Huge welcome also to our new members - glad to have you posting...

@wondedpuppy and @braveenough: both of you seam to have husbands that don't cry very often, couple of questions - when you did see them cry can you describe the way in which they cried - i.e. visible tears on their face, wiping tears away versus flowing tears down face, sobbing etc. Also, do you think they have cried in private during this time but not told you - too embarrased etc.

With the incident from 7 years ago, he was lying down and few tears trickled out of the corners of his eyes, but they basically trickled sideways (towards his hair), not straight down his face, due to the position he was lying in.  However, my guess (a pure guess!) is that he probably wouldn't have bothered to wipe them even if they had fallen straight down his face.  I don't know why I think that except that I guess I feel he wasn't that embarrassed in front of me, so there would be little reason to wipe them away unless they were bothering him.  And on that note, no, I don't think he has cried in private without telling me about it -- who knows, he may have felt somewhat 'emotional' at some point and not made a thing of it, but I would be very shocked about any actual crying that he didn't tell me about.  I think he would tell me because he knows how important it is to me.  I don't feel that he's embarrassed about crying in front of me, so therefore I can't see him being embarrassed about admitting that he cried.  He would make me swear that I wouldn't tell anyone else about it, of course -- but I do believe he would tell me.

To finish up the other questions, no, he didn't really sob that I recall, although I distinctly remember a sentence getting cut off with a choke or tremble in the voice type of thing.

If my husband were to take such a survey, I'm sure he would say that he never, ever, EVER cries, and hasn't since he was a small child.  My theory is that he didn't wipe away the tears because he was ignoring them and didn't want to acknowledge, even to himself, that they existed.

Oh, I'm sure he was quite aware that he was crying.  He just doesn't like to admit it.  Early in our marriage, I was concerned about the fact that I'd seen him lose both grandmothers within six months of each other, followed soon by an uncle being killed in an accident, and he never shed a tear.  He had been badly abused by his father and had learned to shut it off.  The entire subject embarrasses him.  He sometimes sits in on my therapy sessions, and during one of them I brought up the concern.  The therapist outright asked him if he had ever cried in his adult life.  He flatly denied it.  That was almost two years before the cat died, whereupon his tears were undeniable.

A few days after it happened, he pointed out how much more loving I was acting toward him.  I didn't quite know how to tell him why, and I ventured, "This is going to sound stupid."  He let me off the hook.  "I think I know.  It's the way I acted when (the cat) died."  Here he is acknowledging that he was crying, without saying it, because the topic still embarrasses him.  I noticed how carefully he avoided the c-word, so I didn't say it either.  I simply told him I appreciated being let into his inner world.

I'm almost sure, if some therapist again asked him if he's ever cried in his adult life, he would still deny it.  Not because he is a liar, but because he is just too inhibited.  The very thought of it raises high anxiety in him.  He did tell me he felt like he could let his guard down with me, because I'm his wife, and he asked me not to tell anybody.  Technically I'm honoring that, since this is all anonymous.

He let the tears dry on his face.  Every once in a while he might reach up quickly like he was brushing away a loose hair, but in general he ignored it.  At one point I myself reached up to dry one, but mostly I just held his hand.  There were a number of tears over a period of maybe ten or twenty minutes, beginning from driving away from the vet's office, to shortly after we were home.  He was driving, which could account for ignoring the tears, because he had to keep his hands on the wheel.  Except for that occasional gasping sound, I would never have known he was crying without looking directly at him.  When we arrived home, we snuggled together on the couch, and it was pretty much the same.  Gradually the tears subsided.  We now have an unspoken agreement not to talk about it.

Which is why I especially appreciate being able to spill all the details here.

Last edited by BraveEnough (August 1, 2012 6:39 pm)

Thank you so much for sharing - this is why this forum is fantastic, we get to hear wonderful details like this