In Part I, we explored how boys are socialized into manhood through a series of traumas — public humiliations, emotional abandonment, and vicarious witnessing of other boys’ pain. These experiences become embodied in their nervous systems, creating trauma responses to intimacy that show up in adulthood as defensiveness, emotional absence, or withdrawal.

But this trauma doesn't exist in isolation.

People partnered with men — women, nonbinary people, and even other men — often carry the unacknowledged emotional burden of this trauma. It leaves them exhausted, resentful, and heartbreakingly lonely.

[A note on gender inclusivity - Everything I’ve written here about men and boys can apply to cis-men, transmen, nonbinary people, and anyone who internalized masculine gender socialization. It can also apply to people others identified as men or boys, but they themselves didn’t feel they were men or boys. … Everything I’ve written here about women can apply to cis-women, transwomen, nonbinary people, and anyone who internalized feminine gender socialization. It can also apply to people others identified as women and girls, but they themselves didn’t feel they were women and girls.]

The Private Tenderness / Public Mask Dynamic

Many couples experiencea split between public and private emotional reality.

• In private, some men allow themselves brief moments of softness or emotional openness.

• In public, they return to their “masculine mask” — emotionally reserved, stoic, in control, or even dismissive of their partner’s feelings.

This dynamic protects the man’s relationship to masculinity. But it places acrushing emotional laboron their partner.

Their partner becomes theonly safe harbor for his feelings— and yet mustpretend, in public, that they don’t carry that weight.She has to constantly gauge the environment, the audience, and his mood for whether he will respond well to her vulnerability in a given moment, or will he respond defensively? And if she is feeling a need for a real, connected response from him, real emotional support,she has to hold that need and waitfor the right timing, the right environment, or she won’t get it. He’ll push her away to protect his masculinity.

The result?

• They’re partnered, but they often feel utterly alone.

• They’re trusted to give consistently, but receive support inconsistently – they get breadcrumbed.

• They’re loved — but only experience it in private, when he feels brave enough to open up.

“Why Do I Feel More Alone In This Relationship Than I Did Before It?”

This is a question many women and other partners of men — including those in long-term marriages — find themselves asking.

And it’s not because they don’t love their men. It’s because they are starving forreciprocal emotional intimacy.

Here’s what that starvation often looks like:

• Being expected to initiate every emotional conversation.

• Holding and creating a protective space for the grief, shame, or fear their partner won’t name and may not even be working on healing.

• Managing the household’s emotional climate.

• Performing double-duty as partner and therapist.

• Suppressing their own needs to protect their partner’s masculinity.

This isn’t a fair partnership. It’s a quiet, persistent, exhausting emotional labor. And over time, it breaks people down.

Patriarchy Makes Emotional Reciprocity Dangerous for Men

To understand why this happens, we have to return to what Resmaa Menakem teaches: trauma isnot cognitive — it’s somatic.

When men are asked to show up emotionally, theirbodiesremember:

• The shame of crying in front of other boys or men.

• The punishment for being “too sensitive”.

• The fear of being feminized or rejected for “feminine” emotions.

• The emotional abandonment by adults or peers.

So instead of leaning in, they often lean out — or worse, they lash out. And thatdefensive retreat, that instinct to protect ego instead of reaching for connection, is exactly what leaves their partners feeling like they’re in a relationshipwith a ghost.

Women (and other partners of men) Are Lonely — And Done Performing

This epidemic of loneliness isn’t just hitting men. It’s hitting women, and other partners of men, too — most numerically, straight women partnered with emotionally unavailable straight men.

Many are choosing not to marry. Many are choosing to live alone. Many are leaving long-term relationships with men andfinding more peace in solitude than they ever found in romantic partnership.

And it's not because they’ve given up on love. It’s because they’ve stopped settling forone-way emotional labor.

They’re tired of:

• Carrying the man’s unhealed trauma.

• Living a dual emotional reality (public mask / private effort).

• Feeling like they’re too much and not enough at the same time.

• Asking to be met emotionally, only to be told they’re “nagging”, “too sensitive” or “too needy”.

This Isn’t Just a Gender Binary Issue

Let’s be clear: This dynamic is not universal across all relationships. Many men, including straight cisgendered men are already doing this healing work. Many women, including cisgendered women are not equipped to support or participate in this kind of vulnerability. And this is definitely not limited to cisgender heterosexual relationships.

But much of the focus in the academic literature is on cishet dynamics because:

• The trauma ofmale gender socializationunder patriarchy disproportionately affects cis men.

• For transmen, transwomen, lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, nonbinary people – stepping outside the gender binary and/or heteronormativity in any way gives us an advantage in challenging these gendered expectations and pressures.

• Cisgender women (and people identified as women and girls from birth) are often raised toover-function emotionally, especially in heterosexual relationships.

• These dynamics havestructural rootsin patriarchal culture — not just individual personalities or preferences – and when acted out, they support the continuation of the patriarchal system of oppression.

We also must acknowledge that transmen and transmasculine people can internalize some of these trauma scripts through cultural expectations of masculinity — while transwomen and transfeminine people may experience the same exhaustion and emotional labor burdens traditionally carried by cis-women.

This is not about essential differences between “men” and “women.”It’s about thesocial and somatic effectsof the trauma that results from patriarchal gender training.

What can we do?

If you find yourself on the receiving end of this dynamic, you can begin inviting change with your masculine identifying partner by naming what you’re experiencing:

• I don’t like having to act differently with you in public vs in private

• It hurts me to have to wait for you to be emotionally open

• It’s exhausting having to constantly assess our social environment and when am I going to get the loving-supportive you vs the closed-defensive you

• I would really like you to take this on as your growth work so I can channel my energies into my growth work

If you’re a person who struggles with being vulnerable, especially if it’s related to masculine gender socialization:

• Ask your partner if they ever feel they are carrying an extra burden around protecting your masculinity. If the answer is yes, resist responding and just validate her experience and try sitting with any uncomfortable feelings that come up for you. Repeat to yourself, “It’s going to be okay; this is my work to do.”

• Read about masculinity and its relationship with sexism, misogyny, Patriarchy, and how to unlearn this culturally imposed trauma/system of oppression.

• Reflect on the moments where you feel pressure to perform toxic masculinity, act tough, threatening, deny vulnerability, or mock other’s requests that you be more collaborative. Ask yourself, “Why? What feels threatening to me about these moments?” Journal about these reflections, or discuss them with your therapist.

What are your experiences with this? What do you think would help for people to know about this dynamic in relationships?

Thanks for reading. If this resonates with you, share it. To step outside these systems is to invite the healing all of humanity needs.