Men deserve medals for listening to all our worries

I read with interest a newspaper article about women suffering in their role as ‘unpaid therapists for men who can’t handle their feelings.’

A survey from men’s mental health charity Movember revealed that a third of men have no friends in whom to confide when they have worries, and half said they felt unable to talk to friends so instead relied entirely on their partners for their emotional needs. This has become known as ‘emotional labour’, with women taking on the burden of a man’s problems.

If I were to read that out to my husband he would dismiss it as piffle. As would I.

In all the years we have been together - and it’s a lot - not once has he offloaded any worries or problems on to me.

I dearly wish he would. I wish he would tell me when he feels unwell, or when he has had a bad day at work, but he keeps it all locked in. “Boarding school teaches you that,” he will say as a way of explanation.

I can understand that, but to say nothing, even when something bad happens, is really infuriating.

He didn’t even tell me when he was almost blind in one eye. I noticed him turning his head slightly more than usual on one side to look at things. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I can’t see out of that eye," he told me.

This is a man who regularly cycles to work along a busy ring road. Of course I went mad and demanded he ring the opticians. Within a month he had had cataract surgery on the eye, and, a couple of weeks later had the same operation on his ‘good’ eye, which, it turned out, wasn’t good at all. He is thrilled by the results.

“You’ll tell me if there’s ever anything else?” I often say. He says he will, but he won’t.

Men often take their worries to their sheds or into the garden

In my experience - we’re not talking vast, but enough - men don’t talk. My friends say the same. They don’t spill out their problems. “You’re an emotional desert,” I’ve told my husband in frustration.

Whereas women…my husband needs a medal. A bright, shiny, 24 carat gold one, for the amount of ear-bending I subject upon him. His second job is unpaid therapist to me. From the moment he comes in from work to the moment he goes to bed, I bombard him with a never-ending list of my problems. I’ve got one big, seemingly insurmountable one at the moment, but he has met my constant outpourings with a listening ear, constructive comments and only the odd loss of temper.

If men offloaded their woes to women in the way we do to them life would be a continual cycle of stress.

Far from spilling out their problems, men are renowned for keeping mum. They retreat to their sheds, their man caves, and in my husband’s case the garden. “You might as well live out there,” I often say. I suppose it’s his way of finding a temporary reprieve from his role as agony aunt.

Men are known for bottling things up. They are encouraged to talk more. Many towns and cities have special clubs, like Men’s Sheds, where they can meet and chat to other blokes.

Men are certainly not known for whining endlessly to their womenfolk.

They should, however, open up more. A lot more. I’d be glad to hear about my husband’s worries - it would even the score. At present he doesn’t get a look in.