When I wrote about keeping the circle small, I was still learning why it had become necessary.
At first, it felt practical. Too many conversations. Too many explanations. Too much emotional labour when I was already running low.
But over time, something else revealed itself.
Some people didn’t want to hear about it.
Some people didn’t know how to sit with it.
And some people offered advice that felt worse than silence.
What I didn’t expect was how disappointing that would feel.
I was already carrying the quiet ache of being unseen in my marriage.
To feel unseen again, this time in my struggle, landed heavier than I thought it would.
When I did open up, many people rushed to fix. To minimize. To reassure me out of the discomfort as quickly as possible.
Their intentions weren’t cruel. But their responses didn’t listen – they handled. They offered solutions shaped by how they would survive this pain, not by who I am or what I value.
I remember telling a friend what was happening. I hadn’t asked for advice, just understanding.
He listened for a moment and then said, “If that were me, I would’ve just packed up and left.”
I understood what he meant. He was describing his own limits, his own way of surviving.
But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t how I loved.
I felt myself close in that moment, not out of anger, but out of self-preservation. Something in me knew that staying open there would require betraying myself. So I didn’t argue. I didn’t explain.
I just quietly stopped bringing my inner world to that conversation.
I don’t think he meant to shut me down.
And if I’m honest, there was a time when I might have responded the same way.
Many men (myself included, once) aren’t taught how to sit with vulnerability without trying to escape it. We’re taught to act, to solve, to move. To turn pain into a problem that can be handled. To push it down. Whatever.
But vulnerability isn’t a task. It’s a presence. A skill, almost.
Learning that has been part of my own unlearning… recognizing when the urge to fix is really discomfort in disguise.
Some of the advice I received asked me to abandon things that mattered deeply to me: dignity and loyalty. To harden. To detach. To move on before I was ready.
I felt it immediately — in my chest, in my body. This wasn’t support.
It spoke against me, not with me.
What I needed wasn’t certainty. It wasn’t guarantees. It wasn’t even safety from heartbreak.
I needed room to remain vulnerable. Even if hope might eventually betray me.
That’s when I understood something quietly but clearly… Not everyone deserves access to my inner world.
Access isn’t earned through closeness or history alone. It’s earned through presence. Through the ability to mirror before speaking. To reflect back what’s being said without reshaping it, correcting it, or rushing it toward resolution.
A small circle isn’t about shutting people out.
It’s about choosing those who can sit with uncertainty without trying to escape it.
Those who can honour vulnerability without managing it.
In stimes like this, that kind of presence isn’t common.
But it’s everything.
And so the circle stays small… not out of fear, but out of respect for the parts of me that are still tender, still loyal, still trying to live with dignity.
Some things don’t need fixing.
They need witnessing.
If this resonates
If you’re in a time where your circle has grown smaller (by choice or by consequence), you’re not failing at connection.
You may simply be protecting something tender.
You’re allowed to:
- take your time before explaining your life to others
- notice who listens and who rushes to fix
- step back from conversations that leave you feeling diminished or misunderstood
- choose dignity over performative strength
- let hope exist quietly, even if it feels fragile or unwise to others
You don’t owe your inner world to everyone who asks or to everyone who means well.
And if you’re feeling disappointed by who hasn’t shown up, that disappointment makes sense.
Being unseen in pain can hurt as much as the pain itself.
For now, it’s enough to keep the circle small.
To look for mirrors, not solutions.
To let yourself be witnessed without being reshaped.
You’re not asking for too much.
You’re asking for the right kind of presence.
I hope this blog can be a mirror for you.
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