Thought Portal

Kelly’s boyfriend refused to talk to other men or a therapist about his feelings, so he’d often get into “funks,” picking pointless fights when something was bothering him. Eventually, Kelly became his default therapist, soothing his anxieties as he fretted over work or family problems.

Women continue to bear the burden of men’s emotional lives, and why wouldn’t they? For generations, men have been taught to reject traits like gentleness and sensitivity, leaving them without the tools to deal with internalized anger and frustration. Meanwhile, the female savior trope continues to be romanticized on the silver screen (thanks Disney!), making it seem totally normal—even ideal—to find the man within the beast.

(where men cast their wives and girlfriends to play best friend, lover, career advisor, stylist, social secretary, emotional cheerleader, mom—to him, their future kids, or both—and eventually, on-call therapist minus the $200/hour fee), this form of emotional gold digging is not only detrimental to men, it's exhausting an entire generation of women.

women, feeling increasingly burdened by unpaid emotional labor, have wised up to the toll of toxic masculinity, which keeps men isolated and incapable of leaning on each other. Across the spectrum, women seem to be complaining about the same thing: While they read countless self-help books, listen to podcasts, seek out career advisors, turn to female friends for advice and support, or spend a small fortune on therapists to deal with old wounds and current problems, the men in their lives simply rely on them.

The persistent idea that seeking therapy is a form of weakness has produced a generation of men suffering from symptoms like anger, irritability, and aggressiveness, because not only are they less likely than women to pursue mental health help, but once they do, they have a hard time expressing their emotions. (This is so common there’s even a technical term for it: “normative male alexithymia.”) For millennial men in particular, a major challenge is understanding that they need help in the first place. “Men have never been taught how to identify what their emotional needs are, their thoughts and feelings, or to express how someone can help them fulfill these,” explains Dr. Angela Beard, a clinical psychologist at the Veterans Affairs in Dallas, Texas. Forced to question long-held masculine ideals, therapy can be a meaningful and transformative process, even for her most reluctant patients. “No one has ever asked them what masculinity means to them, and they’ve never asked themselves,” says Beard. “They can get a lot of insight from this process.”

“A lot of people, men and women both, have this stereotype of group therapy from movies like Adam Sandler’s Anger Management, where everyone is sitting in a circle crying and one person is telling their life story and it’s really awkward. But group therapy can be nothing like that,” explains Beard, who leads various group therapy sessions. When newer men join the group, she explains, the tenured members often normalize therapy for them, explaining that it’s a safe place to discuss deeply personal feelings. “These military men, some with combat trauma, experience great relief in having their needs validated by peers. Members become comfortable enough to share their honest impression of another member, opening the door to interpersonal feedback that they may never hear elsewhere.”

Still, the statistics are bleak. Only five percent of men seek outpatient mental health services, despite feeling lonelier than ever before (in a recent British study, 2.5 million men admitted to having no close friends). What's more, men conceal pain and illness at much higher rates than women, and are three times more likely than women to commit suicide.

Shame, Brené Brown found in her years of research, is the single biggest cause of toxic masculinity. Whereas women experience shame when they fail to meet unrealistic, conflicting expectations, men become consumed with shame for showing signs of weakness. Since vulnerability is, unfortunately, still perceived as a weakness instead of a strength, having hard conversations that involve vulnerability is something men often try to avoid. It’s for this reason that to yield positive results from men’s support groups, men must enter such groups with that very intention—not just to find buddies.