In part one, I explained just a few of the contradicting scenarios where you may find yourself dealing with a Mr Unavailable (or assclown) shedding crocodile tears – insincere tears designed to disarm you and distract from the real issues.

As women, society has taught us to either frown upon expressions of emotion from men or to think that we’ve struck gold when they do shed tears, inferring it as a sign of how special we are to them.

The middle ground is that sometimes men do cry, just like sometimes we cry, but if you have a weakness for Mr Unavailables and assclowns, by the very nature of your interest in the two of them, you are bound to think that the show of ’emotion’ in the form of tears, is something amazing.

Mr Unavailable is an emotionally unavailable man, hence if he cries, you misguidedly think that he’s emotionally available.

Assclowns are men behaving badly so you’re going to think that he’s remorseful and on his way to being a half-decent guy if he sheds tears. Crocodile tears let you believe that you’re seeing a different side – that he’s showing his vulnerabilities and letting you in.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re crying and you don’t know why?

Or where you’re crying but you’re not actually crying about whatever is unfolding but about something else?

Something else that may feel a little familiar is that being caught up in a drama cycle with men means that you are likely to have found that you shedding tears on occasion has elicited a reaction that you wanted, albeit temporarily.

And I think this is the key: If you say something to me tomorrow about my lack of contribution into our relationship and I cry, appear upset, remorseful, even make a few promises, or accept your apologies for the fact that you’ve ‘upset me’, it would be more than a tad mystifying to you, if after the event, I acted like it had never happened or reneged on whatever was said and appeared to be anything but remorseful.

This would make my emotional moment rather temporary.

I remember many moons ago going to visit my ex-fiance about a week or so after I left. I try to type this with a straight face, but he was ironing his cricket gear, steaming the crap out of them with the iron. I doubt there was a crease in a five mile radius! Anyway, I tried to speak with him about our ‘situation’ and next thing you know he was blubbing away. In those few minutes, I was genuinely surprised and like a dipstick, I apologised for hurting him by leaving, sympathised, empathised, and even tried to comfort him. At the time, I just couldn’t believe he had that type of emotion to draw from and I felt a little blindsided and questioned my decision to leave.

The following week I found the voicemails from some woman that were left on the landline at 5.30 am in the morning, and he denied the existence of them, and then denied anything was going on, raged, howled, pretended to be teary, and eventually got an apology out of me.

A year later, I found out that there was indeed someone else when he’d been shedding the tears.

In retrospect, I realise why he was crying: he was out of control and he did not like that feeling.

He wasn’t crying for me or our relationship – he didn’t give a monkey’s about me!

His pride was dented and whatever hurt he felt wasn’t about me leaving him – it was more like being hurt that he didn’t get in there first and that I’d ruined the image, the facade that he’d created around people.

Aside from you often having the job of ego stroking, these guys often project a different image to their peers. The last thing they want is some woman putting a dent in the Mr Wonderful act.

This is something that you not only need to understand about crocodile tears, but also about when these guys chase you up after you tell them to beat it and appear to be contrite:

When things feel out of their control because it’s not been dictated on their terms, this feels unfamiliar and extremely uncomfortable to them.

 

When the crocodile tears make an appearance, it’s about their ego being dented, being reminded of a similar situation that made them feel upset and being transported back to that moment. It can also be them pulling a passive aggressive manoeuvre on you that plays to the side of you that’s desperate for some validation of his feelings, knowing that you will be affected by this ‘production’.

 

When you tell them to beat it or don’t do things in the way that they expect, they associate that unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling, as some sort of sign that they have to have you and pursue you.

The moment that you react in the way that they expect, (e.g. they text, you respond), they switch off because it’s back on familiar ground again and the urgency and their reaction to it passes.

How do you know if you’re getting the crocodile tears?

It’s about sincerity, or should I say the lack of it, and while we have to move on and move forward after an event that is upsetting, you can be pretty damn sure that you’re getting crocodile tears if just like in other areas, the tears get shed but nothing actually changes.

You may even find that him getting upset becomes a way of silencing you as you may become cautious of pursuing issues with him.

There is a lot of insincerity in relationships like this and the tears are just another example of it.

It’s not like he’ll shed a few crocodile tears in isolation– he’ll be doing that, busting your boundaries, laughing at you or dismissing you when you cry, not matching his actions with words and basically failing to put both of his feet into the relationship.

Don’t forget that these men are lacking in empathy, with some almost devoid of it, but may still have the brass balls to license themselves to cry as needed if it suits their agenda.

The key is really about you recognising when you are being played. You’ll soon come to recognise that there is a pattern to their crying.

More importantly though, the fact that they cry doesn’t change anything. They don’t change, things don’t change, and often when they do, it’s only for the worse.

I could hurt someone tomorrow and cry about it, but if I keep on hurting them, it would be questionable how sorry I really am and how genuine I was being when I was upset. This is exactly the same situation you are in with a men shedding hollow tears.

Don’t get things twisted and think he cried so that means that in time he’ll be able to show other emotions or that him crying means that he must be really crazy about you. Look at the bigger picture and don’t just get trapped in the moment trying to extract crumbs of validation. The man needs to be able to show some positive emotion – not just the insincere ones that generate the results he wants.

Your thoughts?

 

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