Men Crying

What tends to be the situation is that when women are stressed or something's really bothering them, they tend to maybe cry and feel better afterwards. With men it seems we're more likely to lose our temper and maybe break something. I know with myself after I do something like that I feel a bit better.

Interestingly, many men often feel ashamed or embarrassed if they cry and woman often feel guilty, embarrassed or ashamed if they lose their temper.

Also with with many men, and I include myself. It is really difficult to cry. I've had times where I've been alone and if I needed to cry or wanted to then I had the opportunity. But I can't do it. Once again, it goes more so to do with hormones then maybe just men suppressing their emotions.

Female to male transsexuals, tend to say they experience the need to cry a lot less with taking testosterone. The opposite is reported with Male to female transsexuals.

Men should definitely be allowed to cry. It's a shame that this is even a question. (Not a dig at the OP, because it was a good question to ask...it's more like a dig to society. )

This is sorta OT, but this is exactly how I feel! I think it's fine and great that other people can cry, but I'm often uncomfortable and irritated around crying people (male or female) and I personally find it quite hard to cry. I see it as an annoying sign of weakness in myself, but not in others.

So, I often laugh when I hear people say that women cry at the drop of a hat. If only things were that black and white.

I agree.

I rarely cry anymore unless they are tears of stress or frustration/anger. The problem though is that society still sees crying by women as a boo hoo wimpy emotion and don't realize that crying is also tied in with pent up anger that is not permitted to be shown in many public service jobs where many women work. When I want to b!tch-slap a nasty customer or have had a lot of life stresses and want to scream, I am supposed to smile and manage through it. The held in emotions burst forth as tears because we do not have the freedom to release the true anger we feel when we feel it. Otherwise, I rarely cry about sad things. Life experiences have changed how I handle sad moments now. When people see me cry though, they still assume it is due to simply hurt feelings and not anger.

I have no problem with men crying. I remember seeing my father cry for the first time when I was a little girl. He was sitting in his chair, listening to the song Patches by Clarence Carter, and thinking about his father - who died when my dad was a little boy. It didn't look weak, it looked appropriate.

I remember seeing my husband cry for the first time, and it made me love him even more. He was mourning the loss of my father, who cared for him very much.

I'm all for showing emotion and crying when necessary, but crying in public can make a person look vulnerable - male or female.

It can also look incredibly silly when it's not appropriate, or becomes a habit. Through a gush of tears, John Boehner once said he can no longer walk into a child's classroom - because it makes him cry. Really? I'm STILL trying to figure that one out, and it's hard to resist the urge to laugh at him for crying. Why do children's classrooms make him cry - maybe he needs to see a therapist....but Lord help him if treatment requires him to attend a class.

Just think - he could become a legend. People will gather from all around....to hear the legend of Boehner Lake! Okay....I'll stop now.

Like everything else, too much crying cannot be good. Men do cry, sometimes. Usually with a real good reason, too.

I don't enjoy seeing women cry, often, same with men.

Yes. I see no shame in men crying. I've done a lot of that in my life. Traditionally men have always been looked upon as the pillar of strength in our society. But times have changed. The old ways are fading and when you look at it in human terms it is what makes us human. In the past men were looked upon as being physically strong, macho, and being able to withstand life's difficult challenges without sheding a single tear. But in todays society we have come painstakingly aware how important it is to feel human emotions. When u see the news of all the tragedies and human suffering in our world today it has to have some emotion effect on us, man, or woman. It is in our DNA, and genes, as human beings, to understand how these emotions make us human.

Woman, blessed with maternal instincts, are more in touch with this essential human emotion than men. Woman have to deal with children, cooking for the family, and working, etc. while men only have to deal with their own issues, which compared to woman's issues, is much less of a challenge. But we men always think we are stronger than the woman.

We are living in a society where men are being challenged about their emotions. What makes a woman cry may not necessarily make the same man cry. But in realty, as I man myself, it often makes us look back and comfront our human emotions head on and we cry in private as to not let anyone know how really human we are as men, which is not a show of weakness, but of strength, which many men will deny.

I, for one, am not ashamed of crying. I think it puts me in touch with my human side and helps me to dispel any weakness associated with such an intense human emotion. Simply said... it makes me a HUMAN BEING!!!

Nough said....

I'm "almostthere"

i don't see much wrong with it. but crying over every little thing is...as Lycanthrope said on page 1, "weak."

i think i've only seen my husband cry twice, both because of stupid decisions he'd made that nearly ended our relationship. i've seen him get misty-eyed during emotional moments, but it doesn't happen often at all.

he's emotionally detached anyway, so he's not really the crying type. i would be terrified if i found him crying, because i'd know it'd have to be really bad for him to break down like that.

It takes more of a man to cry, than to hold it within.

Totally agree with all three of the last comments. Mi am not afraid as long as I'm around the right people. And yeah, crying over every little thing is not good, even for women in my opinion. And yeah, I believe that you are more of a man if you show your emotions than if you bottle them up like a robot and causes problems later in life. My dad is like that, he thinks crying even at funerals is bad, and he has lots of anger issues. I think part of it is because he bottles his emotions up and now time is coming back to get him.

As for crying at funerals, I know someone who was one crazy ****er. His son died, and I wasn't there, but apparently he bawled his eyes out. I or nobody else would dare tell him he was less of a man for crying in that situation. They'd be burying one of us if we did.

My son was attending the funeral of my late maternal grandmother and was trying to be strong and not cry. An uncle of mine who was known to have lived a "hard drinking, hard living" lifestyle, sat next to him. My son said "I am trying to be a man and not cry." My uncle put his arm around him and said "You are not a man until you cry." My heart welled up with love and respect for him when I heard that.

Wow that's very powerful. Good for him.

I wonder how you guys overseas make it. It sounds like a very cruel culture to grow up in. Here, men are not distanced from their children and only seen as mere producers of money for the family. They can have paternal leave and they are allowed to partake in the family life. Also, females are not seen as naturals, we accept there are good mothers and those who might be better of not having children.

exactly!!!!

It used to be that crying was socially acceptable for men, this stoic requirement for men not to cry is pretty new in the scheme of things. Might be a post-war development.

Thought I heard something like that before, and I agree with you, but I think it may be reverting back to it's old ways which is good.

Myself, I don't cry very often and very seldom is it around people. Maybe that is a bad thing, but I have difficulty. For me I think it was growing up in a house of guys and as a boy I would cry, and they would look at me like "What the f*** is wrong with you.". I guess over time it became something that I wasn't supposed to do and felt wrong and shameful for it.

I cry...

Some of us don't have to be a man to be inhibited in that department. I too was raised on, "You'd better hush that up, or I'll give you something to cry about." The biggest badge of honor possible was to be seriously injured and NOT cry, such as when I broke my collarbone on the school playground, age 11. The fact that I didn't cry meant I was "tough," and that was seen as a good thing.

Over time I lost the ability, even when someone died. When I was 15 my boyfriend was killed in an accidental shooting. I didn't cry, and everyone complimented me on how "strong" and "brave" I was. I wasn't being strong and brave at all. I was simply stunned at first, stuffing it down later. When I was 23, I lost my youngest child to Sudden Infant Death, two months old. It was the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life, but I didn't cry. I wasn't even holding it back. It just didn't come to the surface. There was nothing to stuff down.

That's when even my mother realized something must be wrong with me. It took years of therapy to get my ability to cry back, and even now I can't do it in front of my childhood family. I can sooner cry in front of a room full of perfect strangers than in front of my mother or siblings. Again this isn't because I'm deliberately holding it back, but it just doesn't surface. I'm too inhibited, still. Of course my mother will deny ever telling me I shouldn't cry, but she denies a lot of things. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that "I'll give you something to cry about" garbage....

I was dismayed when it turned out my husband is even more inhibited. It was beaten out of him during his childhood too. The way my therapist explained things, it wasn't so much, "My dad beat me again if I cried, and now I'm afraid to," but more like, "My dad beat me, and I didn't cry because I wouldn't give him the satisfaction." Now, like me, he isn't fighting it on purpose, but I've seen him lose several relatives without shedding a tear. I was really worried about him until a couple of years ago when his beloved elderly cat died. He did cry then, and that showed me he was capable of it, so now I'm not worried anymore. I only wish it didn't embarrass him that he cried, because it was perfectly understandable. But, having gone through it myself, I understand the conditioning.

I can't agree with you. I'm sorry but crying over funerals or something serious like having a terminal illness, I can understand crying. But crying over silly things is a sign of weakness. The whole idea that times are changing and men should open up more I sometimes think is an attack on masculinity. There's nothing wrong with being strong and stoic. There's nothing wrong with not crying or not feeling the need to cry.

I also don't agree that men have less of a challenge in life then women. Men have our own things to deal with. If a man doesn't make money, in many countries he lives on the streets. A woman can shack up with a man, she doesn't have to be the breadwinner, but a man has to be earning some income in this world or he's in trouble. A woman also get the children in a break up. If she decides to take those kids to another country he has to deal with that.

I think it's perfectly acceptable and makes people seem more human when they do cry. But of course most men try to hide it...

I think it would be absolutely unnatural for a man not to cry when events in life are dealt harshly. I agree with other posters here that it is and can be very powerful to encounter a man of usual reputation shedding tears and/or weeping. I expect this, if not encourage it to a degree when appropriate and necessary. Why shouldn't men have emotions, it would be cruel to deny humanity to one or the other gender. Cry away.

Totally agree with you!

I was always taught that real men aren't afraid to express their feelings and to hide them is a weakness.