The Backup Plan

Every Crack Has its Price

We keep telling men it’s safe to open up. They’re allowed to crack. This is a new world, where strength isn’t measured by silence, and real men ask for help.

And yet… more men than ever are dying by suicide. We blame emotional repression, toxic masculinity, a reluctance to talk. But what if the problem isn’t just that men *don’t* speak up, what if it’s that when they *do*, the world teaches them they should have stayed silent?

There might be some truth to that... maybe men do need to be more open, maybe stoicism has its limits.

But here's another perspective...

Sometimes, a man does speak up. He cracks the door, just a little. And what he finds on the other side isn’t relief or connection... it’s distance.

He tells the people who depend on him that he’s not as unshakable as he seems, and suddenly they feel like maybe they need a backup plan.

Not because they’re cruel. Not because they don’t love him. But because people get scared when the foundation shifts, even a little. And nothing shifts…