It's been a while since my boyfriend has cried, so I've been low on the observations recently. But he cried on two consecutive days last week!

The first time was late at night when we were lying in bed. I was falling asleep, and he woke me up, saying, "Are you listening?" Apparently, he'd been talking for about twenty minutes, thinking that I was awake. I realized instantly that he was telling me something emotional, and this realization woke me up quickly. He told me everything again, and we hugged for a few minutes. It was dark, so I couldn't see him, but I could hear his voice catching a little bit, and I felt a slight wetness on his face when I put my face against his. He began to get emotional, and I could tell he was about to cry. I hugged him more tightly, and he buried his face in my shoulder. He was trying to sob silently, since there was someone else in the other room of our apartment. I could feel his body heaving against mine with every sob, and he was taking some short, gaspy breaths between sobs. He cried for about five minutes, at which point he got up to blow his nose. When he came back, we hugged a little more and fell asleep.

Then the next day, something happened that caused us to get into an argument. I was really angry, and I decided that instead of reacting immediately, I would leave for a few minutes to cool down so that we could have a rational discussion. This worked better than I'd hoped, because even though we were both upset when I got back, we didn't yell or say anything we regretted. We talked about what had happened, which led to a discussion of some of his deep-seated problems. We were sitting on the couch (alone in the apartment this time), and I put my arms around him gently. He began to sob similarly to the way he had done the night before. When I pulled away, his face was covered in tears, and his eyes were red. He blew his nose a couple of times, and we continued talking. As we talked, a tear would occasionally fall from his eye, sometimes down his nose, sometimes to his lips, and sometimes all the way down his neck. He let some fall unchecked, wiped others, and let me wipe a few more.

After a few minutes, the conversation got even more emotional, and he broke down again. His lower lip and chin began to quiver, and he covered his eyes with his hand. His mouth began to contort as he tried to continue speaking, but I just put my arms around him and let him sob. At first, he was sobbing quietly, but at some point, he decided to let it all out and cry quite hard. I just held him tightly and told him I loved him, and he cried for about 10-15 minutes.

When he was done, he was in such a good mood. It was actually quite amazing. I could tell that a lot of emotion that he'd been holding in had finally been released, and we were both happy to have resolved our argument quickly. Since then, he's been so much more open than he has been. I think he really feels lighter after that release.

The most amazing part was that yesterday, he told me that he really appreciated the fact that I love crying so much, because he finally feels that someone truly cares about his emotions. He said that while he was crying, he thought for a split second that I was probably somewhat enjoying the tears, and he felt an overwhelming sense of security, as if it was completely safe for him to let it all out in front of me. I guess it's hard for me to truly believe that he isn't at all weirded out by it, even though he tells me that he isn't, but I'm certainly glad.

Last edited by carrotcake (April 23, 2013 2:58 pm)