Reflections · Individuals
Why can't I cry anymore?
Usually because somewhere along the way you trained it out — or had it trained out of you — one suck it up at a time. Not being able to cry is rarely broken plumbing, and it almost never means you feel nothing. For most men it means the feelings stopped getting through to the surface: the capacity is intact, but a well-practised numbness stands in front of it, still doing the job it learned when you were young — go flat, carry on, deal with it later. The cost shows up at the moments you most want to feel something — the wedding, the funeral, your kid's last game — and feel nothing instead. The good news: what was learned can be unlearned.
Is it normal to not be able to cry?
Common, yes — and measured. Biochemist William Frey ran the classic numbers in the 1980s: women cried about 5.3 times a month, men about 1.3, and newer research collected by the American Psychological Association finds those averages roughly unchanged forty years on. A 35-country comparison led by psychologist Dianne Van Hemert adds the detail that matters here: the crying gap between men and women is widest in countries with the most freedom of expression — Chile, Sweden, the United States — and nearly closes in countries like Ghana and Nepal. Hard wiring doesn't vary by postal code. Training does.
So the useful question is usually not what's wrong with your tear ducts. It's what you learned, who taught it, and what it's costing you now.
Numbness is a skill somebody taught you
Terry Real, who developed the approach I practise in, describes how boys get pushed out of the relational world early — taught to disconnect from their own feelings, and from other people, as the price of manhood. By school age, most boys already know which feelings buy respect and which buy trouble. Psychologist Ronald Levant gave the adult result a name: normative male alexithymia — difficulty identifying and describing feelings, trained into men so widely that it passes for normal.
The research backs the "normative" part. A 2024 meta-analysis of 120 studies and 88,721 people found that men and women differ only modestly in overall alexithymia. The one gap of real size sits in what researchers call externally oriented thinking: attention aimed at tasks, facts and the next thing to fix, and away from whatever is happening inside. That is not an inability to feel. It is decades of aiming your attention somewhere else. Most men who can't cry feel a great deal — the signal just arrives as a tight jaw, a short temper, a bad night's sleep. Anything but tears. Under pressure, the same training runs the same play: I've written separately about why men wall off when challenged.
Myth and reality
| Myth | Reality |
|---|---|
| If I can't cry, I must not feel things deeply. | Feelings that can't reach your eyes land in your body instead — jaw, shoulders, chest, sleep. The problem is usually access, not absence. |
| Crying would mean falling apart. | Crying is regulation, not collapse. In diary research, most people felt better or no worse after crying; shame and unsupportive company are what predict the bad outcomes. |
| Numbness only mutes the hard stuff. | Numbness is a dimmer, not a scalpel. It takes the grief down and takes the joy down with it — which is why so many numb men describe their lives as fine, and flat. |
| It will come back on its own. | It left through experience and it comes back through experience — safety, attention, practice. Waiting mostly produces more waiting. |
When the numbness is something else
Two cases deserve their own attention. If you used to cry and the flatness is new — if it arrived alongside exhaustion, low motivation and the sense that nothing feels good any more — that pattern looks less like old training and more like depression, which commonly blunts emotion in every direction. I've written about telling burnout and depression apart, and that distinction is worth a doctor's visit, not a guess. Grief is the second case. In the first weeks after a loss, numbness is a normal part of shock, and the tears often arrive later, at some small unguarded moment. Neither case means you're broken. Both respond better to support than to willpower.
How feeling comes back
Not by forcing tears. The route back runs in a different order. Body first: notice where the feeling physically sits — throat, chest, behind the eyes — before asking what to call it. Words second: naming feelings precisely is a trainable skill, and there's a free three-minute tool on this site built for exactly that. Safety third: feeling returns in company where it's safe to have, and that is most of what therapy is — a practice field, not an interrogation. In Relational Life Therapy terms, the part of you that learned to go numb — Real calls it the adaptive child — did its job and got you this far. The work of individual therapy, and of therapy for men in particular, is letting a wiser, more current part of you take over the controls.
Most men do this late or never. In the Canadian Men's Health Foundation's 2025 study of 2,000 Canadian men, 67 per cent had never used a professional mental-health service of any kind — while 64 per cent reported moderate to high stress. You don't have to be in crisis to start. Starting before the crisis is the stronger move.
And if the tears do come back one day — at the kitchen table, at a graduation, alone in the car — let them. Crying was never the goal. It's the receipt.
Common questions
Is it normal to not be able to cry?
Common, yes — especially for men. Classic research found men cry about once a month on average and women about five times, and cross-cultural studies show the gap tracks culture rather than biology. Common is not the same as cost-free, though: if the numbness bothers you, that's reason enough to work on it.
Why can I cry at movies but not about my own life?
Because the movie is safe. A film gives your feelings somewhere to go with no consequences — nobody in the cinema needs you to hold it together. Tears over fiction are usually proof the capacity is intact, and that the block is about safety rather than depth of feeling.
Is not being able to cry the same as alexithymia?
Not exactly. Alexithymia means difficulty identifying and describing feelings, and plenty of people who can't cry can still name what they feel. The two often travel together in men because both grow from the same training: pay attention to the task, not the feeling.
Can depression stop you from crying?
Yes. Depression commonly blunts emotion in every direction, so people who used to cry easily find they can't. If the flatness is new and comes with exhaustion, low motivation or loss of pleasure, talk to your doctor or a therapist rather than filing it under personality. If you're having thoughts of harming yourself, get help the same day — call or text 9-8-8, or the Vancouver Island Crisis Line at 1-888-494-3888.
Can medication make it harder to cry?
Some antidepressants blunt emotional expression, including tears, for some people. If you noticed the change after starting or adjusting a medication, raise it with your prescriber — and don't change the dose on your own.
Will I be pushed to cry in therapy?
No. Therapy for men who feel numb is not about producing tears on a schedule. It works on noticing what your body is doing, finding words for it, and saying those words to another person while it's happening. Tears sometimes follow — as a byproduct, not a target.
How does therapy help if I feel nothing?
Feeling nothing is itself material. It's a pattern with a history, and it shows up in the room, where we can work with it directly. We start with what the numbness protects you from, practise noticing feeling at low intensity, and build from there. You don't need to arrive with feelings ready to go.
Where can I get help with this in Victoria, BC?
Victoria Relationship Therapy offers individual therapy and therapy for men in person in downtown Victoria and online across British Columbia. Book a free fifteen-minute consultation through the contact page, or call 604-937-6006.
A note: This article is general information, not therapy or a substitute for it. If you're in crisis or need urgent help, please call or text 9-8-8 (Suicide Crisis Helpline) or call 9-1-1.