Many wives are deeply perplexed at the apparent emotional unavailability of their
husbands. The mystery and disappointment surrounding a husband’ s emotional distance
is summarized in the familiar question by many wives, “ Why won’ t my husband talk to
me?” What is it with some men who just seem unwilling or unable to process emotional
information about themselves and others? Are some men just born emotionally challenged?
It kind of looks and feels that way some times. Or, are they deliberately avoiding
disclosure of their motives, thoughts and feelings? And, why would they hide such
information from someone they profess to love?

The problem is not experienced by all men. In fact some men will not identify at all with
the problem of not knowing how to discuss emotional information. There are many men
quite capable of discussing their feelings and are attentive and curious about the emotions
of others they are in relationship with.

For many men, however, the prospect of an emotional conversation with anyone is a
fate to be avoided at all cost. They would rather be dragged through thistles than talk
about, “ feeeeelings…” These men will go to great lengths to keep their own emotional
processes suppressed and to avoid having to address and attend to the emotional
experiences of others. This is especially true in the context of marriage, the wives of
these men often express deep pain and sorrow at being shut out and excluded from the
emotional vulnerability of their beloved husband.

Some of these wives will take a man’ s emotional avoidance and unavailability as
a personal rejection. These wives see their husband’ s with holding of emotional
vulnerability as an expression of the husband’ s value and preference for them. The “ wall”
in the relationship for these wives is a message, “ Go away, I don’ t want you. I do not
care about your needs for closeness I only want to be left alone.” This easily leads to
resentment and bitterness until the wife has nothing but contempt for a man who has shut
her out for years. Often these men are baffled and judge the resentment in their wives as
unjustified and secretly wonder, “ Why can’ t she just accept me the way I am?”

While some men are dramatically emotionally unavailable, other men are inconsistent
in their emotional availability. These men on some occasions allow their wives to have
access to emotional processes taking place in them but this is haphazard and does not
seem to follow a consistent pattern. They may avoid emotional vulnerability even without
being aware of there avoidance.

Where ever a man finds himself on the continuum of comfort with emotional
vulnerability, this can be a significant source of conflict and concern in a marriage.

There are many marriage and relationship books available addressing differences
between men and women in the area of communication. I won’ t try to summarize that
material here but encourage readers to consider researching some of these resources. I
will try and offer a couple of insights about what may be going on for men when they are

especially emotionally with holding or unavailable. I will also offer some direction for
husbands and wives as well.

What is readily understood once pointed out, but easily overlooked, is how a man is
trained to be a man. During childhood boys are generally instructed that vulnerability
is equal to weakness and successful men are never weak. For many men vulnerability,
especially emotional vulnerability represents loss of potency and threatens the likelihood
of rejection. For many men we were instructed that our value comes from how we
conquer our environment. Providing for those we love, fixing things, being successful,
accomplishing tasks is how we make our place in the world. And, after we have spent
considerable energy conquering our world we want to eat, have sex and sleep, not
necessarily in that order. For some men life has been simplified and reduced to these very
basic tasks; work (translate conquer), propagate the species (translate sex), eat (translate
meat), and sleep (translate dream about the first three). There is in many men a basic
operating belief that anything not relevant to these simple tasks is not worth attending to.

Interestingly, while men may invest great amounts of energy in succeeding at these basic
life tasks they nevertheless are still emotional beings and have emotions about a wide
range of things. It’ s just that emotion has been defined as a threat to being genuinely and
consistently successful in conquering life. Consequently, men ignore their feelings or
actively suppress them. They can experience emotion but are likely to be surprised by
emotion and are generally inclined to assume that feelings are a threat or irrelevant at
best.

Some men when they discover the value feelings can have for developing and enhancing
intimacy make a transition and allow their wives and select others access to their
emotional vulnerability. These men discover the freedom and richness of affection and
closeness found in situations of emotional vulnerability. But even in these circumstances
a man may secretly fear he is breaking the rules and he is one day going to pay a price for
his weakness.

All of this to say emotional vulnerability can be exceedingly challenging for many men.
Even when men begin to understand the value of emotional vulnerability and intimacy
they often feel intimidated by the prospect of failing at being emotional vulnerable. To
these men being vulnerable takes on a performance element that interferes with their
capacity to simply be themselves. The good news is this can be overcome, but it may
require commitment and discipline from a man to get to a place of consistently being
emotionally available to those he loves.

The learning curve on emotional awareness is going to be different for every person but
here are a few encouragements to men to get started. First of all, men must recognize
feelings and emotion for what they are. Feelings are simply information about one’ s
heart. We know from the Bible that the human heart is valuable and vulnerable. It is
capable of being corrupted and the heart is disclosed by our speech (Matthew 15:18).
Our speech, what we say can be controlled by feelings, which if we are not aware may be
indicating fear, resentment, envy, etc. Positive feelings can be evidence of a heart pure
and submitted to God’ s leading (Psalms 51:10). The feelings must always of course be
measured against the guidelines of conduct provided by scripture. Again, in this way

feelings are a source of information. To simply disregard emotion outright or suppress
emotion without reflection and consideration leaves one vulnerable to actually being
controlled by emotional impulses. Being aware, identifying feelings, understanding
their influence on one self is essential to being fully human, essential to being a man of
genuine integrity.

Second, have some grace and patience with yourself. Especially if being emotionally
aware and disclosing is a new practice, understand there is going to be some trial and
error along the way. A great discipline to practice with emotions is to be careful to
state emotions in personal terms and to state them in tentative qualified ways. To state
feelings in absolute terms can often sound to others like judgment and blame. Consider
the following two statements, “ I’ m struggling to feel understood and I’ m afraid I’ ll be
judged for how I feel,” versus “ I feel like you never listen to me, I don’ t feel I can tell
you anything because I know you’ ll just blame me in the end.” Notice how the second
statement focuses more on the other person and uses terms like, “ never” and “ anything”
which are more absolute and are likely to be heard as an attack by the other person. You
may want to ask your wife to be patient with you as you try to learn how to be aware and
express your feelings more.

Third, learn from others. Listen carefully to your spouse, children and friends when they
are trying to express emotional information. You’ ll be surprised how much emotional
information is available if you just tune into it. By summarizing the emotional content
of what others say you’ ll be accomplishing two things at once, you’ ll be learning how
to articulate emotional information and you’ ll be connecting with the feelings of people
you love and care about. Take notice of how it impacts others for you to be curious and
interested in how they feel.

A few points of guidance for wives with husbands struggling to be emotionally available
may be in order. Your desire to be emotionally close to your husband is a good thing. The
pain you may feel at being shut out or kept away emotionally is evidence of a longing
for intimacy and connection that is desirable and you need not make apology for it.
Recognize the factors which have discouraged your husband from being emotionally
aware and vulnerable. See if you can be curious about those elements of his childhood
and his life currently which contribute to his ignoring and avoiding emotional processes
in himself. Resist the urge to “ help” him. Rather look for ways to be present with him.
By “ present” I mean being available and accepting even if he still has a long way to go in
letting you in emotionally.

It may be encouraging to let him know what it means to you that he would trust you with
emotional vulnerability. Be aware of how your criticism works against your hope of
being close. Just because something is obvious to you emotionally it may not be obvious
to him for a host of reasons, some of which are described above. You can’ t control if he
opens up but his seeing evidence that it is safe to be emotionally vulnerable will go a
long way toward encouraging his being emotionally open. There may be ways in the past
you have been unsafe for him to open up to. If you can see this, acknowledging it and
apologizing may be helpful. Again, if he sees evidence of your interest in him as a person
and not interest in your changing him he is likely to feel safer and thereby open up more.

These dynamics of emotional vulnerability can be extremely challenging. These
few thoughts are not meant by any means to address the full complexity of how
emotional vulnerability is being addressed in your marriage. Many couples require
skilled, compassionate assistance from professionals to navigate the murky waters
of emotional vulnerability. Rather look at this column as maybe an opportunity to
explore with your spouse how emotional vulnerability is processed in your marriage
and see if any of the traditional male inhibitions apply to your marriage. If you discover
the obstacles are more significant than the suggestions in this article can address
don’ t hesitate to seek professional help. As always, any comments or questions you
have about this column or other issues you would like addressed please email me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . I so much enjoy the responses folks are sending to
this column. I will try to do my best to either address your concern in a future column or
respond to you directly. God Bless You, and know we at National Institute of Marriage
are praying for you.

Dr. Bob Burbee
Psychologist, Intensive Therapist and Aftercare Coordinator
National Institute of Marriage