Men Grieve Differently

Men Grieve Differently

Understanding the Different Language of Loss

      Becoming a widow or a widower isn't something that a person signs up for.  There isn't an option given.  Grief is the price that we pay for the love that we shared for that person.  One of the most difficult parts of spousal loss is having to learn a whole new language, the language of grief.  For me personally I thought I understood that language of, but it didn't take me very long to realize that I had no idea how to grieve or how to express it.  One would assume that after pastoring nearly 20 years, conducting hundreds of funerals, sitting with multiple families as their loved one passed away would have taught me something, but it didn't.  Overnight I was thrust into a club I didn't want to belong too with no cancelation plan.  I was a widower at the age of 40.  Never in a million lifetimes did I see that coming. I was unprepared for it (but to be honest, who is rightly prepared for it).

      Grief speaks many different dialects. Some people express it with tears, words, and visible sorrow. Others carry it in silence, responsibility, and movement.  Some with anger, some with bitterness, some by placebos to numb the pain, some by moving too quickly, some by hoarding, etc.  There is no clear cut path through grief.  There is no finish line.  Grief has a common language among all people, but the dialects are extremely different.  What I quickly found was that a lot of material, a lot of counseling,  and a lot of pastoring is created around either common traits of grief that men and women shared together or toward the distinct way that a woman grieves....but there were no tools to help a man understand his unique and distinct way to grieve.  God created men and women different biologically.  There is no debate about the biology of humanity.  But men and women's differences aren't just in sexual anatomy, it's deeper.  God created men and women unique.  Our thinking, emotions, and reactions are distinct.  Why then is there libraries full of material for the way that woman grieves while a man is left with nothing.  His grief isn't spoken about or written about.  Do you know how isolating that is?  To know that there is basically nothing crafted for the way that God created men to grieve.  Men grieve too, despite what society quietly says.  There almost seems to be an expectation that men will be quickly, silently, and out of sight.  No one might say verbally, but each man that I've conversed with has felt that in the depths of his being.  Men grieve different.  This doesn’t mean a man loves less or hurts less.   Understanding that difference can help families avoid misunderstanding and help grieving men feel less alone.

      There are certain expectations that a person has when they enter into grief, but then there is the grief that we actually see and experience.  When most people imagine grief, they picture visible sorrow like crying, talking about memories, expressing pain openly.  I have grieved in all of those ways, but there is a sneaky side of grief when it comes to men.  Many men grieve in ways that are quieter.  They keep working.  Work almost becomes a numbing agent that prevents them from facing their pain.  Being busy becomes a coping mechanism or a distraction.  The average man returns back to work a week after his wife passes away.  Meanwhile a woman returns back after about three weeks.  To some observers this can look like distance or emotional avoidance. In reality, it is often a man’s way of surviving the pain, BUT that doesn't mean that it's a healthy way to grieve

      Men often process grief through doing rather than speaking.  The traditional man isn't 'in tune' with his emotions and many men are quieter then females.  They mow the lawn.  They clean the garage.  They organize paperwork.  They repair things that don’t need repairing.  These actions are not distractions as much as they are coping mechanisms. Activity allows a grieving man to carry sorrow without being completely overwhelmed by it.  For many men, grief moves through their hands before it reaches their words.

      There is a unsaid, but very felt pressure to stay strong.  From a young age, many men are taught a message that is rarely spoken but deeply felt: “Be strong.”  I vividly remember crying as a little boy and my grandfather said "men don't cry."  That memory was thirty five years ago.  I remember another time when a ground ball bounced up and hit me in the face.  I cried because it hurt.  My dad's response was to talk it off.  Men, for whatever reason feel like they have to be overly strong, and by strong I mean they feel that their grief makes them weak or less like a man.  So instead of addressing it they bury it.  They swallow it down.  When tragedy strikes, that expectation often becomes even heavier. A grieving husband, father, or son may feel responsible to hold everyone else together.  So he becomes the steady one.  He organizes the funeral.  He comforts the children.  He answers the phone calls.  He makes the decisions.

      But strength often comes at a cost. While others are given permission to fall apart, many men feel they must postpone their own grief.  While they look like everything might be fine on teh surface I can guarantee you that they are breaking on the inside.  They are slowly falling apart mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.  I will address this in a later post, but men that lose a wife have a shorter lifespan then a wife who loses a husband.  A man undergoes such a phycological change, his identity is lost, grief feels demasculating, he typically takes poor care of himself, and numbs his grief by drinking, pornography, gambling, etc.  So while you might see a man who is winning his grief battle, what you don't see is darkness that haunts his soul.  Sometimes that grief surfaces months, or even years later.  This is seen more clearly in grief counseling.  Roughly 1 out of 4 women will seek a grief counselor.  Men?  1 out of 10.  The number one reason why a man refuses counseling?  He views it as a sign of weakness.  That's tragic because counseling, one on one relationships, and relationships are often the things that the man needs most, but forsakes the quickest.  Isolation is dangerous because it only amplifies his negative thinking

      Grief isn't just hard for the person experiencing it, it's hard for those watching the grieving person.  They don't know what to say or to do.  One dear friend of mine thought that when I was silent, when I wasn't texting him, that things were better, that I was coping pretty well.  What he didn't realize was that silence didn't mean the absence of pain, it actually meant the presence of pain.  Silence is a two edged sword.  One part of a man needs communication so he doesn't isolate himself away, but another part of a man is that they need the silence to process their internal grief.  Those silent moments allow him to replay memories, to feel the loss deeply, to open the door to emotions that he needs to release so they don't guilt up.  But to the observer let me give you a warning as you look in from the outside, grief isn't always visible, but it's very real.

      Some people might look at men and ask the question, why doesn't a man simply ask for help?  One reason we mentioned above, they view asking for help as a symbol of weakness.  But another primary reason is because they don't want to feel like a burden.  Men like to be helpers, not the helped.  We like to be fixers, not the one that is broken.  The person we help isn't a burden to us, but when we need help we feel like a burden.  In the last few months I've had men tell me these exact phrases, "I should be stronger" or "I shouldn't need help" or finally, "people shouldn't be taking care of men."  The sad thing is that society has quietly cultivated this social norm.  Many men feel like a burden after losing their spouse because the one person they leaned on emotionally is gone. Instead of asking for help, they often carry their grief alone, believing their pain is too heavy for anyone else.  This only exasperates things and could be one of the main reasons why a man lives a shorter lifespan.

      Another key point is that grief often emerges in unexpected ways.  It doesn't work on a calendar, clock, or schedule.  It isn't convenient.  Because men frequently suppress or delay their grief, it sometimes appears in ways people do not immediately recognize.  It may show up as irritability, withdrawal, fatigues, increased focus on work, restlessness, or constant activity.   as irritability, withdrawal, fatigue, increased focus on work, restlessness or constant activity.  These are not signs that a man does not care. Often they are signs that he is trying to hold pain together, but failing at doing so.

      Men need to be reminded that grief ultimately has one source, love.  At the end of the day, grief comes from the same place for everyone, love.  Men may carry it differently.  They may express it differently.  They may reveal it more slowly.  But the depth of grief is never measured by the number of tears.  Sometimes the deepest grief is the one carried quietly by a man who continues to show up every day, doing the best he can with a heart that has been broken.  Grief is the ultimate price to pay for loving someone, a price that everyone will pay one day to some degree.  This is a hard statement to write, it's heavy, but it's a worthwhile payment to love someone so deeply.

      Scripture reminds us that even strong men experienced deep sorrow.  Let's debunk this idea that grief isn't manly.  In Psalms, we see the raw grief of King David poured out in prayer. His words show that strength and sorrow are not opposites.  God does not ask men to hide their grief. He invites them to bring it honestly before Him.

      When a man grieves, he is often fighting a battle few people can see. If we learn to recognize that different language of grief, we can offer something every grieving heart needs: patience, understanding, and the reminder that he does not have to carry the weight of loss alone.  For the grieving man.  Help is here.  I would love to help bear your burden and let you know that your pain is valid, your feeling are real, and the struggle is hard.  But I want to remind you also of a God who is faithful and offers hope and healing to you.