She wants to talk, but you just want to watch YouTube
What to do when your partner wants more emotional connection, but you want to decompress.
One of the most interesting things I talk about with my straight male therapy clients is how they feel about being a man in today’s society. Many of them tell me they feel stuck. Their partner is craving more emotional connection. She wants them to talk more openly about their feelings. But they feel like they don’t get enough time to themselves as it is. They’re stressed and overwhelmed by all the responsibilities of work, family, and life. If they have kids, they’re even more stressed. Life feels too full and chaotic. Why can’t they play video games or watch football or cut the grass by themselves? At least they’re not like the men of past generations, downing scotch or hanging at the bar all night while their partner handles 100 percent of the parenting and household labor.
I tell them that as much we want to be modern, enlightened men who women want to be with, we can’t fully escape how society has influenced us from a young age. Sure, hormones contribute marginal differences between most people born male or female. But far more consequential are cultural forces that pressure us into being society’s preferred version of man or woman. Parents tend to treat boys and girls differently. Toys are more divided by gender than they were 50 years ago. Rich and powerful men try to convince us that suppressing emotions, controlling women, and other aspects of so-called “traditional” masculinity are good for us.
We can try to be different and unlearn outdated, unhealthy ideas about what it means to be a man. We can read books and listen to podcasts about healthy masculinity. But—as they say—our bodies keep the score.
Societal conditioning has wired our nervous systems to react in a certain way to emotional intimacy. We tend to pull away and disconnect from bids for connection. Even from someone we love, like our partner. When we’re stressed and overwhelmed, we tend to want to escape to somewhere with no one else, no concerns, no responsibilities. The man cave. The yard. YouTube. Video games. Alcohol. Marijuana. Masturbation. Freedom. Emptiness. That’s how we take the edge off and (maybe) eventually recharge. That’s what we figured out worked to calm our nervous system when we were young. Teenage boys today spend two hours less a week socializing than girls and about seven hours more per week on screens.
But many women are wired differently.
Again, not because of anything natural or biological. Because they’ve been conditioned by the same society to care about other people’s feelings. There’s a whole history of how this happened that I won’t get deep into now. Basically, capitalism relies on exploiting unpaid parenting and other forms of care work. So, the rich and powerful people who benefit from capitalism want women to think they’re naturally, biologically, “traditionally” meant to love and care for people. What this means in relationships is that when women are stressed and overwhelmed, they tend to move toward, not away from connection. Their nervous systems have been wired to handle more emotional intimacy. More. More. More. When many men often want less, less, less.
That’s the rub. Men tend to move toward being alone and numbing out. Or at least hanging with their buds watching sports or doing something with no responsibilities. Women tend to move toward other people and emotional conversation. When you pull away because our body is telling you you’ve had enough, she often experiences it as an uncomfortable, even painful loss of connection. Like you don’t love her anymore.
It’s hard to turn against and unlearn this societal conditioning. Especially with men in the halls of power and “manfluencers” in our algorithms telling us to double down on so-called “traditional” masculinity, even though much of it’s not good for us. We have to address the root cause—the wiring. The nervous system. How our bodies react to emotional intimacy and bids for connection.
I teach my clients to notice how it feels in their body when they’re stressed and overwhelmed and too full.
It might be tension in their shoulders or fire in their chest. For me, it’s a furrowed brow. My face gets intense and tight. I don’t want anyone around me. I’m irritable. I say short, biting, sometimes mean things. Those have become my signs that I need space to myself. So, on good days, I tell my partner what I’m experiencing and what I need. “Hey, I’m feeling stressed out and need an hour to myself.” “I’m worn out. Let’s cuddle but not look directly at each other.” On bad days, I don’t notice and keep pretending like everything is fine until my partner picks up on my irritability and maybe we get into an argument. Ideally, I can then repair with her when things cool off and I’m less overwhelmed.
But simply being able to let her know I’m in that irritable, overwhelmed mood (because I can feel it in my body) goes a long way toward staying somewhat connected even in the disconnection. She’s less inclined to take it personally when I’m feeling full and need space, because I’m aware and doing something about it. It’s not about her or anything she’s doing. It’s about me—and my wiring. And from my work with couples and conversations with women, that’s what so many women are dying for from men these days.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments—what do you do when you’re feeling overwhelmed? How do you decompress? What do you think of the differences between men and women? Where do they come from?
— Jeremy
I recently had an interesting revelation, which is that the world is a better place and I am a better man when I allow myself at least some retreat to the man-cave. I talked to my therapist about it this week — I just need to let myself play Minecraft for an hour or so in the evening. Doing so allows me to be more present to others in the rest of my life.
The cave isn’t all-consuming for me. I read an enormous amount, spend hours upon hours each week with friends, and I co-regulate with my partner and friends. And yet, despite all that, I still find that I need the cave — a place where I can let my mind ease open, where I don’t need to talk to anyone, where I can fight zombies and build castles to my heart’s content.
As with everything, attention and skillful use transform the Man Cave into a sacred space. I think it’s possible for guys to have both — emotional vulnerability and the Man Cave.
Yep, I see this in my male clients, but also my personal environment. Men were treated as little islands and so behave like it, women are on the mainland and stay connected. Great article!