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Male withdrawal under stress is a learned reflex, not indifference.

Avoidant attachment can turn stress into distance, creating a pursuer-distancer cycle.

Many men believe silence protects their partners, but it is often experienced as rejection or distancing.

Small moments of openness, not grand confessions, can help close the distance and restore connections.

“What’s wrong?” asks one partner at dinner.

“Nothing,” says the other.

But conversation is slow and stilted, and silence falls between them before too long. Later, the first tries again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” An earlier, stressful event is mentioned, but the second partner denies that it’s caused a problem.

Still later, as the couple settles down to bed in what could be a comfortable, private moment, the question comes up one final time. “I feel like something’s bothering you, but I don’t know what it is,” one tries.

“I told you, it’s nothing,” says the other, before rolling over and going to sleep.

Although I wrote the scene above without any reference to men or women, it’s not hard to assume the genders of partners #1 and 2. Too often, the person suffering in silence is a man, and the one who has noticed a problem, but cannot break through the silence to talk about it, is a woman. (For simplicity’s sake, I’m using a heterosexual couple in this example, but emotional withdrawal like this is altogether too common in men these days—no matter whom they love.)

Socialization and Emotional Suppression in Boys and Men

Pulling away from one’s partner in the face of unhappiness is a matter of socialization for most men. When they’re young, boys and girls are subjected to different expectations: Boys are encouraged to keep their pain inside, not to let it out in the form of an emotional display or “burden” others with it.

But boys and girls aren’t as different on the inside as their expectations would suggest; all children have feelings and attachment needs, and—according to a widely-cited 1999 article in Developmental Psychology—when they’re babies, boys may even........

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