As the male social circle continues to shrink, their partners have to take on much more emotional labour – and many are opting to spend their lives alone instead
If you need to emotionally dump on your partner all the time just to get by, you should consider therapy. And I’m not saying that needing support is a bad thing and i absolutely encourage it. But there is definitely a difference. And if your first instinct when hearing you should consider therapy is to feel personally attacked, you should probably rethink what you know about therapy. Otherwise you are just going to continue to use women as your therapist instead of actually working on long term solutions with a professional. The purpose of therapy is literally to make your life better. There’s this ethos around masculinity where you don’t need anyone’s help and you should be able to solve all your own problems, but that’s just straight up bullshit. The only reason there is a stigma around dudes going to therapy is because of other dudes talking down to each other instead of lifting each other up. And like, 90% of the people you meet in your life will never give two shits about how manly you are and there is no need to cater to the 10% that have a problem with it. And the vast majority of those that have a problem with your masculinity are going to be other dudes.
I guess I should have specified the difference between “emotionally dumping” and just needing support. I was mostly speaking from experience because I used to be the kind of person that would emotionally dump on the woman I was with. I was too afraid to speak about anything to my guy friends but for some reason thought it was totally okay to share literally everything with the women I was with. I think it came from a pre-conceived notion that women are more emotional and therefore have more experience in dealing with emotions. Took me a long time of being single to realize I was just using it as an excuse to not face my issues. Not only that, but it helped me realize that men and women are way more alike than they are different. And I realised that the difference in emotions between men and women is more of a societal issue, and that women were actually just more emotionally intelligent vs being more emotional.
I went ahead and updated my comment above to add a little bit more about this for those that come after.
It’s not that I shouldn’t need help. It’s that EVERYONE always NEEDS my help and I know how annoying that is and I don’t want to be another inconvenience.
If you need to emotionally dump on your partner all the time just to get by, you should consider therapy. And I’m not saying that needing support is a bad thing and i absolutely encourage it. But there is definitely a difference. And if your first instinct when hearing you should consider therapy is to feel personally attacked, you should probably rethink what you know about therapy. Otherwise you are just going to continue to use women as your therapist instead of actually working on long term solutions with a professional. The purpose of therapy is literally to make your life better. There’s this ethos around masculinity where you don’t need anyone’s help and you should be able to solve all your own problems, but that’s just straight up bullshit. The only reason there is a stigma around dudes going to therapy is because of other dudes talking down to each other instead of lifting each other up. And like, 90% of the people you meet in your life will never give two shits about how manly you are and there is no need to cater to the 10% that have a problem with it. And the vast majority of those that have a problem with your masculinity are going to be other dudes.
Edit: Added more details.
What’s the line on “emotionally dumping” though?
I think for a lot of people men needing support at all is thought of as emotionally dumping (and we all need emptional support sometimes).
I do agree with you, I just worry about what is that line, and how is that seen in today’s throwaway society.
I guess I should have specified the difference between “emotionally dumping” and just needing support. I was mostly speaking from experience because I used to be the kind of person that would emotionally dump on the woman I was with. I was too afraid to speak about anything to my guy friends but for some reason thought it was totally okay to share literally everything with the women I was with. I think it came from a pre-conceived notion that women are more emotional and therefore have more experience in dealing with emotions. Took me a long time of being single to realize I was just using it as an excuse to not face my issues. Not only that, but it helped me realize that men and women are way more alike than they are different. And I realised that the difference in emotions between men and women is more of a societal issue, and that women were actually just more emotionally intelligent vs being more emotional.
I went ahead and updated my comment above to add a little bit more about this for those that come after.
I hope I didn’t come off as too harsh, sometimes I’m pessimistic.
Both your comments are really good and truthful.
Therapy may be to make your life better, far too many therapists are there to make money off your suffering
It’s not that I shouldn’t need help. It’s that EVERYONE always NEEDS my help and I know how annoying that is and I don’t want to be another inconvenience.