Why did this title catch your attention? Would you have been equally intrigued if this article were about your female companions? I’m imagining that if you’re a woman reading this article, you’ve probably grown up with your womenfolk sharing their inner emotional lives freely and openly. However, you won’t be able to claim the same about the boys and men in your life making you interested in this subject. You’re probably hoping to get some insight about men, which move past stereotypes like Men don’t have feelings, and Men don’t share feelings.
If you’re a man reading this, I’d imagine you’re looking into the lives of other men, wondering (and hoping) if they feel the same way as you do and that you’re not alone in feeling this way.
This article is an attempt to uncover the inner lives of fascinating boys and men I’ve worked with for over ten years. I am reflecting on common questions, such as why are they obsessed with how big things are? What is with them and their mothers? What do they speak about in therapy? And finally, is there hope that they may turn out emotionally intelligent?
What do you think is the ratio of men to women who I’ve seen in therapy? Whenever I’ve asked this question, people say something like: 20% men, 80% women. Incorrect! I’ve had an equal ratio of men and women come to me for therapy. And if anything, I’ve probably worked with more men than women in recent years. Again, you’re surprised because you’re operating with the stereotype that men don’t seek help, or men don’t share feelings, or men don’t even have feelings. *whispers* What if I told you that men also cry?
What do these mythical creatures, who purportedly emote and even cry, say in therapy? Very simply, men talk about the same things that women do in therapy: hurt, pain, disconnection, rejection, loss, shame, overwhelm, loneliness, despair, insecurity and emptiness. Here, I’m talking about men aged between 18 to 75, local or foreign-educated, salaried or feudal, straight or queer, single or coupled, emotionally aware or not. But what is common across these men is the impact of pain, which was too unsafe or prohibited to speak in spaces outside of therapy.
I was molested by my molvi sahib when I was 8, and this went on for a few years.
I was called stupid all my life by my family and teachers. I never knew I had ADHD.
My dad would punch me in my stomach repeatedly if I didn’t get all As.
No one ever smiled in my family. Dad was always drunk, and mom was overworked.
Men talk about how bullying and hurtful labels from decades ago still impact them in their everyday lives. They speak about the trauma of seeing their father beat their mothers to a pulp or catching their fathers having sex with other women. They feel the exhaustion of living up to parental expectations, religious indoctrination, and social conditions for being worthy. Men grieve the loss of childhood because they had to grow up quickly due to family circumstances. In sessions, we go back to powerful moments in their lives when they said to themselves, ‘NEVER AGAIN’. These were the moments in their lives when they committed to never being vulnerable, not feeling, never crying, and only living in the safety of logic, rationality and outcomes. We frequently go back to terrifying instances of being molested by servants, molvis, uncles, classmates, family friends, teachers, neighbors, school custodians, Daddy’s friends, boarding mates and how the legacy of this pain stays with them decades later.
In therapy, men discover how their fear of being insignificant goes back to their earlier years. Back then, when they were vulnerable, defenseless and scared, they weren’t helped by anyone, so now they help everyone to avoid ever being alone again. We rediscover distressing scenes from the playground or heartbreaking exchanges with parents when they were ostracized for being too feminine, too lazy, too fat, too quiet, too stupid, too dark, too fair, too tall, too short, etc. These conditions of not being good enough stay with them and ring in their ears every time they feel that they’re falling short on some societal expectation. I didn’t get a raise; I am a useless man.
Angry, aggressive, resentful, addicted, destructive and depressed men grieve their deeply held pain around grief and loss. We go back to girlfriends they weren’t allowed to marry, the degrees they had to forfeit as their parents didn’t agree, the careers which ended because Daddy said so and the affairs they had to conceal for their fathers.
One of the more complex topics we speak about is their mothers. This topic evokes fear, guilt, warmth, love, and a range of other complicated and paradoxical emotions. If the mother had a bad relationship with her husband, the more the little boy had to turn up to love and protect her and would eventually never separate from her. Now, decades later, these individuals are little boys in men’s bodies, struggling to even make simple financial, emotional or practical choices without their mother’s approval. The insights of the family therapist Bowen seem quite en pointe here. He believed this was a multi-generational process: Amna feels that her husband Asad is never there for her because Asad is over-attached to his mother. Asad can’t separate himself from his lonely mother because she has no relationship with Asad’s father (who was over-attached to his own mother). When Amna has a son, she possesses her son’s attention and affection and attaches all her hopes and wishes to this boy… and this Freudian nightmare continues inter-generationally.
And then there are your husbands, sons and fathers who were forced into a heteronormative world where they never fit in and continue to wear that mask. There are so many gay men traumatized by having to marry for their parent’s sake and give them grandchildren; is there a socially acceptable alternative for them in South Asian culture? Others continue wearing the mask and tugging their marriages and living double lives. There seems to be dignity in men’s marriage ending due to impotence rather than not being straight.
So what’s with their obsession with performance? How long things are, how fast their car goes, how far can they swing their golf club, how big their house measures, which model their car is? From a very young age, I feel that a boy’s self-worth is related to productivity, performance, duty and strength. They’re meant to be invulnerable, strong, reliable and responsible for their system, just like their father and grandfather. Failure is not an option, let alone crying over failure. There are men who kill time in the local park every day just so their wives and mothers won’t know about their unemployment. Men would rather suffer and die to suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses or recklessness than have conversations around loss, inadequacy, failure, unemployment, self-esteem, vulnerability and pain.
I know a lot of you are wondering if the toxic, anti-social and violent brute can be helped. In my experience, this entirely depends on their willingness to seek support. For a man, to sit with another human being without the need for intoxication and sharing their pain is in itself a transformative experience. A lot of men start their stories by saying, “I don’t even say this out loud to myself.” In the months and years we work together, their relationships become gentler, their voices quieter, and their road rage lesser. However, men who have been mandated to therapy by families as an ultimatum or under the immediacy of a crisis rarely benefit beyond superficial behavior correction.
But I know this through so much time that I spend with the menfolk: I have a lot of hope from your fathers, brothers, boyfriends, husbands and other men you feel fondly towards. New definitions of masculinity are emerging. The over-used definitions of them being instinctually driven, un-emotional and “men being men” are undergoing a reassessment, not only in their own eyes but hopefully in families, communities, and in the media representation. Men are increasingly challenging their parents controlling their lives under the garb of cultural norms. We have many boys joining stereotypically feminine professions like arts, media, design, culinary arts, mental health, etc., pushing their family norms with increasing confidence. My hope is that we can continue to have these deeper conversations, which sometimes become gendered, but if you looked through my eyes, men and women I work with are no different when it comes to pain and loss. What divides you from your boyfriends, husbands and fathers are the same things that can also bring you together.