Yesterday while browsing, I came across a comment in response to a woman talking about her sister’s husband cheating on her when he became unemployed, and after her sister had learned of her infertility, that I think deserves some consideration:

“He lost his job and felt worthless and fucking imploded. He had no positive coping tools to deal with it because he never developed them and society treats guys who struggle with mental health issues as garbage. He would not have felt like he could get help. It sounds like his reaction was awful, but I know he must have felt completely emasculated by losing his ability to contribute to the family's income. He'd have felt like the divorce was best. I don't know what the picture looked like -- he may have blamed her first, he might not have. There's where the infidelity lives, or maybe he was suffering and just wanted a feeling of intimacy with somebody he didn't feel like he was disappointing. He felt like a bum. He might have felt trapped by the pressure of needing to contribute an income and not being able to and feeling worthless every day and just wanted out. People are quick to condemn and explain this sort of thing by seeing a monster or animal and setting up a scarecrow for society to beat up on the internet, but this guy, regardless of how much of this was through his own folly, had a bad fucking time.”

Those of us familiar with the men’s liberation movement are aware that there are countless voices already advocating for men’s mental health awareness, resourcing and treatment. When I did my postgrad in counselling, we spent numerous seminars discussing evidence-based ways of optimising the therapeutic experiences of men seeking help and how we can reduce barriers for getting assistance. In my life I know numerous men who have sought support for addiction, mental health treatment, or even counselling sessions to equip themselves with self-care strategies. This is all pretty critical and commendable: having male students, friends and relatives complete suicide, I know that meeting vulnerable groups where they are at in terms of psychological preparedness can count for a lot.

However, you also probably know people in your lives who should get help, but refuse to. Either their mental illness is so pervasive and interferes with their executive functioning and self-awareness to preclude them from ever engaging in help-seeking behaviour, or because the issue is more behavioural and connected to values than to psychiatric illness - whatever the case, they like to ask for sympathy for their predicaments while finding a million excuses for not seeking help. And there’s certainly no shortage of enablers, both online and IRL, who are eager to volunteer “mental health” and “feeling unsupported” as a reason for why a person has acted abominably. They are nearly always paradoxically leaning on the “well, they’re a legal adult and they have to be able to make their own mistakes” whenever it suits them.

Is that to say that there are no cheating LVMs, or gold-digging dudes, with mental health problems? I am sure they have them. But what I’d argue is that the cause of their behaviour is less mental-health oriented and more one of values. I’d argue that their senses of self are probably fine and that their self-esteem is probably quite healthy (if not narcissistically high).

A covert narcissist ex of mine would tear up and cry about his poor sense of self-worth (when he realised that I was leaving him after sexual assault), but when I directed him to seek counselling and treatment the tears disappeared in an instant: “but I don’t think that would benefit me.” My ex, of course, believed he was brilliant: he was that cynical, jaded, Gregory House amongst the peons. Tradesmen were stupid and uncultured - not like him, who graduated bottom of his cohort. People interested in fashion were shallow and vapid - not like him, who purposefully wore ratty clothing to weddings to virtue-signal how “unsuperficial” he was. The rest of the people he worked with were just spoiled rich kids - not like him, who came from a similarly wealthy family but whose neckbeardy values and hobbies meant that he willingly excluded himself from the wealthy kids at his boarding school. My ex thinks he is exceptional: not for a second did he think he was worthless. He thought his wishes at that moment were so important that he could violate consent to have sex, after all. He wasn't sad due to depression or poor self-worth: he was angry that he was about to fend for himself and explain to his family that I was leaving him.

Increasing research into the effect of self-esteem on interpersonal relationships is increasingly finding that high self-esteem - rather than a genuinely poor self-esteem - is correlative with abusive or narcissistic conduct. And that’s kinda just it: the person who views other people as exploitable or expendable is the sort of person who believes that they are good enough for their needs or wants to come before others. The man who justifies cheating on his partner, exposing her to risk of STIs, has made the judgment call that he is more deserving of momentary pleasure than she is of not being exposed to disease and psychological harm.

If a dude pulls the poor mental health card as justification for abuse or disrespect, there’s merit to challenging him on it. Unless he has evidence of a psychiatric diagnosis, or of attendance at therapy, you do not have to forgive. You must certainly never forget. If he makes excuses about it being “hard” as a man to get counselling, you don’t have to listen to that shit - especially not if you have vocally expressed support or offered to pay or his treatment. In my country alone, there are numerous charitable groups and organisations dedicated to specialist mental health services for men. Numerous actors, politicians, athletes and public figures have spoken in support of the issue, and the majority of mainline religious institutions and public sector workplaces have specialised assistance hotlines. There has never been a time in which opportunities for men to access mental health support services have been so encouraged, normalised or available.

None of this is to say that you shouldn’t support an otherwise loving and considerate husband processing hurt or trauma, or to abandon someone with a long-standing mental illness. But part of extricating oneself from the fuckery of shitty relationships means learning to temporarily suspend credulity and empathy to look more objectively at situations. When you stop looking at the unemployed boyfriend who hasn’t submitted a job application in six months with pity, and start looking at them as someone who has found a meal ticket, you’re perhaps better able to advocate for yourself. When you stop questioning yourself about whether you have truly failed to meet his needs, and start getting angry at his belief that he deserves to keep asking for the baby-sitter’s snapchat, then you have the proper read.

Stay based, ladies.