You guys are getting emotional support???
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This attitude is why so many men report suffering from chronic loneliness.
Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
51–60 of 191 posts
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#52Men have emotional support networks?
I had two, then only one once the liquor store down road closed up shop.
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#53Only half? Thats a really wide range too. By 90 it is increasingly likely your spouse and close friends are mostly dead. My emotional support network consists of two people, my long-term partner and my parent(s). My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal). Only your parents might love you unconditionally, and they have a pretty decent head start wit…
Well for me, half of 0 is still 0 and I'm not even 30 yet.
> My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal).
I haven't told anyone but a therapist the abuse I've been facing from a partner because it would break my parents heart. I've been back-stabbed now 3 times from different people I was closest with relationship or friendship-wise over the past decade (because you're right it's conditional).
I honestly don't see how informing friends and family around me that I've been physically attacked many times, forced to wipe all evidence, hunted down, de-escalated 20 bloodcurdling screaming panic attack episodes, stop 2 of their suicide attempts, lied to at every turn, was cheated on, and then abandoned (BPD & drug abuse). I should make the people around me share in how awful I feel? That won't resolve anything, just like the therapist that can't change it.
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#54Once you're an adult, do you even need one in the first place?
I'm 24, I don't go to anyone for help pretty much ever, I just follow my own goals. That's gotten me way farther than most people I know
I don't think this talk about "male emotional support networks" is actually intended to help men, it's meant to infantilize them. They'd be better off just buying into the nietzschean "support yourself" type of worldview
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#55"However, generalized responses, such as “family” or “friends,” as well as mentions of non-human sources like pets, were excluded from formal analyses." They excluded everyone that had a large support network from the study.
Oh, that explains it. I was sitting here wondering how anyone has only two to begin with.
I had none for a very long time. Happy to report I have someone now.
Your dismissal of people with small emotional support networks angers me if I'm being honest.
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#56Yeah. Prob 90% of mine went away between 36-40 years old.
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#57Men typically rely on their wives as their sole emotional support, and then people are surprised when 70% of divorces are initiated by women.
Well, let’s look at two things here:
1. Men often suck at providing emotional support, as is a common complaint from women. So are men expected to rely on men for emotional support, or extramarital female relationships?
2. Men are typically limited access to female peers when they get married. For example, my first wife told me flat out which of my friends were too attractive for me to maintain friendships with. Reiterating that men are pretty lousy at providing emotional support so women who don’t have the weight of marriage forcing them to maintain the relationship are going to feel an imbalance and stop offering the uncompensated labor means we can’t rely on other women either.
Until men are raised to give emotional support, we’re not going to be effective at or equitable about obtaining it, either.
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any idea how many women have? The form of this study was specific to men and very long-running, so I don't know where you'd get comparable data. Still, it would be interesting to take a stab at it. Is it 2? 1? 10?
Anecdotally I'd say I can't imagine living with like, one or two people I turn to for emotional support. Would be a nightmare. I know probably 20 or 30 people I could turn to if I needed something, even just to vent. I wouldn't even necessarily say I'm that close with most of them. It's sort of just... table stakes?
Imagine three other possibilities:
You have a dozen people who would give you emotional support but you don't ask for any because you aren't sure you could give emotional support in return.
You have a dozen people you think might give you emotional support but you don't want to burden them with your problems.
You have a dozen people that would give you emotional support, maybe once, but you are too afraid to burn the single emotional support coupon until its more important.
Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
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Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks
#60Only half? Thats a really wide range too. By 90 it is increasingly likely your spouse and close friends are mostly dead. My emotional support network consists of two people, my long-term partner and my parent(s). My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal). Only your parents might love you unconditionally, and they have a pretty decent head start wit…
> My long term partner loves me conditionally I've come to learn the only unconditional love is that between parent-child
Some people come to learn that it can be quite conditional between parent and child as well.