Men don’t talk about their emotional needs — not because they don’t have them, but because most men would never admit these things to a woman they’re dating… especially after 50. But here’s the truth:There are specific things men deeply feel, quietly fear, and secretly hope for that almost never get said out loud. In this eye-opening conversation, Relationship Expert Bob Grant @BobGrant_Relationshiphq reveals what men wish women understood — but rarely have the inclination to express.
These are the things he won’t tell you on a date. He won’t tell you after a divorce. He won’t tell you even when he’s falling for you. But they shape every emotional decision he makes.
Silke Schwarzkopf is the creator, executive producer, and host of 2nd Act TV, one of YouTube’s leading channels for candid conversations about dating, relationships, intimacy, and life after 50. Her journey to this work wasn’t planned—it was personal. Shortly after turning 50, Silke made the difficult decision to leave her 25-year marriage, close the production company she had co-owned for nearly two decades, and return to her Southern California roots to start over. Like millions of people navigating divorce, dating, and reinvention later in life, she found herself searching for guidance, encouragement, and authentic conversations that simply didn’t exist.
Drawing on her background in public relations and television production—and her own experiences of rebuilding happiness, finding love again, and creating a new career—Silke launched 2nd Act TV to help others navigate the challenges and opportunities of midlife. Today, she interviews leading experts on dating, relationships, intimacy, sexual health, and personal growth while never losing sight of what makes the channel unique: We’ve been there. We live what we bring you. Her message is one she hopes everyone remembers: it’s never too late to follow your heart, rediscover yourself, and create a life—and relationship—you truly love.
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The five things that men will never say out loud, but they want you to know that
You know, great, great title
[laughter] Yeah, I’d like to know that
[music] Thanks so much for joining us again on Second Act TV
So happy to welcome back Bob Grand, the relationship expert, dating coach, and founder of Relationship Headquarters
Bob, thanks for joining us again
Always a pleasure to be here, Saki
We have uh a topic that I think is going to get some interesting response
I know women love this topic and that is the five things that men will never say out loud, but they want you to know that
You know, great great title
[laughter] Yeah, I’d like to know that
and you did a a video on this that I’d like to that I’d like to piggy back on
So, I I’ll set it up for you here
The five points or the five things men want you to know, but would never say out loud
And the first one, I need to feel safe, too
I just don’t say it
So, men need need safety
That emotional safety
What do you mean by that? Well, yeah
And you alluded to emotional safety
And of course men don’t even say that with each other
But part of it is for us is so I always equate for women I say emotional safety for us is what physical safety is to you
And it’s not that I’m worried about someone grievously injuring me as much as especially if he’s talking with a woman
He’s he likes her
His guard is down
Well, if my guard is down, you could hurt me
You could say something insulting
You could be really disrespectful
And we don’t heal emotionally quickly like you ladies do
I mean, men see this, a woman’s crying, she’s overwhelmed, and it looks like the world’s over
And then whatever, a day or so later, she’s fine
I mean, she’s not fine fine, but she’s [snorts] um recuperated somewhat
You got it out
Yeah
Oh, we got it out
Well, see, for us, it doesn’t get it out
It just it it goes deeper
And so, when a man does that, the next day, he doesn’t just get it out
It it affects me the next day, the day after
That’s why if there’s a really big argument, I don’t mean something where he’s avoiding where it really emotionally bothers him, he can get quiet for days after that
I’m not saying that’s good, but it’s like someone took a cut and just cut four or five inches into me and I’m just trying to survive
And so I don’t want to experience that
And so emotional safety doesn’t mean never argue, never disagree, but it’s that we don’t take advantage of that
We don’t threaten, don’t call names
That’s a bad habit some couples get into
Um we we try to remember that we can disagree but still be respectful
And if I’m talking to a man, it’s you disagree and don’t threaten
Yeah, that’s a great point
And I think it can be as simple as I think you mentioned that not being judged or not being compared to, you know, a past relationship
That that really bothers men
Yes
Because I don’t know there’s anything I could do to make up for something I didn’t do
So if if I’m sorry that someone cheated on you, I’m sorry, but that’s not me
Sometimes men say it that way, which goes awful
I realize, but but I understand their point of view is why am I paying for something someone else does? So we don’t view that as a oh, I’d really love to heal that wound as much as I need the benefit of the doubt, please
and then that hopefully will heal it or that will help you see that I’m the safe person, but I don’t want to have to prove that I’m safe or prove that I’m a nice guy
That just feels insulting
Great point
And I think it’s so important for women to know
I think it’s really funny what you said at the beginning that we don’t, you know, men don’t say to each other, “Oh, let’s talk about emotional safety, [laughter] right?” No, that I mean that’s really kind of funny
I can see that in my head
All right
Second thing here, I fall for how you make me feel, not a checklist that I have
You know, women, we’re of the impression that men want women for what they look like
And you say that that’s not really true
How about we say that’s not exclusively true
So, how a woman how a woman looks I mean, a big part of this and women have taught me this has to do with how a woman feels about herself
I mean, I’ I’ve seen women that from the distance were dressed impeccably
I mean, I’ve seen this back when I had an office and they’d come in, start talking, they just fall apart
I mean, it’s a counseling session, so it’s understandable
But if you just looked at how they looked and how they present themselves, they look super confident on top of it
And the problem with that is is when she goes out dating, this facade’s too strong a word, but this image she’s projecting, it’s not false, but it’s it’s limited
And once you start talking and sharing with him, he’s going to feel whatever fears
He’s going to feel those insecurities
And that’s going to affect how he sees her
Every man, probably woman, too, has a story of a woman they went out with
Really pretty, so excited or went across the room to meet her and then she opened her mouth and and you just, oh my gosh, get me out of here
I know you ladies have had this, too
Mhm
And that’s just a point to make that looks are important, so let’s be our best selves
But it’s how you listen
Are you interesting? Are we a good match? It’s not are you interesting as a person or just are we interesting to each other
Sometimes you can be perfectly authentic and we’re just not a good match
And we just don’t want to try to force those to happen
But that’s the appeal because when we get along really well, I naturally see you as softer
I notice your smile more
The tone of your voice is is is really fetching
Yeah
It’s interesting that this point needs such an explanation because I think if if you tell women or men for that matter that, you know, men don’t care about chemistry at first
They rather want comfort and ease and this and then they’ll roll their eyes
There’s probably people rolling their eyes right now
But once you get into the explanation of what is meant by that, such as, you know, here’s this handsome guy or this beautiful woman and yeah, we start talking to them just God
Okay, never mind
And that’s that’s the thing with with yeah judging everything on looks that you well that we do online of course because that’s the picture is pretty much all we have and you’re right that’s why I’m sure you’ve told people this online is a billboard
It’s it’s a great way to meet people but it’s not real until you actually meet them
I mean there’s something three-dimensional about how she tilts her head, the tone of voice
You just don’t get that
Even on a video you get some of it
But there’s just something about that three-dimensional thing, especially that men need to really be able to feel how she affects him
Yeah, that’s a great way to put it
It’s a billboard
It’s an ad
You know, don’t necessarily even take it personally because there’s so much more they don’t know about you
Yeah
If if we can drill that home, I think online dating could be a much better tool than what it’s turning out to be, especially lately
All right
The third the third thing here
I’m afraid of being controlled again
That then that is particularly prevalent for men after 50 who may have just come out of a long marriage
Yes
So once I usually it’s marriage, but if I’ve dated someone long term, now she has an emotional ability to hurt me should she choose to
And it’s not so much with calling me names as much as for men
If I love a woman and she’s not happy, that is awful
And I’m not saying women have to be happy all the time, but in general as a man, I take responsibility for your happiness
You’ve had John Gray on
I remember him saying this, and I always loved it when he mentioned this, and I’ve seen that to be true
Again, men don’t literally walk around and saying, “I’m responsible for happiness
” But it’s a sense of I feel good when she feels good
When she feels happy
I’ve been on the receiving end when someone was upset
Playing golf didn’t take that away
Candy didn’t take that away
Dead blessed just, you know, I had to go deal with with the problem or or why they, you know, she was upset because your happiness does so much more for me
If you use that against me where you overreact to things and now it feels like you’re controlling because the smallest mistake I make the the the one wrong word I say I don’t get you the present you want hopefully I’m doing extremes that feels controlling and that you’re going to punish me emotionally if I don’t do exactly what you say
That’s the fear mainly because it’s happened before whether it’s once or twice and so I fear that’s going to happen again
That’s usually the caution men bring into a new relationship
Is there a fear of losing autonomy which then women uh might uh interpret as the fear of well not you know being committed that they want to date other women? That’s a good question
At least what I have seen is that men actually commit to a lot of things
It’s not the same scale
They commit to mortgages
I mean they they commit to longer term things
The fear of the commitment is is if I do it, are you going to take advantage of me? It doesn’t mean you will
It’s that you could
And so I need to see a few instances where you could take advantage of me
You could make fun of me
You could hold something against me and yet you don’t
That’s why I’m real big on if you’re upset with a man, show him so that he gets to see that you can be angry and still safe
You know, I did with men
If you’re angry, it’s okay
Get angry with her, but just show her you don’t get violent
Show her you don’t call names
show her you don’t threaten because that’s maybe what she’s used to
And so it’s it’s it’s what the commitment means to them
If it’s a trap, I’m terrified
If it’s we’re a team, oh my gosh, sign me up
Yeah, that’s a great great explanation
Okay, thing number four, I want to be appreciated more than I want to be needed
That threw me a little bit because just in another video we talked about how men need to be needed and there’s so many very secure woman women now that send the message they don’t need a man
So what what exactly do you mean by that? So we’re doing a little nuance on this one
So if it’s in this instance needed is um you need me for you to function in certain areas
So you need me to always comfort you when your boss is ugly to you
Well, you really don’t need me for that
You probably need to have a conversation with your boss
But it’s easier to have a conversation with me instead of dealing with your boss who’s who’s being gruff with you
Appreciate it is when you see something I do that you like that you let me know, especially with emotions
So, I was just talking to a client today, and this is not a hard and fast rule of thumb, but she was saying something with the guy she likes, and I said, just for fun, I said, “How about let’s lose the word thank you for like 3 weeks
” Nothing wrong with thank you, but my one I use a lot is if a man says, “Will you marry me?” You wouldn’t say thank you
It’s not bad
It’s just it’s we say thank you to friends and that’ll get her toward I appreciate this
I love that you took me to dinner
What a wonderful meal
And see, we’re a little more emotive with it
And so, you can be appreciative a number of ways
We just don’t want you to keep it in
And uh we don’t want the neediness uh the need part to be a sense of entitlement
That’s Yeah, that’s interesting
I’m glad that you you clarified that because it was almost the opposite of of what we’ve said before that men need to have I I suppose a sense of purpose is what I was referring to and what you described as something totally different but makes makes uh yeah makes all the sense sense in the world and yeah we know and we’ve said that before men need to be appreciated as we all do but I think men especially that’s one of their emotions if you do that it’ll make them feel feel Great
And yeah, they want you to know that
Finally, here number five
If I choose you, I choose you quickly
And that goes to I suppose somebody who just dillydalls along and the woman is still hoping, you know, that he’ll come around
But then men actually do make quick quicker decisions than maybe we give them credit for
Yeah, they they do
And usually it’s in stages
So usually by the time a man man approaches a woman or ask her out, he’s already thought that through
I’m interested in her
And then if it goes to the next stage or stages of I want to be exclusive with her, but if he’s taking months and months and we’re fine, it it in my opinion, at least what I’ve seen, once you’re over 30, it doesn’t take as long to really know if this is a good fit for you
I mean, if it’s long distance and you don’t see each other, maybe you if you’re 18 years old, take a long time because you’re going to change personality-wise between 18 and 21
Once you’re over 30, there’s not a lot that’s going to change
And so, there’s not really much information that’s going to be discovered that’s new
I mean, long as long as you’ve had one argument or something where you’ve resolved it
But then if he’s a fear or something he’s avoiding, I don’t know what
But I’m cautious with that because once men know or at least they’re 60 70% they just fill in the rest over time with the details as far as how we’re going to make this work
But I’m not doubting as far as whether it’s you or not because it’s exhausting for men to [clears throat] go hunting
As as much as women think men like dating, we don’t
We we we don’t like we we don’t like being trapped
But once we find someone we really like, why keep shopping? That’s another thing that online dating encourages
so much, you know, is that that I guess for women more so than men
I don’t know that that’s something to be, you know, discussed or debated, but you have that feeling there’s always somebody else out there, which is absolutely absolutely not not true
So the big red flag would be if somebody is dragging their feet on and on and on, then that’s you can pretty much read into that that he’s not really not really into you or not into you or or only going to let somebody get close
We don’t necessarily know what’s wrong, but but something’s off or something’s wrong because there’s no reason
There’s nothing new to discover
That’s the one I always use is what what more do we need that we haven’t seen in a few months
I mean, assuming we’re seeing each other a fair amount
What what more to you? And if that’s the case, usually what they’re doing is they’re just waiting on this idealic feeling of euphoria that you’re never going to get that kind of certainty
I mean, if you want that kind of certainty, go buy a puppy
I mean, that that’s a better example
Yeah
Lot lots for us to think about here
again you made some great points that I think uh some women certainly me have not heard explained the way you have
So thank thank you for that
What what do we take away from there? What’s the biggest here? How would you sum this up? So what men say and do, what I’m after for you ladies is is if you understand what men want sometimes even better than they do, it’s not a complex thing is they really do want to fall in love
We really do like having a partner, but our way of going about it is different than yours
We’re not going to process this and share it
We’re more cautious, but that once we give our heart, we don’t want to shop around
Well, we don’t want to
We’re hoping that you give us the benefit of the doubt that we want to be in the relationship with you, that we think you’re special as opposed to we have to prove it or we have to go back and explain everything
that makes it much easier for us just to invest even more in you
Well, Bob, again, thank you so much
Always appreciate your time
And if you’d like to get in touch with Bob directly, you can do so at Relationship Headquarters
All the links are in the show notes below
And be sure to check out Bob’s new podcast that’s taken off here on YouTube, Relationship Headquarters Podcast
And Bob, I look forward to our next conversation on Second Act TV
[music]