5 Crying Too Much Myths You Still Believe

OPENING

You've been working so hard to manage your emotions. You apologize when you cry. You try to control your sadness so your partner won't call you draining. You've spent evenings analyzing why you feel so much, wondering if you're broken somehow. You're putting in the effort-real, exhausting effort-to be less of a burden.

And yet, you're crying more than ever.

The 'Just Control Your Emotions' Trap Everyone Falls Into

When a partner says you're "always sad" and "ruining the mood," the conventional wisdom is clear: control your emotions better. The standard approach looks like this:

Step 1: Notice when you're getting sad

Step 2: Try to push the feeling down or talk yourself out of it

Step 3: Apologize if your sadness affects your partner

Step 4: Work harder to be more positive, less needy, less draining

Step 5: If you still feel sad, keep it to yourself to avoid being a burden

This is what most people do. It's what you've probably been doing. The logic seems sound: if your sadness is the problem, then being less sad is the solution. If your emotions are draining your partner, then managing those emotions should improve the relationship.

You've likely heard this framed as "emotional regulation" or "taking responsibility for your feelings." It sounds mature. It sounds like growth.

Why Trying Harder Makes You Cry More

But here's what actually happens when you follow this approach:

You notice you're getting sad about something your partner said. You try to push it down. Your partner makes another subtle negative comment. The sadness intensifies. You try harder to control it, but now you're also feeling shame about being sad in the first place. Your body tenses. Your throat tightens. And then, despite your best efforts, you're crying.

Now you're not just sad-you're sad and ashamed and failing at the very thing you're supposed to be doing.

Your partner responds with frustration: "See? You're always like this. You're so draining." You apologize for crying, which confirms his assessment that you're the problem. The cycle tightens.

The more effort you put into being less sad, the worse you feel. You're crying 3-4 times per week now. You're starting to use words like "unhinged" and "lesser" to describe yourself. You're questioning whether your feelings are even valid anymore.

If the standard approach were working, you'd be crying less by now. You'd feel more stable. Your relationship would be improving.

Instead, you feel like you're losing your grip on reality.

The Pattern-Tracking Method That Changes Everything

Here's what I discovered after years of working with people in this exact situation: the problem isn't that you're trying to manage your emotions wrong. The problem is that you're trying to manage the wrong thing.

Instead of trying to control your sadness, track the relationship pattern that creates it.

Instead of asking "How do I stop being so emotional?" ask "What keeps triggering these emotions, and how does my partner respond when I'm in pain?"

Instead of focusing inward on fixing yourself, look outward at the interaction cycle.

This reversal feels uncomfortable at first. You've been told the problem is your sadness. You've internalized the belief that if you could just control your emotions better, everything would be fine. Shifting focus from your internal state to the relationship dynamic feels like making excuses or deflecting responsibility.

But watch what happens when you track the pattern instead of trying to suppress the feeling: You start to see something you couldn't see before.

The Invisible Mechanism Making You Feel Crazy

There's an invisible mechanism operating in your relationship, and once you see it, everything makes sense.

Research on relationship dynamics has identified something called the demand-withdraw pattern. Here's how it works:

When one partner experiences distress and seeks connection or support, the other partner responds with criticism or emotional withdrawal. This response doesn't resolve the distress-it intensifies it. The distressed partner tries harder to be heard or understood ("demand"), which triggers more withdrawal or criticism. The cycle reinforces itself.

But there's a more insidious version of this pattern. It's called crazymaking.

Here's the mechanism: Your partner says or does something that hurts you (a subtle criticism, a dismissive tone, a sharp comment). You feel sad. He then criticizes you for being sad, while denying or minimizing his role in causing the sadness. You're now dealing with two layers: the original hurt and being blamed for your reaction to being hurt.

When you tried the standard approach-controlling your emotions-you were trying to fix the symptom while the mechanism kept running. It's like bailing water out of a boat while someone keeps drilling holes in the bottom. Your effort was real, but it was directed at the wrong target.

The mechanism has another component: accountability imbalance. In your relationship, who decides what's "real" about what happened? When you say something hurt you and he says you're being too sensitive, whose version becomes the accepted truth?

If it's consistently his version, then there's an invisible process happening: one person gets to define reality, and the other person's lived experience gets erased. Over time, this creates exactly what you described-feeling "unhinged," questioning whether your feelings are valid, losing your sense of what's true.

When you track the pattern instead of controlling the emotion, you're making this invisible mechanism visible. You're creating evidence of what's actually happening instead of accepting his definition of what's happening.

One person I worked with used a modified thought record: Column 1-What partner said/did, Column 2-My emotional response, Column 3-Partner's response to my emotion, Column 4-What this pattern tells me about accountability.

After one week, she had fifteen entries. Every single one showed the same sequence: partner behavior → her distress → partner blaming her for the distress → no acknowledgment of his role.

She said: "This isn't random. This is a system."

That's the mechanism. And you can't fix a system by trying harder to control your reaction to it.

The Paradigm Shift That Makes Tears Make Sense

This changes how you understand what's been happening.

Old paradigm: "I'm too emotional. My sadness is ruining the relationship. If I could just be stronger, more stable, less needy, everything would be fine. The problem is me."

New paradigm: "My emotions are information. My sadness is a signal that something is wrong in the relationship dynamic. The problem isn't that I feel sad-the problem is that I'm in a relational pattern where one person triggers distress and then blames the other for being distressed, while refusing to take any responsibility for their role in the cycle."

This reframe isn't about blaming your partner instead of yourself. It's about seeing accurately.

In healthy relationships, there's something called reciprocal vulnerability: both partners can express needs, both partners can be hurt, and both partners respond to each other's pain with care and responsibility. When you're upset, a healthy partner asks what's wrong. They're curious. They take responsibility if they contributed to your pain.

What you've been experiencing is the opposite: when you're upset, your partner criticizes you for being upset. He frames your needs as you being "demanding." He positions your emotional responses as character defects. And crucially, he never apologizes for his behavior while expecting you to apologize for yours.

This means the tears aren't the problem. The tears are your system's appropriate response to being in emotional pain that isn't being acknowledged or addressed.

Crying 3-4 times per week isn't a sign that you're broken. It's a sign that you're in a relationship where your reality is being challenged, your pain is being dismissed, and you're carrying the full weight of responsibility for problems that involve two people.

Your instinct to build your own network of friends and create space independent from your partner? That's not selfish. Research shows that maintaining independent relationships and activities is essential for psychological wellbeing, especially in relationships where your reality is being challenged. You're not abandoning the relationship-you're creating a foundation so you don't lose yourself entirely.

What Changes When You See The Pattern

Something has changed in how you see this.

You came into this believing you were the problem-too sad, too draining, too emotional. You thought if you could just manage yourself better, the relationship would heal.

Now you can see the pattern. You understand that your tears aren't a character flaw; they're a signal. You recognize that when you have good conversations with friends who validate your experience, your partner's criticisms don't land the same way. You're developing what's called differentiation-the ability to maintain your sense of self even when someone disagrees with or criticizes you.

You're starting to see his criticisms as information about the relationship dynamic rather than truth about your worth.

You can't unsee this now.

Your 60-Second Pattern-Recognition Test

Before you close this, do one small thing:

The next time you feel sad or upset in your relationship-even slightly-don't try to control it. Instead, notice what happened right before the feeling arose. Notice how your partner responds to your emotion. Then ask yourself one question:

"In this interaction, who is being asked to take responsibility, and who isn't?"

You don't need to write anything down yet. You don't need to confront anyone. Just notice.

This takes 60 seconds. But it interrupts the automatic pattern where you immediately turn inward and blame yourself.

The 3 Signs You'll Start Seeing Everywhere

Once you start tracking who takes responsibility and who doesn't, you'll see the pattern everywhere.

You'll notice that when you express a need, the conversation somehow becomes about his feelings, and you end up comforting him.

You'll notice that you can recall multiple times when he hurt you and didn't apologize, but you struggle to remember a time when you hurt him and didn't apologize.

You'll notice that his version of events consistently becomes "what really happened," while your version is dismissed as being "too sensitive" or "remembering wrong."

And you'll notice something else: the more clearly you see the pattern, the less power it has to make you feel crazy.

The tears might not stop immediately. You're still in pain, and that pain is real. But you'll cry with clarity instead of confusion. You'll cry knowing that your emotional response is appropriate, not evidence that you're defective.

That clarity is the beginning of something important.