No place for broken men

I was at my lowest point. Worn thin from worry, sick at the thought of going to work, and flirting with a real life nervous breakdown. My voice wavered and turned raspy. I couldn’t sleep. All I wanted was to stop everything. Stay home, stay in bed, let the debt collectors come for me.

Over the two years leading up to that point, I had comforted my girlfriend while she had similar bouts of depression. I encouraged her to seek happiness. I worked harder so she could quit her job. I thought, at my worst, she would reciprocate.

But I learned that a broken man and a broken woman are not just mirror images.

I don’t blame her for her reaction. I love her. We’re engaged now and plan to marry next year. This is not about her. This is about social expectations.

For most of my life, I excelled at keeping my emotions private. They occasionally burst out as anger, of course, but that was to be expected. Eventually, though, I learned to be vulnerable. I tested myself during a men’s weekend that pushed my boundaries and forced me to face my past, my insecurities, and my anger. After that weekend, I tried to open up more and share my struggles with loved ones.

I shared my struggles with my girlfriend, too. She knew of my worries. She knew I hated my job. She knew that I felt anxiety about how my life was unfolding.

She could handle that. I was a modern man, able to be strong and yet sensitive.

But she could not handle a broken man.

The day I fell apart, when my voice crumbled, and tears pooled in my eyes, she wasn’t supportive. She was scared.

I was nothing if not strong. I was the concrete foundation in our relationship. I was the steel beam holding everything together. I was allowed to be sad, to be frustrated. But I was not allowed to break.

If I broke, everything we knew would break. She could break over and over again, but I would still be there. She could break and things would not fall apart.

But I could not break. If I broke, she couldn’t hold us together.

Around me, friends and family counseled me to keep it together. I needed to stay on my feet, keep going to work until I could find something else, and try not to focus on the upsetting parts of my life. Go ahead and be sad, Jon, but don’t stop doing your job as a man. Don’t ever let life break you.

But sometimes life just does break you. For my girlfriend, being broken was cause for compassion and comfort. For me, breaking down was a sign of failure. A man keeps going. A man doesn’t stop.