Episode 94 . Teaching Boys to Feel: Healing the Emotional Divide in Marriage with Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst
The Emotional Blind Spot in Marriage: Why Strong Men Need to Feel
We’ve all heard it: “Men just don’t talk about their feelings.”
But what if that’s not true at all?
What if the real problem isn’t that men can’t feel — it’s that they’ve been trained not to?
That’s the bold argument from psychologist Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst, whose research on the emotional development of men and boys flips the script on everything we think we know about male emotionality. And as a marriage educator, I can tell you — this is where so many couples get stuck.
We Teach Boys to Go Silent
Here’s the startling truth: boys are born more emotionally expressive than girls. They laugh louder, cry harder, and experience bigger highs and deeper lows.
But somewhere between the sandbox and high school, that emotional freedom gets cut off.
It’s not because parents don’t care — it’s because our culture still equates masculinity with control. We reward stoicism, punish tenderness, and call it strength.
Fast-forward twenty years, and that once-vibrant emotional range has been replaced by a narrow set of “acceptable” feelings: irritation, pride, or a kind of polite neutrality.
The rest — fear, grief, vulnerability — has been quietly exiled.
Why This Matters for Marriage
When a man learns to mute his feelings, intimacy takes the hit.
You can’t connect deeply with a partner who doesn’t feel safe to be fully human.
And yet, there’s a painful paradox here: many women say they want emotional openness, but when their husbands finally show it — frustration, fear, tears — it can trigger anxiety.
He feels rejected; she feels overwhelmed. Both retreat to safety.
The result? Two people who love each other but keep missing each other emotionally.
The Real Strength of Emotional Courage
Dr. Vanderhorst calls this “emotional fluency” — the ability to name, tolerate, and express a wide range of emotions without shame.
It’s not soft. It’s not weak. It’s what makes intimacy possible.
If you’ve ever seen a man hold his newborn child, you’ve seen this capacity.
Tenderness doesn’t erase strength; it deepens it.
How to Reopen the Emotional Range
You don’t need a psychology degree to start shifting this dynamic. Here are a few practical, research-backed ways to expand emotional fluency — in your marriage, your parenting, or both:
Ditch the Fix-It Reflex.
When your spouse (or son) expresses emotion, resist the urge to solve it. Just stay. Presence is healing.Name What You Feel.
Instead of “I’m fine,” try “I’m disappointed,” “I’m anxious,” or “I’m hopeful.” Emotional vocabulary builds emotional safety.Normalize the Wave.
Men often express emotion in bigger bursts because they’ve been holding it in. Let the wave rise and fall — it usually settles once it’s seen.Be Curious, Not Critical.
Ask: “What’s underneath that?” or “Tell me more about what that feels like.” Curiosity keeps the door open.Start Small.
Talk while doing something together — cooking dinner, driving, walking. Men often connect shoulder-to-shoulder before heart-to-heart.
The Takeaway
We don’t build strong marriages by asking men to feel less — we build them by giving men permission to feel more.
Because emotional depth isn’t the opposite of masculinity.
It’s the evolution of it.
And when men reclaim the full range of their emotions, families heal, intimacy deepens, and connection finally becomes real — not because someone “fixed” the other, but because both partners learned how to feel again.
