My Husband Wants More Emotional Conversations With Men

I interviewed him about mental health, feelings, and what guys don’t talk about.

January 8, 2025 Natalie Gates

It’s a cold November Saturday, and my husband and I are wrapping up an afternoon of errands. Frazzled from the buzz of Black Friday crowds. Tired, thanks to the season’s early sunset. Hungry as we start to think about dinner.

A great time to dive into a deep conversation!

I suggest that we grab a couple bevvies from the liquor store to enjoy while we talk.

My husband, Colby, has agreed to be my interviewee.

My goal is to put forth what he wishes men talked about more, and why it’s so hard to breach certain subjects.

Once we’re home, he pours some cider. I pour an amber ale and flick on the Christmas lights. We settle onto the couch and I start my recording program.

For context, Colby is 29, white, and middle class. He lives in British Columbia, Canada. He is politically progressive, loves a good rant about masculinity, and has read stuff like The Will to Change by bell hooks. He grew up with sisters. And me as his girlfriend since we were teenagers. But also hockey players and plenty of men who talked about hockey, not how they felt.

In his family, he’s typically the silent, easy-going one. Never a nuisance. Always a “listener.”

Today, he’s gonna have to be a talker.

“So, when you’re hanging out with friends, what do you usually talk about?” I ask.

He pauses.

“Right now, I think I only have one friend that I can be completely open with,” he says. “So if we just look at my other male friends, it’s mostly work, sports, hobbies, life, I guess. But it doesn’t really stray much from those niche topics.”

I ask him if he ever wants to go beyond those topics or deeper into them

“Yeah. I wouldn’t say every time, but definitely more often, especially if something’s going on. But it’s like, do you treat this hangout as a distraction from that? Because I think a lot of hanging out with guys is just a distraction. They’re distracting themselves from what they want to talk about. No one’s really bringing up the elephant shit in the corner.”

“Yeah, that’s interesting,” I say. “Sometimes, you want to go to your friends to avoid the problem, but sometimes you want to go to them to process it.”

He talks about how it’s certainly still worthwhile for friends to enjoy activities together and casually talk about their interests. That is bonding. Colby says most of his fondest memories with friends involve camping trips, hikes, paintball sessions, and late nights playing video games.

Maybe sometimes, a shared experience can do just as much as a deep conversation.

But it sounds like he’s craving a greater balance. He doesn’t want it to always start and end with the hockey game.

“You can have a good time talking about those things, but you never really get into it,” he says. “I feel like it’s hard to get to know people when all you talk about is those hobbies. I need to be better at it too.”

I also think about how, as a woman, I constantly exchange compliments about appearances with other women. Outfits, hair, makeup, shoes, bags. It’s just what you do when you greet each other — or even when you meet somebody for the first time.

Colby says it’s different with guys.

“If I get a compliment because I’m wearing nice clothes and a woman says that I look good, I can say, ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’ But if a guy says it — not every time, but a lot of the time — I feel like I have to make a joke. I’m like, ‘You’re lying.’ Or I make a joke about him thinking I’m hot. My reaction is to deflect it.”

“Why do you think that is?” I ask him

“Maybe it’s some internalized homophobia. I don’t know,” he says. “But it’s like, you can’t admit that you’re feminine or whatever.”

I ask him if there’s anything considered “off limits” when talking to friends.

He tells me he has talked about deeper feelings with “some friends,” but, for the most part, that doesn’t happen.

“You can be like, ‘Oh I’m so mad about this.’ But it never goes any deeper into ‘Why are you feeling angry?’” he says. “Or even [having] someone go, ‘Yeah I understand that.’ That doesn’t happen much. Usually, a guy would just be like, ‘Yeah, that sucks.’ And that’s about it.”

“Why do you think that is?” I pose.

“I think a lot of guys don’t feel equipped to handle a situation like that where someone is expressing some kind of emotion or needs to be comforted.”

“Have you been able to get into more emotional conversations with women?” I ask.

“Yeah, way easier,” he says. “You can just get the sense that they’re actually listening, and they empathize.”

Maybe you read that and thought, Hell no. Women don’t actually want men to be emotional. They say they do, but they actually just want a guy who’s “strong.”

Colby and I have both heard many anecdotes along those lines. I know for a fact he’s experienced it firsthand. There have been scenarios where I felt uncomfortable when Colby expressed he was going through a particularly tough time. If we were in a newer, less stable relationship, would it have shaken us?

Maybe, maybe not.

“What about with the older men in your family?” I ask. “Is anything off-limits with them?”

“Yeah, you know the answer,” he laughs. “Emotions. How you feel. You could say it, but it’s just going to be ignored or laughed at or brushed under the rug, or whatever. Move on to the next topic.”

Cars, hockey, whatnot.

I can’t help but think, What about the guys who can’t fall back on those topics with the other men in their family? Then what?

“Have you ever called one of your parents when you were really anxious or upset?”

“No,” he says. Point blank. I find this shocking, even though I guess I already knew it. When I’m in crisis mode, Mom usually gets a call.

“What do you do when you get anxious or sad?” I ask.

It takes him a while to answer.

“Probably one of my hobbies. I don’t know. I’ll probably talk to you,” he says. “I feel like it happens all the time, but I don’t really acknowledge it at all. I’m just like, ‘Whatever. Deal with it when it happens.’ I would say most of the time, I don’t say anything.”

Despite the fact that I know this about him too, it still surprises me.

“Really?” I say.

“Yeah, my first reaction isn’t to reach out to people,” he says. “I do have a few friends who would be able to receive that and talk to me about it. But it’s not even on my radar to talk to them.”

I ask him if he’s ever considered his mental health “bad” and how he processed it.

“Yes. Not well. It took me a long time. I did a little bit of journaling — very little. I talked to you a lot. I don’t think I talked to anyone else really about it very much.”

He also went to therapy when my listening wasn’t enough. Thankfully, his work had provided access to a counselor, which normally isn’t covered in Canada.

When I’m sad, anxious, or overwhelmed, I often end up crying big, fat, ugly tears. It’s like the emotions bubble over until I can’t help but fully acknowledge what I’m feeling.

I ask Colby how he feels about crying. After all, I’ve seen him shed tears over a magical food experience in Italy and during the killer opening song at a Bruce Springsteen concert.

Tears of sadness, though? They have happened, but in extremely rare circumstances — and often not even in the saddest of times.

“Sometimes I want to cry out of sadness, but it’s like my body has a reaction that stops it.”

“What about when other people cry?” I ask.

“This is the wrong wording, but it’s almost like it feels good. I don’t mind. I respect their crying because I can’t do that.”

“Even when men cry?”

“Yep.”

I can confirm this is true. While men crying doesn’t happen often, when he does see it, he doesn’t poke fun.

But if he respects crying so much, why is it so hard for him to do it? Why doesn’t he reach out to friends and family (besides me, usually after some prodding) when he’s struggling?

Part of it is distance. We live far away from a lot of our closest friends and family. Frequent moving has made it difficult to deepen friendships in adulthood.

Part of it is that people don’t ask. We don’t ask. Why “bring down the mood,” right? No matter what your gender is, that stuff isn’t easy. It takes time, trust, and encouragement.

“Men aren’t dumb,” he tells me. “They’ve just been taught all their life to suppress their emotions.”

It doesn’t help that he feels there aren’t enough examples of regular guys being vulnerable.

“It feels like people say, ‘Wow, our society is more open now.’ But no, that’s just the women and the LGBTQ community and stuff. Cis straight men are not. That’s the sense that I get — maybe I’m wrong…There’s the very rare occasion with celebrities saying, ‘Yeah, it’s cool to be vulnerable…’ But I just want to hear from normal people that everyone struggles, and that’s okay.”

He’s visibly exasperated when he says this.

As we start to wind down, I ask Colby if there’s anything else he wants people to take away from this piece.

“You don’t have to struggle in silence. It’s okay to talk to your friends. And if you can’t because they’re not receptive to it, then try and talk to your partner about it. And if you can’t talk to them or you don’t have a partner, try and go to therapy. Just don’t internalize it.”

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

It’s obvious he’s talking to himself just as much as he’s talking to others.

By the time I shut my laptop and we start making dinner, I feel a familiar release.

It’s the kind of release I feel when I and another person have just externalized something with each other. Like we’ve untangled our personal mess of strings and re-tied a few of them to each other’s.

Secure.

That security melts away some of the day’s worries and makes the responsibilities feel just a few pounds lighter.

Maybe it’s the amber ale. Maybe it’s cheesy as hell. Maybe it’s all in my head.

But I don’t know what I’d do without it.