!”

When the parents go upstairs to confront their son, they find a pile of completed, but unsubmitted, homework in his closet.  The ostensibly easy task of handing in completed homework has not been accomplished because their child is literally not registering its long-term positive effect (viz., getting a good grade at the end of the semester). This can be very frustrating for parents because often their children are extremely smart, but seem so incompetent to complete the simplest tasks. It is not a problem of intelligence. Rather, the issue is that they are not motivated by long-term planning and, thus, are not good at planning, organization, and execution.

And while family members often experience frustration because they have to pick up the pieces of uncompleted tasks, unmet expectations, and unrealized potential, the child suffers too.  A universal experience for ADHD children is that regular tasks, which everyone else seems to manage easily, feel overwhelming.  And because schools emphasize homework and assignments, these children (even those who are extremely intelligent) feel incompetent and can suffer from depression and low self-esteem.

How does the lack of long-term planning rear its head in the adult relationship?  Seventy percent of children with ADHD continue to exhibit symptoms throughout their lives.  Children with ADHD grow up to be husbands and wives.  I see many couples whose source of frustration is that one partner is not functioning in terms of managing finances, doing taxes, promoting their career, etc.  These tasks are often part of the dynamic described above – an innate lack of motivation by long-term goals.

For instance, the ADHD partner might commit to taking on a household task such as paying taxes but, come April, accounting statements and receipts are in complete disarray and the filing deadline has been missed.  The gratification of the long-term goal (getting a refund check) is too far in the future, elusive, and not internally motivating.  In general, an ADHD partner may “zone out” during conversations, not remember being told things, or have trouble getting started on, and underestimating the time needed to complete, a task (or not complete the task at all).

The non-ADHD partner feels like she needs to pick up the pieces of every household responsibility because there is another “child” in the house who needs “parenting” and on whom she cannot rely.  She interprets these characteristics as irresponsible, and the failure to carry out commitments as a sign that her ADHD partner does not care for or love her.  As a consequence, she feels unsupported and angry, and often blames her partner for his shortcomings.

The ADHD partner experiences these complaints as constant and withering judgment.  He feels guilty and his self-esteem plummets, causing him to withdraw emotionally.  As a result, the non-ADHD partner feels unsupported and abandoned, leading to a new round of angry recriminations.  Adults with ADHD have higher than average rates of divorce, job-related difficulties, and substance abuse. Without a larger context to understand what is going on, this cycle can continue indefinitely.

So, how can you alleviate the symptoms of ADHD in both the parent-child and adult relationship?

You need to accept that ADHD requires an incentive “crutch” to motivate your child or partner to action.  Short-term rewards and regular feedback need to become the new organizing principle of your relationship.  This reward system will keep the motivation fires burning and help reduce the overwhelming feeling that accompanies long-term tasks.

In the case of children, for instance, if you want your child to help around the house, make a list of chores.  On the left side of the paper write a “To Do” list and on the right side put a “Reward” list.  For every task you have assigned to your child, encourage them come to you and negotiate a reward to be enjoyed that day if and when the task gets completed.  Tack this list to his bedroom door to create a prominent visual reminder of your expectations and the prize for getting it done.

If your child is responsible for long-term projects (such as those required by school), show him how to break down the assignment into daily tasks.  Create a calendar with a “To Do” list of what needs to be accomplished each day and assign a reward for each daily task.  This can be as simple as a well-liked dessert, a favorite TV show, the right to play 30 minutes of video games, or the freedom to use Facebook.

In adult relationships, set up a system that creates regular positive feedback for the ADHD partner.  For instance, ADHD partners are often great at short-term gestures – e.g., doing things with the children in the moment, cleaning up after dinner, making a meal, etc.  That is because the gratification for the individual is immediate (connecting with another human being, seeing the look of pleasure on the partner’s or children’s face, etc.) and, therefore, is motivating.  I would recommend dividing household responsibilities by short- and long-term assignments. Delegate to the partner with ADHD household responsibilities that have a natural, instantaneous reward – any chore where the adult is likely to get immediate feedback, such as “Thanks for dinner, that was great!” or any task where the children’s daily needs are involved.

For long-term projects, collaborate with your partner to create a calendar as described above. Buy a whiteboard and break down each week’s responsibilities.  Agree on regular mini-rewards for tasks accomplished – e.g., a massage after working on a home improvement project, a night out with the guys after paying the most recent bills, a favorite snack after balancing the checkbook. Put this whiteboard on prominent display. And remember to give your partner lots of positive feedback every day for tasks completed. Ultimately, the goal is for the person with ADHD to manufacture the schedule and incentives himself for all his responsibilities, thereby fundamentally shifting the interpersonal relationship.

Included below are other resources about ADHD which might be helpful.

Books:

Smart But Scattered by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare

ADD-Friendly Way to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau

Mastering Your Adult ADHD (Treatments That Work) by Steven A. Safren

Websites:

www.chadd.org

www.help4adhd.org

www.everydayhealth.com/ownyouradhd

From Communication to Love

Many couples come to me asking for help to improve their communication.  They do not trust that their partner really cares about their deepest needs and desires.  This seems in such contrast to their courtship, and the hopes and expectations they had about their partner’s ability to make them happy.  After a few years of being in the “real” relationship, they are often left with a profound sense of disappointment, sadness, resentment, and anger.   

Courtship can be misleading because each partner makes such supreme efforts to satisfy the other person.  We are in high gear trying to anticipate the other’s needs.  But when we feel safely “in” the relationship, we often let this hypervigilance about our partner’s happiness relax.  Being overwhelmed with work, domestic, and childcare responsibilities can exacerbate the problem. 

What is my best advice?

First, don’t fall prey to the fallacy: “If my partner really cared about me, he would know what I need without my even needing to tell him.”  This is simply untrue.  We all have our own idiosyncratic ways that we experience love.  One person needs physical affection, another wishes for verbal affirmation, a third desires gifts, and a fourth wants acts and gestures.  Partners (and this can be particularly true of men) often need guidance around how to best show that they care.  So give clear directions about what you need (particularly when you are experiencing difficult emotions like sadness or anger). 

Second, improve your communication style.  Many couples lack the ability to request what they need in a manner which will ensure a positive response from their partners.  They do not know how to communicate effectively. 

Why do so many couples struggle with this?

We were all born with the ability to convince others to take care of us.  It causes parents visceral distress to hear our children in pain.  So we will do our utmost to satisfy their needs.  That is why we scurry around trying to alleviate their hunger, fatigue, sickness, etc.  We want their distress to go away. 

But note the manner of that communication.  Babies simply cry, thereby exhibiting their pain.  And small children ask for what they need in a non-judgmental and direct way.  For instance, while an unhappy partner is likely to yell: “Where the hell is dinner!” a child will say: “I am hungry!”  The former will elicit a defensive response and the latter sympathy.  Or the neglected partner might recriminate angrily:  “You work all the time!” while the child who misses his parent will plead: “Mommy, let’s play together!”   The first is an accusation and the second a request for intimacy.  The child invites repair, while the adult threatens the relationship’s sense of security.  One elicits concern and attention, and the other provokes defensiveness and anger.  

If we, as adults, cannot effectively communicate about our needs, it is usually because this innate ability was squelched by unresponsive parents or society.  We received a new, unnatural education not to talk about our hardest emotions.  When we did not receive positive responses to our emotional communications, we learned to repress our needs, or aggressively assert them, or resent those who deny them.  

If we do not get the love we needed as a child, we lose the skill to ask for love effectively as an adult.  And the adult’s reaction to not getting their needs met can be very intimidating. Instead of crying, unhappy partners yell and get angry.  Instead of asking for what we want, unhappy partners withdraw and simmer with resentment.  Instead of pleading incessantly, unhappy partners criticize incessantly. 

So how to deal with the wounded child-now-adult who has lost the capacity to call out in a way that elicits a positive response from those closest to him?  

The answer is we need to recover our innate ability to communicate in a way that taps into our partner’s desire to reach out and help us.  But this trust needs to be rebuilt slowly between partners.  The relationship needs to rest upon a new foundation that can only be built by small gestures of responsivity and empathy.  The couple needs to live and believe in a new truth that: “If I hurt, I can reach out and I will be taken care of and loved.”

The mechanics of this new, communication skill set can be found in my blog “How to Communicate Effectively When You Are Upset” (February 2011).  Incorporate this rubric for effective communication (suggested in that blog) into your daily routines and lexicon.  But be prepared that the willingness to trust, to allow oneself to be vulnerable, and to risk making a request which, if unfulfilled, will cause pain, will take time.  So incorporate the skill set slowly.  Experiment with mundane issues.  Talk about minor annoyances.  Make requests where the risk of disappointment is minimal.  Share small desires.  And, most importantly, be willing to practice and to devote time to communicating in this new way.  It can rebuild the very fabric of your relationship.