to think that the often asserted idea of women being super supportive of each other is overstated?

[bonafidetidy]

So I see this said all the time that women get more emotional support than men and it is especially true that lots of men (especially online) complain that women will emotionally support their female friends but don't want to deal with emotionally supporting men and that women view men displaying emotion as a negative.

I do think women perhaps talk more and that to some extent women crying is more tolerated but in general I think the idea that its generally fine for women to talk at length about their feelings and mental health to both other women and men is vastly overstated.

When I think about the times in my life where I, a woman have turned to family members and friends for emotional support 9 times out of 10 I've been given short shrift! This includes friends who I felt I'd been there for including one friend who I had supported through and helped escape from an abusive relationship. When I went through a bad patch where both my father and brother were diagnosed with incurable cancers and my mum had a breakdown, she dumped me as a friend saying she had "no space in my life for negative energy".

I could give many, many examples and to be honest I am not one to go on and on about my emotional state or problems and I remember being very young when my mum made it quite clear that hearing about her children's problems was generally burdensome to her and to learn to cope with things ourselves.

I think we are all lucky in life if we find one or two people who will properly listen to us vent about things if we need to and that it simply just isn't true that women are as supportive as we are made out to be. I don't mean that we are unkind or unsympathetic but that we are expected to deal with our own emotions and issues internally for the most part and not dump on others.

The point of my post is that quite a few men seem to be angry that when they try to open up to women about their trauma, pain, loneliness that women reject that and find it unattractive and then they cry that women are being sexist in that they are happy to emotionally support other women but won't do it for men and find his vulnerability to be off putting.

The truth is that nobody really wants to be on the receiving end of someone who is trauma dumping, therapists get paid a lot of money to listen to people do so and undergo a lot of training to be able to put their own issues to the side while doing so in order to best help the person suffering.

Many of us try to provide support to our loved ones as best we can but as adults I think we are all expected to be able to deal with our own emotions for the most part and that men are in fact not excluded from some magical Shangri-La of female warmth that women get to take for granted.

women share more with each other, when friends. But women can also be each others’ worst enemies.

To your point of women rejecting men opening up to them. Surely it depends on the context and the extent to which the exchange occurs. Most of the time women love when men open up to them and share what’s on their mind, but no matter what the sex is, sometimes too much, too long, can be overbearing and yes also unattractive...

It's a myth

I do think women do talk more and that it can be helpful sharing stories but these usually happen after individual women have come to terms with various traumas or experiences on their own.

I think that some men seem to imagine that women are there at the drop of a hat to help each other cry it out and process raw emotion and I'd say that really isn't the case but because they imagine it is they think women are being grossly unfair by not offering that same service to them as a matter of course. I have seen this complaint frequently online from men posting about their grievances with women.

I agree that women like a man who can be emotionally open with them but I think that's still within the context of an adult who is able to process their own stuff and be responsible for it. Just like women would avoid another woman who had a victim mentality or took no responsibility for dealing with her own issues so the same applies to men.

I don't know where this narrative comes from either. I absolutely don't think men are less attractive when they share their emotions but there needs to be some balance.
My close male friend will text/call me if he is having a rough time. Maybe twice a year on average. I offer hugs, practical advice and reassurance. Then he moves on to deal with his problems.
Another male friend texts almost daily and conversation inevitably ends up with him re-telling me the same tales of woe, any attempt at advice is being shot down and clearly he was never interested in doing anything to actually help himself. Frankly, I had to cut him out after a short while.
I can't see situation being any different if it were any of my female friends. Yes, I can offer emotional support, to a limit. If the person is not interested in a solution and just wants me to be their priest, I'll be polite but will seek to limit contact.

Unfortunately in my experience with men who have 'shared their emotions', what they have actually done is dumped their emotional baggage at their female partner's feet and expected her to magic it all away.

Women are more than happy for men to share their emotions. But men need to fix their own problems. Women don't want to take on the mothering role for their partner.

This 1000 times over

Agree with OP that honestly most people can't actually help?

The only people who really want to listen in great detail will be grief vampires or creepy Low Value blokes wanting to find vulnerabilities ( any excuse to latch onto a woman) or drama llamas wanting to find gossip and dominate people.

A lot of narcissists LOVE talking and discussion as they can then use someone's vulnerabilities against them. Or use the situation to feel like a "rescuer" so they can be controlling.

For all parties, male and female, I think finding ways of self-soothing or radical acceptance or stress relief, are probably a lot better than "talking it out".

I often find as a woman I am compelled to give someone emotional support when I don't want to or can't. Men wouldn't be asked to do the same in many cases.

For example people dealing with personal issues at work.... I want to be nice and provide support, but don't have the personal bandwidth to get invested or do all the follow up I possibly am expected to. And then I feel guilty for not being caring.

I also don't actually think that women share problems because they want someone to 'help' them. They want someone to validate their feelings for them. They want someone to say 'that sounds hard/stressful/difficult/painful'. You can be a lot of support to someone without actually giving a lot or caring very much TBH.

Like I said, I think men share problems because they want someone else to fix it for them.

I agree with this as well, its fine to share but I think that some men rather than wanting to just share want the women to essentially make sense of their emotions for them and make them feel better.

So a man complaining to a woman about how he is lonely and unloved doesn't just want a friend who will listen, he wants a blow job.

I think for my husband, in times of crisis I am prepared to help him in this way in times of crisis, to help him make sense of his feelings and to offer comfort but I wouldn't want someone who needed their hand holding over every difficult emotion, that's a totally unreasonable request of anyone.

Totally agree.

Especially at work.

Women are just so competitive.

@Someonescatmum Absolutely, I remember as a teenager my mum had a stressful job with lots of interpersonal problems with colleagues and could vent about it for hours at the dinner table, my Dad and brothers would get up and just leave after eating but I always felt like I had to just sit there and listen and that it wouldn't be right to just leave her. Its interesting that my male relatives didn't feel the same pressure to be there. I many ways I'd want to be there for my Mum but it was a bit much.

@coxesorangepippin It does depend but I have experienced this, in my early 20's I sought to enter a male dominated field and had the opportunity speak to a woman who had been a pioneer in that area. I asked her the perfectly legitimate question of how she had found it as a woman working in that field and she just looked at me with contempt. I'm sure it was an annoying question but there was definitely and attitude of superiority from her and that if she had had it hard it should be hard for others as well.

@JoinedAtTheLip I agree we all need to find ways to deal with our own issues for the most part and if we can't professional help is the way to go.

I certainly tried to be there for people when I was younger but only ended up worn down by others problems, being taken advantage of and hurt when it was clear they wouldn't reciprocate in any way. I'm much more mindful of boundaries now.

Part of the issue is different people have different ideas about what "sharing emotions" means.

Sometimes I think that sole people confuse sharing emotions with trauma dumping, especially people who suffer from lack character syndrome and/or a victim complex.It means that when people have healthy boundaries or don't allow themselves to be negotiated into unpaid therapist roles the trauma dumper takes it very personally.

Some people want to "share emotions" but what they want is validation without question, others "share emotions" because they are quite passive and want someone to fix their problems for them so they don't have to do the leg work themselves.

Others want to "share emotions" but they have poor emotional boundaries so don't understand what is and isn't an appropriate level of sharing for the relationship. Eg. Expecting colleagues to listen to their woes on their lunch breaks. This places an unfair burden on (usually female) colleagues to take on more of someone else's mental load than is appropriate.

Then there's the people with a healthy approach to sharing and annoyingly we get dumped on a lot because people in the above groups think we don't have any of our own feelings/emotions/baggage when we all do in some way, it's just not endlessly broadcast.