It’s Okay for Men to Cry

Last Sunday, when the Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams went down with an injury while scrambling to get a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings in the fourth quarter, he was visibly in pain. While he managed to walk off the field with help, he was later transported out of the stadium on a cart—a towel over his head to hide his tears.

The next day, some people mocked him for his tears, calling him a “crybaby,” saying he was “soft” or “overly dramatic.”

This is a professional athlete in his prime. A man who relies on his body for his livelihood. A man who didn’t know at the time how severe his injury was. A man who was in physical pain. A man who put his heart on the field to try and get a win.

A human being.

Different Rules

Women have long been expected to make themselves attractive, agreeable, nurturing, accommodating, and successful—but never so sexual, assertive, ambitious, angry, independent, or visible that they become “too much.”

Men, on the other hand, receive their own set of rules: be tough, don’t show fear, don’t cry, don’t appear vulnerable.

Different rules, perhaps. But they carry the same message: There are perfectly human parts of ourselves we’re not supposed to show.

Can’t Always Control Your Tears

I know something about what it feels like when another person decides your emotions are unacceptable.

A man I was in a relationship with didn’t like it when I cried during some of our arguments. He interpreted my tears as being dramatic and would get angry with me for crying, which only made everything worse.

But I wasn’t trying to be dramatic.

I wasn’t trying to manipulate him or make a point. I wasn’t even deciding to cry.

I was feeling something—hurt, sadness, frustration, fear—and sometimes the tears simply came.

What I wanted in those moments wasn’t for him to fix whatever I was feeling. I wanted him to be able to sit with it. To let me feel what I was feeling without judging it or becoming angry because my emotions made him uncomfortable.

I Love it When a Man Cries

That experience taught me something about emotional availability.

It’s not simply being able to talk about your own feelings. It’s being able to tolerate someone else’s.

Maybe that’s one reason I love it when a man cries.

Not because I want him to be sad. But because it tells me he isn’t afraid to let me see what he’s feeling. He’s willing to be vulnerable. He doesn’t believe that being a man requires him to keep sadness, fear, tenderness or pain hidden behind some carefully constructed wall of toughness.

When a man cries, I see someone secure enough in himself to stop trying to be strong and simply be human.

You Don’t Need Permission to Cry

And perhaps that’s what bothered me most about the reaction to Caleb Williams.

Why did his tears need to be justified by anything?

Would they have been acceptable if he’d torn his Achilles? If his season were over? If his career were threatened?

How badly does a man have to hurt before we give him permission to cry?

Maybe that’s the wrong question.

Because none of us should need permission to cry.

Real strength isn’t pretending nothing hurts. It isn’t swallowing every emotion or refusing to let anyone see you struggle. And it isn’t demanding that the people we love hide their emotions because those emotions make us uncomfortable.

Sometimes strength is trusting another person enough to let them see that something matters to you.

Sometimes it’s being strong enough to sit beside someone who is hurting and let them cry.

Sometimes it’s saying, “This hurts.”

And sometimes it’s simply letting the tears come.

That’s not weakness. That’s being human.