THAT'S MEN:Feeling the pressure of stressful relationships
IT IS often thought that women are more emotional than men and, therefore, more affected by the quality of their relationships.
I disagree with that view and new research from the US backs up what I have long believed, namely that men, especially young men, are more affected than women when the relationship is under stress.
The research, in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, is based on a study of 1,000 unmarried men and women, aged 18-23.
On the positive side, the results show that a good relationship does more for men, emotionally, than for women. This is consistent with the benefits of marriage for men, also.
But they also show that the emotional wellbeing of men is more affected by problems in relationships than is the case for women.
Why should this be so? One theory put forward by the researchers is that the relationship with the girlfriend is likely to be the young man’s main source of intimacy and closeness. The woman, however, is more likely to be close also to her friends and to sisters, brothers or parents.
So if the relationship is rocky, the woman has more people than the man to turn to for emotional support.
Needless to say, this doesn’t mean that women react in a less emotional way to their relationships. It’s more that they react differently.
While the quality of the relationship has a greater effect on men’s wellbeing, just being in a relationship seems to be more important to women. But the quality of that relationship affects men more than women.
This sounds wrong, doesn’t it? Women – if I may make a sweeping statement – give out yards about the quality of the relationship with the man, especially if that relationship is in trouble. Men, it often seems to me from listening to women talk, are willing to go along with “how things are” for years, maybe the rest of their lives.
I think what’s going on is this: women are quicker than men to judge the relationship as unsatisfactory. But when the man finally judges the relationship as unsatisfactory, the emotional hurt is greater.
Why? Probably because the woman has her family and friends to lend a shoulder to cry on, while the man is more likely to drown his sorrows and to try to cope on his own.
When the relationship finally breaks down, the woman is more likely to get depressed and the man is more likely to console himself with drink or drugs, according to the researchers.
I suppose this means that whatever face men may put on matters, the fact is that our relationships matter to us just as much as they matter to women. We both hurt when we see the relationship as going wrong, but we do it in different ways.
For men, the message might be to share your troubles with others, just as women do. It will make life easier unless your friends are complete and total emotional idiots – and that can happen to both women and men.
On a different matter, further evidence of the importance of sharing your troubles comes in a study on sexual problems in older men. Again, the research is from the US.
What it found was that older men who have sexual problems are happier if they talk to their partners about these problems than men who don’t. Obvious, you say? Not if you’re inside the problem, it isn’t, and not if all your assumptions about maleness are challenged by the problem.
Surprisingly – to me – men were more likely than women to discuss their sexual problem with their doctor. Neither older men nor older women found that talking to the doctor was all that helpful. What helped the men to feel better was talking to their partners and friends about their sexual problems, according to a report in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences.
The message from all this? It’s good to talk.
Padraig O'Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book, Light Mind – Mindfulness for Daily Living, is published by Veritas. His monthly mindfulness newsletter is free by e-mail