This is such a block-headed view and I hope no one reading will actually take it to heart. Mens emotions and mental health are just as valid as a woman’s. Absolutely hypocritical and dangerous viewpoint to hold.
Nah, it's been the default view of all of humanity for the past few hundred thousand years. I opened and closed by saying it was stone-aged, but it isn't without merit just because it's suddenly out of fashion. And as far as being "dangerous", it's not physically dangerous. Or, no more so than a woman staying with a man who takes his depression out on her. Which is a very dangerous thing, indeed.
It's all good to say it's a block-headed view, but it ain't hypocritical (it would need to be self-contradictory for that), and there are lots of other views besides the "right one" - yours? What's that? - that people reading should take to heart. One of which is that men who can't hold their shit together are by definition more dangerous and harmful than women who can't.
More like respectful. Men have more power whether we want to or not. Being a depressed bum is the same as replacing the abusive asshole father your girlfriend grew up with, so, try not to be that.
"Mens emotions and mental health are just as valid as a woman’s."
No, they're not. I mean I agree that they are just as valid, but society thinks otherwise, so practically speaking, they're not.
Note that I'm willingly going to generalize and exaggerate as there's no other way to get to a point.
Many men grow up in an emotional desert and are soon taught that expressing emotion is a sign of weakness. The boys don't cry narrative is very much alive. Parents may instill this toughness in you out of love, as they know what lies ahead. Emotional men don't stand a chance.
In work, men are judged by performance, with no tolerance for failure. A man that can't make it on their own is a failure. Women can fail and have a support network, men do not. That's why the bottom consists of almost only men.
And here we haven't even considered the reality in the developing world, where men can't afford to call in sick for mental illness.
In relationships, men are selected for utility. Nobody wants to hear that, but you can't deny the biology. You need to be healthy/strong, economically sound and reliable, and of course easy on the eyes. Women wanting emotional men only want them when all other conditions are met. Nobody wants an emotional man that is "in between jobs". Further, relationships are emotionally dominated by women. Which is not a complaint, rather an observation.
The reason why for even the toughest of men their mother is holy, is because it's their only source of genuine love. The only place where they are not judged by utility. Love for love's sake.
In media, say sitcoms, men are always portrayed as the neglectful primitive idiot, emotionless. Alternatively as aggressor. On social media, men are made responsible for any and all horror in the world.
Men are criminally under-complimented. They are absolutely shocked when somebody says something nice about them, as nobody ever does, no matter their efforts. There's even Youtube series featuring random acts of kindness towards men, bringing the men to tears. You can tell it's been decades since somebody did anything nice to them. And they are common men.
So, I conclude that men's emotions are worthless. Men know this, they have lived it. To add insult to injury, once should of course curse men for being so poor in expressing emotions, not taking any of the above into account.
The best response to my rant would be to say "oh gee....poor men. boohoohoo". That would only double down on the issue though, which is to completely disregard male mental well-being, to make fun of it.
Note that I'm not attacking your point of view, I agree that the above is dangerous. But it's also the reality of things on the ground, and not changing.
I'm also a 41 yr old man and I think you sending a mixed message here.
Background: I spent 20 years "being a man" in a relationship with a depressed wife. You know what I didn't do during those years, took care of my own mental health. Do you know what happened when I approached 40, boom mid life crisis with an avalanche of shit pouring over me that I hadn't dealt with due to "I'm man, I'm strong" mindset. I haven't left my spouse though because she is actively/honestly working on her shit and it's hard letting my mental health take up space in our relationship but she's backing that effort.
So back to your mixed message. If you are a man, you have exactly the same hard choice as a woman would have to leave/stay a spouse that is depressed. You don't have to stay because you need to "be the man", you stay because your love is strong enough to care for her.
But you are nibbling at what I think is a real issue. I think that there are a lot of women living with a depressed man that is _only_ relying on them for emotional support. Because of stupid ideas that it's "unmanly" to "be weak" and need help for their mental health. So as a woman in this situation, you are (per above) free to leave them. But also you could just call them out of their old-fashion views and make them seek professional help. You are are not supposed to be their free therapist/outlet and lover! But if they resort to the most stupid-manliest way of dealing with their mental health issues, violence, leave now, leave yesterday, leave without one ounce of remorse!
Well - I was gonna say, we should get a drink - but here is where I think those old worn-out social roles and gender roles actually serve a purpose. What I'm trying to get at is that we had role models in our lives - I think about my dad or my uncles, who were tough men - who had no fucking clue what they were doing but they just did it. They were rocks for the people in their lives. And I look at these sort of excuses for boys now, i.e. men in their 20s who want to claim female sensitivity and let it override their relationships with women (who they treat as mothers, to wash and cook, like boys in Italy treat their girlfriends) and at the same time make a claim to woke/expanded mindfulness. Jesus fucking Christ. It's a joke because it's total male insecurity masquerading as sensitivity protected by a claim to righteous identity.
Sorry. That wasn't to your point, that was just a rant about what I see so much of in relationships these days, since 2015 or so. Since you were allowed to redefine your identity as a victim even or especially if you were oppressive toward your partner.
To your point, I don't know how to say this except that you are a man. You don't have to tell yourself that or always be it, or be right (ever) or be strong (usually). You just are. And fuck yeah, in this particular situation, it's hard on your mental health. I stored it up for ten years and finally said, without thinking, "you never give anything back, you just take", to my girlfriend, when she was ... let me abbreviate. I always knew when she was about to go into a depressive state. I wouldn't usually tell her, but I could set my watch to it. Sometimes I'd make the mistake of saying - while we were out having a good time at a party - "in an hour you're going to crash and attack me, and not get out of bed for days." And she never believed me. And it always happened like that.
Sorry man, I'm just not able to take all of this and put it into a logical inline post in response to something. This happened and continues to happen, and what you call it or what I call it is pretty stupid to argue about. To me it's being a man, but, not like I have to fake it, just, I have to suck it up. These gender roles serve well because, just imagine if you or I had a nervous breakdown. We're not allowed that.
I'm fully aware I'm projecting now! But I'm interpreting your mixed signals and incoherent rambling are some kind of ad hoc beacon signaling out-of-band "it's fucking hard and I don't know what to do, send help" but the framing you are in can't allow you to say that out loud because that is not "sucking it up". So you'll go on believing that the gender roles serve you well because "at least I'm not having a nervous breakdown". Until you do. And then I hope, you'll seek and accept help.
For me, seeking help came in the form of starting doing work in the context of a national movement affiliated with the global movement Men Engage. But that movement see the traditional gender roles more as harmful rather than serving a purpose like you believe so I'm guessing that's not it for you. http://menengage.org/about-us/what-we-believe/
Your view here is abusive of one of the genders, and a cause of untold misery.
At the end you have an apology - but again you are shitting on men as you should direct that apology to the male half of the human race whose mental health and wellbeing you're just shitting on.
If this is your experience then I think it's important to recognize that those are just anecdotes, and if you have a lot of those anecdotes it's only going to make it harder to base your view on facts. There's tons of evidence that the typical views on masculinity have a lot of negative mental health impacts.
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/11/sexism-harmf...
> While overall, conforming to masculine norms was associated with negative mental health outcomes in subjects, the researchers found the association to be most consistent for these three norms — self-reliance, pursuit of playboy behavior and power over women
https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40...
> models predicting depression generally showed that higher conformity to masculine norms was associated with an increased risk of current depressive symptoms, especially in the oldest age group
I did a search for "studies on masculinity and depression", there's plenty more if you want to read up on it.
That view also makes no sense for gay couples - if there's two women and one is depressed then does the other stay because their partner is a woman, or leave because they're a woman? Same issue for two men - do they leave because the partner is a man or stay because they are?
If you have any studies showing that for some reason men should be handling mental health differently then women I'd be interested to read them, because as far as I can tell the view that there should be a difference is itself a big contributing factor to negative mental health.
