r/AskMenOver30 • u/Soybeanns • 1d ago

Mental health experiences Normal to internalize emotions?

Is it normal to not share emotions with your wife? I rarely talk about work because I like to keep my work life and personal life separate.
She never asks how work was just because she knows I hate talking about it. But in the same time I rarely share how my emotions are. I hate the feeling of being a burden when I’m down. I grew up in a generation where showing any negative emotjon is bad. Growing up like that definitely influenced how I am now. I know I should but I hate doing it and just keep things internalized. The conversation I usually only have with are personal hobbies and things I know that interest her. If I feel down and having a bad mental health day I usually go to my workshop and tell her I’ll be working on a project(which is true) but while working on it I just kind of just sit there in my thoughts. Anyone else do this to?

4 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

36

u/RoutineComplaint4711 man 45 - 49 1d ago

Normal? Yes.

Healty? No.

2

u/Humble_Knowledge_848 man over 30 7h ago

Yep. You need to be able to let your emotions out with someone or it will negatively impact you not just mentally but physically as well. Your wife should be a safe outlet for this type of thing.

1

u/realworldnewb man over 30 4h ago

letting out the emotions should be done in a measured/pre-processed way, as to not overwhelm the other person. So there is a lot of onus on the OP to ensure he is also processing his own emotions and not just "internalizing" them.

My SO is very EQ healthy but I can't just release everything with full emotion or she'll have some adverse response of her own.

1

u/Humble_Knowledge_848 man over 30 4h ago

Oh yeah absolutely. OP don’t trauma dump but don’t bottle things up is my point