You get home, and it all hits you at once. Your husband asks what's wrong, and you tell him, "Nothing, it's just been a bad day," and leave it at that. You'd like to let loose and unload all of the shit that's been shoveled onto your back, but there's nothing he can really do about it. He can't unstain your shirt, and lunch is six hours in the past. Telling him about your boss would just piss him off, and there's a chance he'll call him up and threaten to spin-kick his pancreas in half, getting you fired. You just need to get in the tub and cry it out.

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And maybe fill that tube with vodka.

But in His Mind ...

Men think of crying as a negative thing. I mean, we know the difference between an emotional breakdown and crying through your vows at the altar -- we're not that far removed from the concept. We're not thinking, "Oh, God, she's crying at her own wedding! She must hate me!" But in cases of the former, our natural instinct is to track down the cause of the problem and dick it to death.

It's not just a stereotype that men are linear thinkers. We like simple solutions to fixable problems. It's how we give ourselves worth and keep things stable and organized in our heads. So when we see a woman crying, to us it's like our car alarm going off at 3 a.m., and we're desperately fumbling around and pressing every button on the keys to shut it off before the neighbors wake up and sic their monkeys on us.