My husband won't talk about his feelings. What's really behind it

In my experience, men who don’t talk about their feelings rarely have fewer feelings. They’ve never had a space for them where it was safe. And at some point they learned that it’s cheaper to be seen as someone who just doesn’t talk than to show themselves and be met with accusations for it.

That’s not an excuse for silence. It’s the reason why the usual attempts to get him talking almost always achieve the opposite.

What I see in sessions

When a man sits with me for the first time, he often says very little. Sometimes nothing at all. His wife talks, he confirms or contradicts in short sentences.

Then, in most sessions, something happens that surprises the women. At some point he starts. And what comes then isn’t little. It’s often a great deal, and it has been there for years.

My impression after eight years: these men aren’t emotionally uninvolved. Many of them carry far more around with them than you can see. There was just never a place where it was allowed out.

The three reasons he’s closed off

First: He has to be the strong one.

In many families this isn’t a rule anyone talks about. It’s taken for granted. A man holds things together, carries them and solves them. He doesn’t complain.

I come across this particularly often with Turkish and Southern European men, and not as a problem, but as an attitude. It counts as decency, not as a shortcoming. Anyone who grew up like this doesn’t experience talking about their own distress as a relief, but as a loss of dignity.

That doesn’t mean it can’t change. It means that the request “just talk to me” sets off something different in him than in you. For you it’s an offer. To him it sounds like a request to put down something that holds him together.

Second: Talking has already cost him something.

This is the point I come across most often, and it’s an uncomfortable one.

Many men have tried. At some point they said how they were feeling. And then came an accusation. Or an explanation of why they were seeing it wrong. Or it was used against them three weeks later in an argument.

After that they don’t do it again. Not out of defiance, but because they’ve learned what it costs.

I say this without blaming the women. Almost always it wasn’t bad intent, but a hurt woman who couldn’t manage it herself in that moment. But the bill stays with the man, and it has an effect for years.

Third: He has no words.

This is the most underestimated one. Some men can’t say how they’re feeling because they have no vocabulary for it. Not because they’re stupid, but because it was never practised.

To the question “how do you feel about it” you then get “fine” or “no idea”. And that’s often the truth.

What doesn’t work

The big conversation. “We need to talk.” That doesn’t make any man start talking, it makes him start preparing.

Asking more while he’s silent. Every further question raises the pressure, and pressure makes him even quieter.

Comparing him with others. “Other women’s husbands talk too.”

Reading it as proof. That he doesn’t talk doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. It usually means he doesn’t know how.

What works

Side by side instead of face to face.

In the car. On a walk. While drying the dishes. Without eye contact, without the posture of a conversation. A great many men talk much more easily when they’re not being looked at and are doing something on the side.

Small questions instead of big ones.

Not “how do you feel about us”. But:

“What was the most annoying thing this week?”

“Was there anything this week that did you good?”

That sounds trivial, and it’s the way in. He won’t answer big questions, but he will answer small ones. And over time, small ones turn into more.

Bear the one minute.

When you’ve asked a question, wait. Even if it gets uncomfortably long. Many men need much longer to put a sentence about themselves together, and most women fill the pause before it’s over.

Do nothing with what he says.

This is the most important rule of all. When he tells you something, no analysis, no solution, no accusation. And above all: don’t bring it back up in an argument three weeks later.

A single time is enough to close the door for years.

Ask your questions, don’t anticipate his answers.

“That bothered you too, didn’t it?” isn’t a question. It’s a statement with a question mark.

What helps you when it takes time

It takes time. Often months. And during that time you’ll give more than you get, and that’s exhausting.

Two things are realistically important here.

First: You’re not his therapist. You can offer a space. You can’t do the work he has to do.

Second: If for months you’re the only one who moves, then it’s no longer a communication issue, it’s an imbalance. And that needs to be talked about.

Where this doesn’t apply

There’s a silence that isn’t protection, but a tool.

When he doesn’t speak for days so that you give in. When you’re always the one who restores contact. When silence is used as punishment.

That’s something different from not having the words, and it needs to be talked about. If belittling or control come on top of it, the German helpline Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen (violence against women) can be reached around the clock, free of charge and anonymously, on 116 016.

What I’d like you to take with you

The most common sentence from women in this situation is: “My husband doesn’t understand me.” And the most common sentence from the men in reply: “I’m just not much of a talker.”

Often that’s not quite true. He doesn’t know how the door opens, and he’s afraid of what will happen once it’s open.

What helps him isn’t a bigger conversation. It’s a smaller one that costs nothing.