10 Blunt Reasons Your Man Doesn't Comfort You When You Cry

10 Reasons Your Partner Ignores You When You Cry

A woman in a green shirt sits in the foreground, looking upset with a hand to her face. A man in a black and white checkered shirt sits on a couch in the background, arms crossed, looking away. The room is softly lit with plants visible.

When you cry, you’d expect your partner to hold you, wipe your tears away, and tell you that everything is going to be okay. Instead, he just ignores you and doesn’t seem to care that you would like nothing more than for him to comfort you.

Isn’t he supposed to make you feel better? Well, probably, but maybe there’s a good explanation for his lack of empathy.

There are many reasons why your partner might ignore you when you cry, so keep reading and see what applies to your situation.

1. He doesn’t know how to comfort you.

An elderly man and woman are outdoors. The man looks thoughtful, resting his chin on his hand, while the woman covers her face with her hand, appearing distressed. They are wearing casual clothing, and trees are visible in the background.

Some people simply aren’t good at comforting others. Maybe your partner is simply clueless about what to do when you cry, and he feels too awkward to try to wipe away your tears.

Solving your problem could be as easy as letting him know what you would like him to do in those situations and helping him feel more comfortable doing it.

Maybe he is not used to it, and he just needs some practice. This is especially true if no one ever cared when he cries, if he ever cries in front of others.

Some people, especially men, aren’t comfortable with crying in general, but more on that later.

2. He lacks empathy.

A woman sits on a couch, appearing upset and holding her forehead. In the background, a man stands facing away, looking contemplative. The room is softly lit, with shelves and a window visible.

Is your man capable of understanding and sharing emotions with other people?

If he has no empathy for others, it should come as no surprise that he shows none for you and your tears.

He has trouble relating to you and feeling what you feel, but that doesn’t have to be such a huge problem. Learning to be more empathetic is not easy. Your partner would have to be willing to put a lot of effort into it.

Lack of empathy isn’t the worst reason for him to not care when you cry. It’s certainly better than if he didn’t care about you to begin with.

3. He doesn’t know how to deal with strong emotions.

A man and woman sit on a couch, both appearing upset. The man, in a light gray shirt, leans forward with a hand on his forehead, while the woman, in a mustard yellow shirt, sits with her back to him, resting her head in her hand. The room has a brick wall and shelves.

Many men find it hard to deal with emotions, whether it’s their own or their partner’s. While hugging you when you’re hurting might come naturally to some men, others will find it difficult because they don’t know how to react to such strong emotions.

How does your partner react to other emotional situations? Does he cry sometimes?

If he’s the strong silent type that likes to keep quiet about his own emotions, it’s not surprising that he can’t react properly to yours.

If he gets quiet and distant in all emotional situations, especially negative ones, his problem is not about your tears.

On the other hand, if he only ignores you when you cry, the reason is probably something else.

4. He thinks crying is wrong.

An older couple sits on a blue couch in a bright room, both appearing upset. The woman in the foreground is looking down, with her hand on her cheek. The man in the background is turned away, looking out the window.

As already mentioned, some men were raised to think that there’s something wrong with crying. They often think that it’s a sign of weakness and that it’s not manly to cry, or, at the very least, that crying is unimportant and unnecessary.

If your partner was raised to think that way, he won’t be able to understand your tears and react to seeing them in the way you’d expect him to.

You should help him to, not just for your sake, but for his sake as well. There’s nothing wrong with crying, regardless of gender, age, or anything else.

He should find a way to be okay with being vulnerable and expressing his emotions, and a skilled professional could help him get there.

5. He got used to you crying.

A woman sits on a couch with her hand on her face, appearing upset. A man in the background sits with his head resting in his hand, also looking distressed. The room has neutral colors with shelves and plants.

How often do you cry?

Maybe you have cried in front of him so many times lately that it has become normal to him. Perhaps he used to comfort you, but he gave up because it kept happening, and he had nothing new to say or do that could help you.

If you frequently cry and he believes it’s because of trivial things, it could be the reason that he started to ignore you.

Maybe he is less sympathetic because you’ve needed him too many times. He might think that nothing he could do would make you happy again.

If this is the case, and you don’t have an extremely understandable reason to cry so often (such as grieving the loss of someone dear to you), try to dig deep and get to the root of the problem.

If you are constantly finding small reasons to cry, try to figure out whether there’s a bigger reason that you’re not addressing that could actually be causing your unhappiness.

6. He thinks crying is a form of manipulation.

A man and woman sit on a bed in a bedroom. The woman, looking upset, has her arms crossed and is facing away from the man. The man is gesturing with one hand and appears to be explaining or arguing with her. Both are casually dressed in jeans and sweaters.

Crying can be used to get what you want. We learn this as kids. So, your partner knows that tears can be used to manipulate someone, not just express sadness.

Whether you are doing it or not, if he thinks that you are trying to manipulate him, that’s likely the reason he ignores you. Maybe his ex-girlfriends used to emotionally blackmail him by crying whenever he wouldn’t do what they wanted him to.

If you stop crying when he does what you asked from him, he probably thinks that you started to cry to get him to do it in the first place. He may now assume that you’re trying to manipulate him every time you cry in front of him, whether it’s the truth or not, and therefore ignores your tears.

7. He doesn’t care about you.

A woman with short brown hair and a sad expression places her hand on the shoulder of a man, who is facing away from her. The man appears distant, and their body language suggests tension or emotional discomfort. The setting is indoors with a blurred background.

Unfortunately, one of the possible reasons why your partner doesn’t care when you cry is that he doesn’t care about you to begin with.

There are a lot of other possible reasons though, so you shouldn’t look at this problem separately from the other ones that you may or may not have in your relationship.

Does your partner treat you well and try to make you happy besides the situations when you cry?

If he is showing that he cares less about you than he did before in more ways than just ignoring your tears, he might have already checked out of the relationship.

Don’t jump to conclusions before considering all the facts though. If you are otherwise happy with your partner, his behavior regarding tears might have little or nothing to do with his feelings for you.

8. He is afraid that he’ll cry too.

A woman with a thoughtful expression rests her chin on her hands, while a man sitting next to her leans his head on her shoulder and places his hand on her upper arm. They appear to be in a comforting and supportive moment.

Maybe your man doesn’t mind it when you are vulnerable, but he wouldn’t like to be vulnerable too.

The reason he ignores your tears might be because they are too emotional for him, and he doesn’t want to cry too. He acts like he doesn’t care and backs away because he’s worried that he’ll start crying too.

Maybe he doesn’t want to let you see his emotions, so he walks away when you turn on the waterworks. This is especially true if his feelings could be hurt too.

9. He just wants to fix the problem.

A man and woman sit on a couch looking deeply upset. The man, in the foreground, rests his chin on his clasped hands, appearing troubled. The woman, in the background, looks at him with a worried expression, arms crossed over her knees. Both wear serious expressions.

A lot of men assume that the only way of dealing with a problem is by fixing it.

While you need your partner to hold you and comfort you by talking about feelings, he might be busy thinking about the solution to make the tears stop.

He doesn’t think that talking about the problem or crying about it with you will solve it. To him it’s simple – if you are crying about a leaky roof, he should go fix the roof or hire someone to do it. He thinks that there is no point in talking about how bad it feels to have a leaking roof.

You can help him understand that sometimes he’s fixing the problem simply by listening to you talk about it.

10. He doesn’t think that you have a reason to cry.

A woman sits on the floor with her head resting on her crossed arms, looking downcast. A man in the background, sitting on a couch, appears upset and is gesturing towards her. The scene suggests a conflict or argument between the two.