Does Your Husband Shut Down When You Ask Questions? Here’s Why

A man’s shift into anger or withdrawal often signals that he is feeling a specific emotional pain

Let’s start with what’s likely under the surface when we see our man shut down in general. Consider these two truths, that we’ve repeatedly seen from interviews and surveys with more than 20,000 men and boys over the last 17 years.

1. One of the most painful feelings for a guy is the sense that someone thinks he’s inadequate: that someone has looked at what he has said or done and concluded he didn’t do it right. It might sound crazy to us as women, but when a guy feels like he didn’t do something right in the eyes of others, it makes him feel like a complete idiot.

2. When a guy feels like an idiot, he will often get angry and shut down.

In other words, when a guy walks out of the room with his face tight and says “fine, you handle it,” it’s a giant clue. Something has probably made him feel like an idiot. Even though his wife would presumably have never wanted him to feel that way!

So now to our specific example: why on earth might simple questions cause our man to feel like an idiot? There are two main reasons why. One emotional and one biological.