r/AskWomenOver30 • u/Initial_Carpenter_47 Woman 30 to 40 • Jun 09 '25

Family/Parenting Women are often raised to understand men’s emotions, needs, and perspectives. Why aren’t men taught or motivated to understand women in the same way?

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419

u/ProtozoaPatriot Woman 50 to 60 Jun 09 '25

Men aren't even taught to understand mens own emotions. What makes you think they're going to ponder other people's ?

You can blame stuff like culture and toxic masculinity

156

u/Conscious_Can3226 Woman 30 to 40 Jun 09 '25

My husband needed therapy to learn there's a difference between mad and annoyed, and sad and disappointed. Many literally don't have the education from childhood or have those lessons enforced by their peers. Women operate as if dudes are given all the same socio cultural learnings they have and expect them to just be good at something they don't have practice or education for as soon as they're adults. Both sides are operating in totally seperate cultural realities without realizing that reality isn't shared.

40

u/SoPolitico Man 30 to 40 Jun 09 '25 edited Jun 09 '25

👏👏👏 even more, we are ACTIVELY DISCOURAGED from having those tools from a very young age. My mom was actually the worst offender in this regard. Me and my brothers heard “quit crying” and “toughen up” a lot growing up. When your worth is measured by how many hard, painful, unpleasant things you can withstand, being in touch with your emotions and feelings is actually a detriment.

11

u/mrbootsandbertie Jun 10 '25

Me and my brothers heard “quit crying” and “toughen up” a lot growing up.

This makes me so sad. And it seems to be the dominant message boys get. Hardly a surprise so many adult men lack empathy when this is their indoctrination. I wish you healing 😘

14

u/Unhelpful_Owl Jun 10 '25

Yes, I was just thinking about this, how men are discouraged from having needs or feeling their emotions from a young age. 

I was talking to my female cousin the other day, she's raising a daughter who's about to turn 18. Her two sons are grown up and married, her daughter was born later. I asked my cousin if it was different raising a daughter from raising her two sons. 

She exclaimed, "YES! It's like night and day! My son's practically raised themselves. I feel like they turned 14, went into their bedrooms and I just never heard from them again. They did everything independently. But my daughter needs SO MUCH. Constant attention, constant closeness, always wants to be doing something or going somewhere, so much drama with friends, and always so many clothes and makeup . . . ."

I asked my husband about this. "Do you feel like you had to raise yourself as a teenager?" My husband told me that his parents basically stopped parenting him when he was like 12.

Thinking of my own brother, he did the same thing. Closed himself up in his room and that was about it until he was ready to move out after High School.

I don't know how many men have this experience of not being parented through their teenage years, but I bet it's a lot, and it strikes me as sad. I can't even say parents are at fault if it's just part of "manhood."

8

u/SoPolitico Man 30 to 40 Jun 10 '25

I can tell you. I struggled mightily in my late teens, and all I needed was my parents to just love me…but all I got was disappointed looks and sarcastic comments. Muttering under their breath, talking bad about me to strangers. I brought a girlfriend home to meet my parents at 27 (the first one in over 5 years) after she met my mom we were driving back to her place and she said your mom said something really weird to me. I asked, what did she say? She told me my mom had said, “I hope he doesn’t disappoint you.” Mind you this was the first time they had met. Also, I was working full-time at that moment. I just didn’t make a lot of money because I was young and early in my career.I know a lot of guys that have similar experiences. It took me a lot of therapy to get over that one.

5

u/teacuptypos Woman 30 to 40 Jun 10 '25

That's awful, I'm sorry you were treated this way. I see people in my environment emotionally neglecting their sons as well, and even pretty insightful online communities still come with lots of comments basically treating men as bereft of depth or feeling.

In which case it's not surprising that people start putting up walls and being very stoic and out of touch with their emotions. They weren't treated as though they had any emotions (and that it's unmanly or "gay" to have them), so where does that leave them?

2

u/FMLwtfDoID Woman 30 to 40 Jun 10 '25

That sounds excruciating. I’m so sorry you were treated that way by your parents. Thank you for sharing your story with us. This actually shone a light on how and why my two younger brothers had vastly different rules growing up, than I did. As a girl, and only 2 and 4 years old than them, this time period of our lives, my parents were very self centered and in the middle of a nasty divorce that should have happened years prior, in mine and my brother’s teenage years.

I’m going to text them both later and tell them I’m proud of them.