How Gen X Men Learned Silence and How To Undo It - Episode 326

I talk to the quiet, tired midlife man and the partner who is confused by his silence, and I lay out why this pattern is often nervous system overwhelm, not coldness. I unpack the cultural scripts, the physiology, and the relationship research so we can replace shame with clarity and choose a better way forward. 

• the two contradictory scripts men are handed and why both fail decent men 
• why social media grifters and hot takes keep men angry, afraid, and stuck 
• loneliness data, friendship gaps, and why men’s risk can escalate faster 
• the testosterone slope, andropause reality, and why lifestyle can mimic low T 
• men’s stress reactivity, cortisol spikes, and the “frantic under armor” pattern 
• Gen X conditioning, gender role conflict, restrictive emotionality, and alexithymia 
• Gottman’s stonewalling research, flooding, and the demand withdrawal spiral 
• the 20 minute rule, self-soothing without numbing, and returning to repair 
• building emotional vocabulary as nervous system regulation and neuroplasticity 
• breaking the chain for kids by modelling feelings, steadiness, and character 
• the difference between being nice, being good, and living by a code 

please follow, rate, review, and share it. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Men Matter

Sandy Kruse 0:02

Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Kruse. Welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. For many years now, I've been a trusted voice for people in midlife and beyond who want a deeper, more honest conversation about wellness. One that includes the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the esoteric. Most episodes are solo now because I want to bring you thoughtful research, lived experience, and grounded insight without bias. And when I do bring on a guest, it's because their work genuinely adds something meaningful to the conversation. Here we explore the full spectrum of what it means to be well, how the body functions, how the mind heals, how the spirit expands, and how all of these layers shape life lived with clarity and joy. Thanks for being here. And if this show resonates with you, please follow, rate, review, and share it. It truly helps the message reach more people. Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. Today I am going to do a part two because this popular episode was so good, but I wanted to make sure I felt really aligned to record a part two. And this is called The Gen X Man, the Good Man, How He Was Built and How He Evolves.

The Quiet Changes After 40

Sandy Kruse 1:54

I think it's a very important topic to talk about midlife men. They don't get enough press. And the man, somewhere around 50, who's gone quiet, maybe he flips out like and you know, you're the partner going, huh? He's never been like this before. Maybe he's tired in a way that sleep just doesn't fix. He holds everything up, never says a word about what it costs him. You might be married to him, or you might be him, and that's who this episode is for. Here's what the world hands that man. You basically get two scripts. So I'm gonna kind of talk about you or him, but understand that I'm coming from a very empathetic point of view with a lot of compassion for these men. But basically, they're handed two scripts. So you might be the woman listening, you might be the guy listening. You either are told to dominate, never flinch, and then the other one says that you're the problem. And then sport talk radio tells you that you know you need more tea, and that's the problem. And in the end, this guy, you say nothing, you do nothing, you disappear a little more each year, and from the outside, we call this being strong. So I want to take you inside what's actually happening to him, to you, your body, your nervous system, the way an entire generation of men got built to feel nothing out loud. Because once you understand how this was created, you stop seeing that cold man, and you start seeing a man who was handed a set of rules before he could even choose them. And you start to see how he can be set free. So at the root of my podcast today is compassion and empathy for the regular guy, not the biohacker, not the health enthusiast, although maybe them too, because this can happen to any guy, but a lot of guys who are really into their health may take note of it much sooner. So I recorded a podcast as one of my first solo episodes this year in 2026, and it did really well. And if I look at my YouTube stats, it's all men who listened. So I'm not sure who I'm gonna be speaking with today. Let's say it's the partner or that guy. Maybe it's you, but the one in January was called The Quiet Changes in Men After 40. It was episode 304. And I was naming what many forget amongst, you know, all this menopause and women's health traffic in the social media space. I mean, the I'm talking about the forgotten regular midlife guy who's maybe dealing with his own stuff. I don't have any bias in this. I'm not selling you a therapy session or a biohacking supplement to make it all go away. I am trained in holistic health: body, mind, spirit, soul. Everything I do is always about science and soul. And everything you read about speaks to how important the quality of our closest relationships are to our longevity. And it's about the quality. So it's never just about women and menopause or you know, women's health, it's about all of these relationships, and it's always about science and soul. So that's where I come at from today. So be sure wherever you're watching or listening that you hit subscribe, whether it's on Spotify or Apple, because this really, really helps me to get more listeners. And it's very hard in this podcasting world without an engine to support all of the work that goes out to making this type of content. I do it all alone. I've been in this space for over six years. I have over 1.4 million downloads. And my sole purpose is, no, I'm gonna say my primary purpose is passion over profit. So you know I'm coming at this from an objective point of view from a 56-year-old woman who's wise, who's trained. So I'm not trying to sell you anything, I'm just asking for your support. So let's get into it. First segment. Let's kill the noise first. So, before anything, all the noise has to go. So there's an entire industry that's profiting off men's confusion right now. So you've got the manosphere that sells you a costume, dominance, never show weakness. And often it can leave you

The Industry That Profits Off Men

Sandy Kruse 7:26

feeling more alone than when you even started. And then the opposite camp treats masculinity itself like it's a disease. You know what I'm talking about. And and then there's a lot of decent men just, you know, like what I am, they're thinking what I am is wrong. So it's very conflicting and very contradictory and complicated. Richard Reeves of Boys and Men in of Boys and Men says it clean cleanly. One side will ignore the struggles of men, and the other side weaponizes them. So both abandon them. So if you're a man listening, you have to mute a lot of the grifters and the 30-second clips on social media. You can't find yourself inside a feed that's built to keep you angry and afraid and unsure. It's very difficult. And there's a lot of these really big divorce lawyers who come on social media with extreme aggressive opinions. And, you know, this is what causes divorce. Do this, don't do that. And it's like it's very, you know, this or that advice, and nobody can tell you inside of your own relationship what's going on. But that's why I'm going to kind of break down a few different areas. And then, you know, none of this is advice, none of this is mental health advice or marriage advice or therapy advice or health advice. It's just giving you the breadcrumbs so that you can go and figure it out. And it's actually naming it. And I think that's really an important part to start at because until we identify something and bring it to the surface, we can't possibly heal it or help it get better. Men are really struggling. A lot of men are, and almost no one says it. And it's not that men are uniquely lonely. Men and women both report loneliness about the same rate, but the difference is where it can go.

Loneliness Friendship And Suicide Numbers

Sandy Kruse 9:40

So men turn to a friend for emotional support far less than women, roughly 38% versus 54%. And most men lean on one person for all of it, and that's their partner. But what happens if they're shutting down with their partner, too? Right? So men with no close friend has climbed sharply since the 1990s. Among single men, it's around one in five. And the number that stops me cold is men are under half of our population, but account for close to 80% of suicides. I've noticed this over many, many years because I'm I'm very much a watcher and I kind of remember everything. So I just take a lot of it in. I'm an observer of society, of energy, of actions, of words. I just really take it all in. I'm an extremely sensitive individual. I never showed myself as such for many, many years, but I am. And one thing I've noticed is that most of men's relationships are built on surface conversations. You know, those are, you know, held on the golf course. Um, just like those 30-second reels that we see on Instagram that we're we're going and taking advice from. So they often don't go very deep, and often conversations are sullied with just too many drinks, jokes, razzing, never, you know, meaningful conversations. So now we have to get into a man's physiology around this age. So there is a male hormone story. It's not menopause. You can't compare it to the complicated, I'm gonna say, adjustment that women have to go through when they reach menopause. However, it is a slope. And sometimes that's maybe what makes it a little more dangerous because it's

Testosterone Decline Versus Lifestyle

Sandy Kruse 11:56

such a slow decline in testosterone. And testosterone drifts down about 1% a year from his 30s and 40s onward. Most men stay in what they classify as a normal range. So remember, normal does not necessarily mean optimal. And there's a big difference between, you know, optimal functional versus normal. I am certified in functional lab testing, so I love to analyze this stuff. So only a minority go clinically actually low, like maybe 10 to 25%, and are truly symptomatic andropause is probably only like 6 to 12% in midlife for men. So as somebody who likes to read the labs, most of what gets blamed is low T, low testosterone, the flatness, the short fuse, no drive, direct sleep. Often, though, it's not his hormones, it can be lifestyle and stress, weight, alcohol, chronic cortisol elevation, no muscle, not great sleep. Those do drag testosterone down, but you know, they can also just mimic low T. So the good news for for you guys listening is that it's fixable and the levers are pretty simple and fast. I believe in a few different associations that work specifically in men's health in Canada, but I'm sure you can find resources wherever you are listening. But one thing I will say, it's extremely important to work with somebody who understands functional and optimal levels versus just what the labs, regular labs say. That's how you're gonna know. You know, am I optimized? Am I not? So let's get into your nervous system, Frantic Under Armour. Now, I did record a podcast, episode 313. It's all about Gen X shame and vulnerability and how the midlife nervous system reacts to emotion. This is a big episode. Go back and listen to this. Because here's the, you know, I don't know if it's a lie or just

Frantic Under The Stoic Armor

Sandy Kruse 14:30

what we've always believed at the center of how we see men, that they're the calm ones, the ones who don't feel things as much. It's actually one of the biggest lies in midlife. And you know how you see all of these like little TikTok memes and Instagram memes where the young girl, young girl, like you know, she's probably like 30 years old, is like, oh, I just have to turn my brain off when I'm with my big strong man. Well, my dears, it's not reality. So I I would say I felt like that, maybe, but I actually I was always a strong woman. I kind of left that area when I was raising kids. It's like, you know, you kind of forget yourself and you're raising your kids, but I've always been pretty strong. So both sexes fire the shame, the same, not shame, same machinery at under stress. It's called the sympathetic nervous system and the HPA access. And then there's cortisol, but the patterns split. Women tend toward tend and befriend. You reach out, you talk it through with your mom, your sister. Men tend towards fight or flight. And the part that floored me is studies show that men have stronger physiological stress reactivity than women, bigger cortisol spikes while reporting less distress out loud. So his body can be firing harder than mine while his face says nothing. So he is not calm, he is frantic under that armor. The stoic front isn't the absence of a storm, it's the lid on one. And the storm with no outlet leaks sideways, right? That slow leak, irritability, right? Like little little bursts of being more irritable, control issues, withdrawal, maybe having too many drinks. I see a lot of guys around midlife who drink a lot. Then there's heart disease and a depression that almost never looks like sadness. It might look like anger or numbness or nothing at all. Now, we're actually in the middle of watching Dutton Ranch. I'm sure you guys are, you know, you've watched Yellowstone, Dutton Ranch. And so I'm using Rip Wheeler as an example here. I want you to picture Rip Wheeler. Most of you would know the character. Uh, he's the Dutton Ranch Enforcer who holds it all up. He never cracks. People picture a young buck, but the actor Cole Hauser, who plays him, he's actually 51 years old. He's an over midlife man, and the whole character is built on it. Rip became unbreakable because of what happened to him as a boy. I'm not gonna give it away here, but that's not strength here, that's a nervous system in a cage dressed up as a hero. So let's talk about the Gen X conditioning a little bit. And I'm gonna tell you to go back and remember, listen to that episode 313. So this is the why under that episode. So if his nervous system can feel, and it can, we know

Gen X Conditioning And Alexithymia

Sandy Kruse 18:20

it can, it's firing harder than mine, then why the silence? It is not nature, it's it's nurture. He was built that way on purpose by all of us. I mean, this is not uncommon. This is Gen X. We all and we see again a lot of memes. We were built strong, we were built tough, right? So psychologists have a name for it. It's called gender role conflict. James O'Neill's research mapped exactly how boys got made during this time. It was through reinforcement, praise for winning, for toughness, for not flinching, and through punishment. Right? So shame, ridicule, stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about, reward the armor, and punish the feeling. Do that for 18 years, and you've got a man who genuinely cannot locate his own inner life. Think about that. One of the measured pieces of this is called restrictive emotionality. And here's the kicker: it turns out to be the single strongest predictor of depression in men. The very thing we trained into them as strength is the thing most likely to take them down. And I need to be precise because this is where people might get it wrong. It is not masculinity that hurts men, it's the rigid no exceptions version of the rules. A man can be strong, protective, and grounded. That's not the problem. The problem is the rule that says he's allowed one emotion. That's anger, and then the rest are forbidden. So our generation got the concentrated dose. Gen X, we were the latchkey kids, raised to be tough and self-reliant, not make a fuss. Our boys grew up on the stoic action hero who solved everything with a clenched jaw. And the relationship Bible of our era, remember, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, literally told men that when they're stressed, the healthy thing is to retreat into their cave and say nothing. A whole generation of men was taught that disappearing is what a good man does. So there's actually a clinical word for the end result. And I never heard this word. It's called alexithymia, which just means having no words for your own feelings. But you know, don't get lost in the term. I want you to get the human truth underneath it. So he wasn't born without the words, they were taken out of him one man up at a time. It's not his failure, that's his inheritance. So to the guys listening, none of this is an excuse, but it's all an explanation. That's all it is. So you were built, and anything that was built can also be rebuilt. So the conditioning, this conditioning can really Really wreak havoc on your relationships. Here's where all the conditioning shows up, and it quietly destroys the thing that you might love the most. John Gottman spent decades in a lab watching couples, and he can predict with eerie accuracy from four behaviors. The one that matters here is called stonewalling. We've all heard it. It's when one partner goes silent, stonefaced, shuts down, and walls the other person out. And here's the statistic that should change how every woman sees her husband. About 85% of stonewallers are men. For years, it could look like coldness, like not caring. It's the opposite. Well, you in most cases, we can't speak to all of it. Gottman wired these couples up and found that stonewalling is a response to flooding. The man's heart rate rockets past a hundred. Stress hormones search. His thinking brain goes offline and he shuts down because he is physiologically overwhelmed. His arousal spikes before he goes quiet. So he's not stonewalling to win. He's drowning and going silent in the only way he knows to keep from going under. And remember, this isn't all cases. This is just what the research says. And watch out for the trap that this creates because this can be the death spiral of many midlife marriages. She senses the distance and reaches more words, more intensity. Talk to me to his flooded nervous system that reads

Stonewalling Flooding And The Spiral

Sandy Kruse 24:00

as more threat. So he withdraws even harder, which terrifies her even more, which floods him even more. Researchers call it demand withdrawal. And it predicts divorce because nobody can repair a thing while one person has shut the door and the other person is just pounding on it. I recently recorded a really insightful podcast about long marriages after 50. And again, this is my perspective taking into it the science, the research, and the soul, and also the wisdom. So go check it out to the woman listening because this is the whole gift of the episode. His silence is almost never that you don't matter. It's I'm drowning and I don't have the words. So maybe stop reading the wall as rejection. I know it's hard to do, but you know, the man behind it all is probably underwater. And doing your own work is so important here. I've recorded so much about this. Be sure to check out my catalog. There's so many tools and options for you to explore, not as an expert in you, but as somebody who is a 56-year-old woman who always incorporates science and soul in everything I do, but you got to do the work on yourself. And then he's got to do the work on himself too. And then you come together as two better, more healed versions of yourself. I am also going to be recording a podcast soon all about neural nets. I'm really fascinated with the brain and things that we can do. I've learned so much from one of my, she is my inspiration, like she's the woman that inspires me, Brenda Ferrugia, so brilliant.ca. Check her out. I always give her a plug because I have learned so much from her. So I think it's really important that we understand how our brains can be rewired. So I am going to be recording a podcast all about neural nets. Now, this is not a life sentence. This is why I'm talking about rewiring the brain. I want you to look at living proof of a man from this exact generation. Okay. And how he can walk out of a cage. So this is the nurture side. And you know, I'm I'm referring to Matthew McConaughey, of course. He's a celebrity. There's only so much we know, but I'm very inspired by how he's written that book, what is it called? Green lights, just inspired by him. So it's the same era as Rip, same world. A Texas kid raised on, yes, sir, tough love, be a man, don't be soft. But look at what he did differently. He's kept a journal since he was 15, decades before anyone gave men permission to have an inner life. And at 50, he turned 35 years of those journals into raw, funny, wide open, a book about grief, love, his father, and what being a man and a dad actually means to him. He didn't bury it, he kept a record of it. Rip, on the other hand, became the enforcer who feels nothing. But McConaughey became the real life version of a man who feels everything out loud and is somehow more of a man for it, not less. Same generation, opposite choice. The cage was never mandatory. Fascinating, right? So the first skill is noticing it, and and that's what I'm here for, right? I'm I'm talking about it, I'm how helping you think about it. And sometimes, you know, I find it funny. My content can trigger people because they're not ready to think about it. And that's okay. If you're not ready to think about it, you know, this is like a seed that's planted. But the first skill is noticing things, and that might be within you the heart pounding, the heat, the going blank. The moment, that moment is not the time to communicate harder. Gottman's own fix is almost shockingly simple. When he's flooded, take a real break, about 20 minutes, and genuinely self-soothe. Not with a beer, not with a smoke, not with a vape. Take a breath, deep breaths. I've taught my kids 4, 7, 8 from when they were very young. Dr. Andrew Real. Wheel, W E I L, I think. Four seconds in, hold for seven seconds, eight seconds out. Four, seven, eight. Do it five times. Simple, right? Go for a walk. Not with a podcast in your ears. No, no headphones. Go for a walk. Try and walk in nature. Let those stress hormones clear from your body. But, and this is everything, you gotta come back. The break is not an escape hatch. It's I need 20 minutes and then I'm coming back to this. The one move breaks that death spiral. Like, how simple is that? Name it to tame it. I've said this many times, and I borrowed it. I don't even know who said it. And there's beautiful neuroscience here. The simple act of putting a feeling into words measurably calms the brain's alarm center, the amygdala. So building emotional vocabulary isn't soft, it's regulation. Three real words for what he feels instead of fine. Every time he names it, he turns that volume down on his own nervous system. I'm feeling really angry about this email. I need to take a breather. I'm feeling really angry with this discussion. I need to take a breather. I'm feeling really sad with what you just said. I'm gonna take a break. I'll be back to continue the conversation. To write the response to that email. Loosen the rules, don't burn the house down. Remember, it's the rigid version that hurts him. He doesn't have to stop being strong or protective. He also has to add the missing channels back. So you gotta

Name It Take A Break Return

Sandy Kruse 31:40

add that back. The ability to say that scared me, that really hurt. I don't know the answer to that. We'll come back to it. So strength with a full emotional range is not less masculine, it's the most powerful version of him, of you, that there is. And the thing I come back to on the show again and again, his patterns are not him. I don't maybe they are, but most cases they're not. They're wiring, and wiring can be rewired, that's called neuroplasticity. And the whole reason I do the nervous system work myself is because it helps me tremendously. So the man who was built to feel nothing can learn deliberately to feel everything and survive it. Now we gotta talk about our children, what your son will inherit. So I did record a podcast, it might be a little out there for some of you. It was, I think, in January, it was all about forgiveness, it was all about ancestral lineage themes and breaking the chain. You, the man listening, has the power to change this in your lineage, in your son, in your daughter. It's not just about the son. Your kids are always watching. You've heard that. Your sons, your daughters, how you treat your wife, your daughter's watching that, your son is watching that. The exact conditioning we just described gets handed down father to son, the same way it was handed down to you, but because I'm bringing awareness to it, you have the power within you to change it. Okay, this silence is often inherited, and then the patterns and the results are also often inherited. So if you do the work now, if your son watches a man name a feeling and maybe stay in the room, that boy inherits something different than what you would have had. He will break a chain that's probably generations deep. That might be the most important thing he ever does is you ever do to change it. And this is not something seen on a resume,

What Your Children Will Learn

Sandy Kruse 34:40

but it's a gift for your kids. I'm gonna get into the thesis. Most of you know I'm also an English literature graduate, so I do love a good thesis. A good man is not the loud one performing dominance, that is a costume. A good man is not the one who's been managed so well by everyone around him that he barely functions. That's other people doing his inner work for him. A good man does his own inner work, so the people who love him aren't quietly drafted into doing it for them. I'm a victim of this for everybody in my family. I tend to take on a lot of feelings and emotions, and it's it's tough. A good man is steady and true to his word, the kind of presence a frightened person can rest against instead of one more storm. That's really important. To the men listening to this, that's actually a higher bar than alpha, alpha male. You know, you hear that a lot. And a higher bar than easier to live with. It asks more of you, not less, and it's completely available to you. No different brain required, no different hormones, just the willingness to put the armor down and learn the words that were taken from you. I am gonna say this: I am a registered holistic nutritionist, a certified metabolic balance coach. And even though I say it's not about the hormones, getting yourself healthy will always help. Anyone who's not feeling well is not gonna be their best self. And we're always gonna have challenges in our health. So caring about it is really important. I am paraphrasing Matthew McConaughey here, but I'm gonna say this: a nice guy bends himself to please everyone and be liked. Approval is the goal. A good man has a code and lives by it, whether or not it makes him popular. Nice is about

Nice Guy Versus Good Man

Sandy Kruse 37:10

how others feel about him. Good is about who he actually is in his core. Nice is the costume, good is the character. Character means everything. And seeing his Father's Day is coming up, maybe I'll release this before might be a good one. Because my dad is a man who's got the strongest character I have ever seen in any man. And I am the luckiest daughter in the world to have grown up with a father like this. He's gonna, he's, he, it's we're gonna be celebrating Father's Day with him. He's 89 and still awesome. So here are the breadcrumbs. This is not a program. I'm not gonna hand you a 12-step plan because that's not how healing works, even though that's the Instagram version. And also, that's not how I educate. So here are a few real openings and follow the ones that resonate with you. The foundation that moves his slope, real blood work, lift something heavy, sleep like it's a job, drink less alcohol, simple, high yield, and fast. Start there. The 20-minute rule: when you feel that flood, heart pounding, going blank, name it, take the break, and come back. That single habit can help save a marriage or a relationship. Three real words. Build the vocabulary that was taken from you. Name a feeling, literally, just by naming it, that can cause calm your brain. It's regulation and it's not weakness. Stop numbing every feeling, feel it and name it. Your body has a backdoor. Long, slow exhale breath work, even tapping. My exclusive podcast available on Apple. This is exclusive content for ten dollars a month. I actually break down EFT, the emotional freedom techniques from the original creator of EFT. I also talk about psychological reversals, which nobody's really talking about. But that is an option for calming that nervous system. So I still use this almost daily. It calms that stress response and works on your nervous system. And it actually can actually help, actually, can actually, it can help with a lot of other things, such as limiting and negative beliefs that may have been formed that are even subconscious. So very powerful. Go to my Apple Podcasts, check it out. It's coming soon. So here's the um honest part. It'll be two steps forward, one step back, probably initially, especially under stress, because stress is the home turf of the old wiring. The resistance you feel is not failure, it's the pattern protecting itself. Expect it and keep going. Resistance, I just recorded about this. You know what? That might be a whole other topic because it's too big. Some people think, oh, well, my body's saying, No, I don't want to do this. It's too much, too hard, whatever. Usually that's the time you got to keep going. So let's close this off. Here's what I want you to walk away holding. I gave you a few steps here. That quiet, tired, holding it all up, man, is not cold and he's not broken. He was built. Reward the armor,

Breadcrumbs Health Tools And Closing

Sandy Kruse 41:10

punish the feeling by a generation that you know thought it was making him strong. The cage was never strength. It was a costume we all agreed to call strength. And you can still be strong and still be like that, you know, masculine male, but there are other ways to have more positive relationships as a result. So his patterns are not him, they're wiring. And wiring can be retrained. The science tells us how. And the practice, all the different practices, they give us the tools. The man who was taught to feel nothing can learn to feel everything and survive it. That's not soft, that's the bravest thing a man can do. Being a good man was never about being told what to do, it was about finally building that inner life to know it for himself. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I gave you a lot of information. I know. I'm gonna ask you to please share it with a friend, share it with your spouse because it's coming from a totally different perspective. I'm not trying to sell you testosterone or a coaching session or a therapy session. I'm just trying to make the world a better place. And it's always science and soul and always passion over profit. So I want to thank you so much. Happy Father's Day for all of you men who are celebrating. And I will see you next week. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit. And always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content, and help me keep going, bring these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, new guest, new excited conversations to help you live your best life.