Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst: Boys, Emotions, and the Cost to Men

Take two toddlers to the same playground. One is a girl, one is a boy, and both of them fall over and run crying to a parent. Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst says you can predict the difference in what happens next, and that the difference repeats often enough to teach a lesson that lasts for decades.

Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst is a psychologist with fifty years in private practice, licensed in Maryland and Washington, DC, and now working entirely remotely with adults, couples and individuals. She started with preschool boys and has worked every age range since. She is also a court-appointed parenting coordinator, which means she spends her working weeks with separating and post-divorce parents trying to build something workable, and she has seen both the hostility and the cases where it comes right.

Her position is that boys are steered away from the low and high ends of the emotional range before they can articulate anything, and kept there. She gives the playground version, where a boy's distress has to justify itself before it earns comfort, and a harder one from her own social life, where a friend's toddler cried and was knocked down for it, with the message attached. What is left available to a boy, she argues, is irritation, hostility and anger, and then we are surprised by where that leads.

She and Lisa follow it into adult relationships and into the divorce itself. Vanderhorst is clear that it is not one-directional: in the couples she works with, the man often cannot reach for the tender emotions and the woman is not comfortable when he does. She turns that into a challenge for anyone who says they want a sensitive partner, which is to watch your own body when he shows you sadness, and notice whether you answer with "it's all right, honey" or with "tell me more." Lisa names it as the counterpart to mansplaining, the female version of not listening.

The practical payoff arrives in the negotiation section. Vanderhorst does not believe anyone can fake empathy, and does not think anyone needs to. Ten percent of something real reads as real, and lands better than zero or contempt. She also covers the expectations we never question about boys and men, what she sees with children exploring gender and the accusation that a parent is pushing it, Rosey Grier singing It's All Right to Cry, Bessel van der Kolk's work on what the body holds, and the reason a parenting coordinator wants you to know your own needs before the meeting: without them you end up fighting against the other person instead of for yourself.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• How boys get steered away from the softer emotions before they can talk about it
• The playground difference, and why a boy's distress has to justify itself first
• Why anger becomes the one emotion left available, and what follows from that
• Why the pressure runs both ways in a marriage, and what women can check in themselves
• Why you cannot fake empathy in a negotiation, and why ten percent of it is enough
• The expectations nobody examines about boys: the sports field, dating, and physical danger
• What crying releases physically, and what happens when you hold it in the body instead
• Why knowing your own needs first is what makes you an effective negotiator

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What intimacy actually means, and fifty years of practice
5:00 How boys get trained out of the high and low ranges
7:00 The playground test, and the boy who was told not to cry
11:00 Divorce: when neither side lets the softer emotions in
13:00 Empathy in negotiation, and why ten percent beats zero
17:00 The expectations nobody examines: the mound, the date, the street
21:00 Kids exploring gender, and letting a child show you who they are
24:00 "It's All Right to Cry," and what held tension costs
27:00 What your own body does when a man shows tenderness
30:00 Fighting for what is pro-you, not just counter to them

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst: https://drvanderhorst.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.