Her face was melting. It took only seconds for her bright and warm smile to deform into an expression of hopelessness and frustration. The space between us, which was initially separated only by a couple of rare New York Strips, had just expanded exponentially. This was entirely my fault. Me and my big fat mouth.

Only forty-five minutes earlier, I was leaving a terrible day at the office. Someone had offended me, and for some reason, a load of completely unrelated thoughts and feelings decided to surface and hitch a ride on the coattail of the offense. I was angry, I was discouraged, and I was certainly not in any kind of state to have a pleasant family dinner with my wife and son. 

You know those crazy people you see driving down the road arguing with themselves? That was me. “You better keep your mouth shut when you get home, Rich,” I warned myself. “You’ve got 35 minutes to pray, cool off, and rehearse pleasant questions to ask your family when you get home.” 

Pulling up in the driveway, I take a deep breath and walk to the front door. As I turn the handle, my 6-year-old son is firing off requests that I play action figures with him. I greet him, renegotiate the playtime, and kiss my wife. 

We sit down for dinner and she asks me how my day was. I smile and lie. She knows. She always does. I have the worst poker face. Then, from the shadows of my soul, words began to bubble up to the surface and my stupid mouth began to tell all the tales I had spent the last hour telling myself not to bring up. Now, my problems have become her problems, and the burden that was mine to deal with has been offloaded on my family. 

Gentleman, I failed. As the publisher of a men’s blog, I wish I could consistently exemplify the right thing, but today, I will have to use my failure to highlight what not to do.

Now, I am going to make a somewhat controversial statement. I want to preface this idea by letting you know that almost every woman I have brought this up to has disagreed with me, but I am still convinced it is a fact of life:

Your woman might ask you what’s wrong–but she doesn’t truly want to know.

She indeed cares about you, and wants you to be ok, but more than that, she needs to know that the entire family will be ok. It’s entirely possible that the weakness, obstacle, confrontation, or emotions you are dealing with–while perfectly normal things for men to struggle with–might create unnecessary red flags for her. 

Do you know why? She wants you to handle your problems because you are the leader. If you can’t handle your problems, how can you be capable of solving the family’s problems?

She wants you to be stable because stability is a masculine responsibility. It is not her job to hold things together, it is yours. 

Women are not attracted to weakness. Women are not attracted to victims. Women are not attracted to emotional men. Women are not attracted to “stuck” men. Women are not attracted to “lost” men. 

We might not be any of those things, but while we are working through our issues, we might convincingly sound that way–and I promise you, no matter how many times you’ve heard the feminist idea that “it’s sexy when he cries,” it isn’t.

Do you know who is attracted to those things? Therapists. And even if your mate is a mental health professional, she would prefer to leave her work at work and not have to practice at home on you.

Women are looking for strong, courageous, leaders who overcome obstacles, provide, protect, and make the hard decisions for the family. These men don’t have to be perfect, but they need to be showing up and growing in all of these areas. This is much more important to women than having him “open up” about his emotions. 

Many effeminate males in our culture were propagandized by the feminist movement to express their deepest emotions to their mate in the same manner that a woman expresses herself to a mate. This doesn’t work. 

Polarization is a necessary component of sexual attraction–a strong masculine energy and a soft feminine energy–like the Beauty and the Beast. This is why they say “opposites attract”, this is why the homecoming queen is attracted to the biggest jerk in the school, and this is why, even homosexual relationships typically contain one individual playing the masculine and the other playing the feminine role. 

Because men are biologically more rational than women, we can handle hearing our mate expressing just about any emotion with relatively low emotional strain on ourselves, we might even get to solve some problems–which we like doing. On the flip side, because women are biologically less rational, more emotional, and even more neurotic than men, a man’s expression of fears, pain, or discouragement can become a heavy burden for his woman to help him carry.

At the end of the day, it’s all about establishing boundaries around what you share with your mate. One of the key roles of a man is to protect the physical, emotional, and spiritual state of those under his care. We must always remember this when determining what to communicate with our spouses versus what to communicate with a trusted friend, mentor, pastor, or therapist.

Ask yourself, “Is what I have to say going to create unnecessary fear, anxiety, confusion, or insecurity in my wife?” If the answer is yes, then find an alternative sounding board. 

Should you lie? No. That is not what I am suggesting in any way. Trust is essential for a healthy marriage. Never lie to her. If you find out you are sick, or your loved one dies, or you get fired from your job, you had better tell her the truth. If you are feeling depressed, or struggling to cope with something. You can tell her, but be careful not to leave it in a dark place. She needs to know that you are proactively seeking help or working on it. She needs to know that you will overcome the thing because that is your duty.

In summary, your woman is not your shrink. Don’t let the expression of your negative emotions undermine your headship. Protect her heart and emotions. Find another man to be your sounding board and advisor.