Men have constantly been taught to hide their emotions and not share their true feelings with anyone. And often, when they actually try and open up to their partners or loved ones, manymen receivebad reactions. It’s no wonder that this has created a society of males who are struggling to process their emotions.
Bored Pandaalso reached out to Dr. John Barry, a chartered psychologist at theCentre for Male Psychology, to get his take on the video and to understand more about male emotions.
More info:TikTok
Katie frequently creates content about social issues; this time around, her post about marriages ending because of men not dealing with their emotions clearly struck a chord
Image credits:thekatiehanlon
“You know, sometimes we nuance the s**t out of things that are just very, very simple”
“So let me just say this. Your marriage is ending, ourmarriagesare ending because of one thing and one thing only, that is male normative alexithymia. What is alexithymia? Great question, I would love to tell you. Alexithymia is thepsychologicalterm for not being able to name or talk about your emotions.”
“This doesn’t mean you don’t feel the emotion, men feel the emotion, and they just don’t know how to talk about it or how to garner empathy from each other about said emotion”
“All the couples’ humor in the world does not take away from the fact that you’re just not interested in us. You’re not interested in contributing in a way that doesn’t work for you”
“And maybe your wife will never leave you. But I know for a fact there arewivesall over the world who regularly cry themselves to sleep over their marriages. And what they know will never happen, which is you will never have that Westworld moment where you wake up and realize there are things you don’t know about yourself that are harming other people.”
“You have to be a fking sociopath for that not to bother you. Not to make you change, not to make you do everything in your power, go to whatever fking therapy, read whatever book you have to read to make that change.”
“And if you are one of the ‘good ones’, one of the good guys, and you’re not actively making this your top priority, then you are not one of the good ones. All of these conversations we’re having about division of labor, emotional labor, mental load, motherhood versus fatherhood, none of this f**king matters if we’re not addressing the problem underneath, which is the fact that men can’t deal with their emotions. They can’t label them, they can’t talk about them. And we are dying early. Thank you.”
You can watch the original video here
https://www.tiktok.com/@thekatiehanlon/video/7267656715556982058
According to Katie, male normative alexithymia doesn’t just affect men, it’s powerful enough to end their marriages
Image credits:Alex Green (not the actual photo)
Katie’s video had commenters torn, but it brought up an interesting point about male normative alexithymia. As Katie mentioned, alexithymia is the “psychological term for not being able to name or talk about youremotions.” Men might face this problem more, but it’s not because they can’t feel the emotion; it’s because they don’t know how to talk about it.
It is estimated that around 10% of the population have significantlevels of alexithymiathat can affect their lives. That being said, it isn’t a diagnosable condition or disorder. Many of us might have experienced this on a smaller scale during moments when we found it tough to share how we were feeling. But those moments often pass, and then we are able to share our emotions with clarity.
With so much practice hiding how they feel, it’s no wonder that men find it tough to describe their emotional states. After all, who could if they haven’t had practice doing so?
Image credits:cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
Dr. John Barry, the expert psychologist who we got to weigh in on this article, offers a different perspective, stating, “Some research suggests that men are just as good as women at recognizing their emotions, but whereas women are inclined to talk about their emotions, men are inclined to take action based on their feelings. It is often difficult to realize that men and women, in general, are genuinely different in this way because, in general, men and women are similar in most other ways. In most cases, neither of these two ways of coping with feelings is wrong or pathological.”
He also shares that, “It is important that men and women recognize and accept – even value – these differences between each other, because otherwise, it leads to all sorts of confusion. In the same way that it is unhelpful for men to characterize women as ‘too emotional’, women should realize that it is unhelpful to characterize men as ‘out of touch with their feelings’. In many cases, it will help if a husband just listens when his wife is talking about her feelings, and it will help if women accept that their husband might not want to talk about his feelings in the same way that she talks about hers.”
Not all commenters agreed with the video, but many shared powerful personal experiences
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