Why Boys ‘Dont Cry’: The Hidden Cost on Mental Health and Masculinity

I love being a woman. Truly.
Ask me at any age, “Would you ever want to be a boy?” — and the answer has always been a solid, unwavering, absolutely not. Why? Because I adore the closeness my female friendships have given me. The hand-holding, the whispered secrets at sleepovers, the nights I’ve cried after heartbreak while one friend held me and another stroked my hair. I wouldn’t trade the women in my life for anything.

My friendships have taught me that I can be unfiltered, messy, honest, and still loved.They taught me that vulnerability isn’t something to hide, it’s something to share.

We can’t choose the families we’re born into, or the environments we grow up in, but we can choose our friendships. And for many girls, those friendships become the first safe spaces to express emotion.

I was reminded of this recently in a swimming-pool changing room.

Two little girls, maybe seven years old, were chatting away in a toilet cubicle, door wide open. One sitting on the loo while the other kept her company. One farted and they both erupted into hysterics. Then the one on the toilet announced, “Actually, I think I’m having a poo,” and without a second thought the other replied, “It’s okay, I’ll stay with you,” and carried on chatting whilst she stood in the doorway of the cubicle.

I remember smiling to myself and thinking: There it is. That unfiltered female openness. That’s how girls learn closeness. That’s how our boundaries soften. That’s how we grow up feeling able to talk about almost anything.

But boys? Their stories are often very different. Of course, not all men. But enough men for this to be a topic of conversation.

The Emotional Gap Between Boys and Girls

Girls grow up being emotionally bonded. Boys often do not.

As girls, we learn that sharing our inner world is normal. Boys learn the opposite. Not only are young boys rarely encouraged to express feelings to each other, but when men don’t model vulnerability, boys internalise a dangerous set of rules:

• Crying makes me weak.

• Men get angry, not sad

• Dad doesn’t want to hear about my feelings

• Don’t burden anyone

This becomes a cycle. Men who were never taught emotional safety grow into fathers who cannot provide emotional safety. And the pattern continues.

When Boys Don’t Share With Men: What Really Happens

If a boy learns early on that it’s unsafe to express emotions around men, that his feelings might be mocked, minimised, or ignored , they’re likely to develop;

• Avoidant attachment; “I’ll deal with everything alone so I don’t get judged or rejected.”

• Emotional suppression; Feelings get buried instead of processed, especially sadness, fear, and loneliness.

• Shame around vulnerability; Even the act of expressing a need feels threatening.

These boys grow into men who believe:

“Vulnerability = danger.”
“Emotions = weakness.”
“I must cope alone.”

And that belief system becomes the foundation of adult mental health problems.

The Adult Consequences

Relationships

When men grow up without learning how to express emotions, it usually shows up in their relationships first. It might look like shutting down during conflict, going quiet when they feel overwhelmed, or hearing a partner’s need for connection as some kind of criticism. Its not that they don't care, they just don’t know how to say it. Partners end up feeling shut out. Men end up feeling misunderstood. And slowly, the relationship starts to crack, leaving men even more alone. When sadness or fear hits that shame button, men pull back into what feels safest, silence, distraction, work, anything that doesn’t require emotional exposure.

Anger

And then there’s anger, the “acceptable” male emotion. Instead of sadness, you get irritability. Instead of fear, defensiveness.  Instead of shame, rage. Instead of saying “I need you,” you get sarcasm or shutting down.

In the Workplace

These patterns can also seep into work. Emotionally suppressed men can come across as over-controlling, perfectionistic, rigid, the ones who never delegate, who avoid asking for help because they’re terrified it’ll make them look incompetent.
So they cope by overworking. Until burnout kicks in. Suddenly they’re exhausted, struggling with sleep, irritable, detached. And because no one sees the emotional side, it gets misread as “lack of commitment,” which just piles on more shame

And underneath it all is the same old belief running the show: “If I show emotion, I’ll be judged, rejected, or seen as not enough.”

Its so important for men to begin to understand that these aren’t character flaws. They’re survival strategies, ones that once protected these boys, but now cost these men connection, health, and peace.

Where the far right, such as the likes of Andrew Tate come in…

When boys grow up emotionally isolated, they become men starving for belonging. That’s why some gravitate toward radicalised groups. They offer identity, certainty, and community, everything emotional suppression has stolen from them. Isolation makes people vulnerable to anyone who offers a sense of meaning.

So What Do We Actually Do?

Firstly, boys need emotionally available men. Fathers, uncles,teachers, coaches, leaders, politicians. Boys need to see men who are able to cry, be soft, be honest about their feelings, show fear without shame and offer tenderness.

Next, we have to challenge the Boy Code.

That old script “boys don’t cry” has to go.
We need to teach boys and men that vulnerability isn’t a weakness; it’s courage. It’s strength. It’s connection. It’s the thing that will make them feel like they belong. 

And finally, therapy. 

In Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), we look directly at shame, fear, and emotional safety, the exact thing that these men struggle with most.

When I sit with men in therapy, I hear the same beliefs come up again and again:

“If I’m kind to myself, I’ll turn weak.”
“People will take advantage of me.”
“I’ll get lazy.”

Considering all the above, how could they not believe that? If vulnerability has always felt dangerous, of course compassion feels risky.

CFT helps reframe emotional suppression as something that made sense. Not a flaw, not a failure, but a survival strategy.

Men start to understand that:

• Their threat system is overdeveloped because vulnerability = danger

• Their drive system (achievement, competence, work) became their emotional life raft

• Their avoidance and silence were actually protective, not broken pieces of themselves
  

And the slowly, we help build the soothing system, the one most men were never given:

A supportive, steady inner voice
Permission to receive care and warmth
The capacity to sit with kindness instead of criticism
They slowly start to understand that shutting down wasn’t weakness, it was safety.

Because although it's not your fault that you learned these patterns, now that you have awareness of the problem, it is your responsibility to do something about it.