MenAreGood
Relational Aggression: A Trap for Men (text version)
July 19, 2024

This is the text version of an older video post on relational aggression. Many of you seemed to like the last text version of the 1 in 4 research video so I trhought I would post this one. I hope you find it useful. I will be posting the accompanying video soon.




A gynocentric world is a dangerous place for men. The hazards are many including traps that are simply beyond the awareness of most. Relational aggression is one of those traps. Most of us are aware of the physical violence of many women and the cultures disinterest in holding women accountable but this is different. Relational aggression is more insidious due to its invisibility and the encouragement from the culture at large. Let’s have a look at this trap called relational aggression.

We have spent nearly 50 years warning women about men’s physical aggression. We’ve created laws, built institutions and flooded the media in efforts to protect women. In the process we have been told repeatedly that this is not just a problem of a few men who are out of control but instead is a problem of all men and their masculinity. This is Crazy stuff.

All the while there has been a muffled silence about women’s aggression. Some has trickled through like a bit of attention on mean girls but the reality and lethality of women’s aggression has rarely leaked into the media. The sad news is that women’s aggression is really a trap for men. Being aware of the trap may help you navigate and steer clear.

With that background let's have a good look at women’s relational aggression, how it works, where it starts and the dangers and traps that men face as a result. We will also spend a little time in looking at how this form of aggression impacts nearly all men’s issues and importantly how feminism is literally based on this form of aggression but is never called out for it.

 

Let’s get started.

Relational aggression starts early. The youngest female researchers have identified practicing relational aggression was 2.5 years old. But what is this thing called relational aggression?

The best definition I have seen calls it “Bullying without physical violence.” That sums it up pretty well. Researchers define it something like this:

Behaviors that harm others through damage (or threat of damage) to relationships. They go on to talk about how relational aggression is meant to destroy feelings of acceptance, friendship, or group inclusion. Basically attacking someones identity and trying your best to hurt them without being violent.

How is this accomplished? Well through excluding, ignoring, teasing, gossiping, secrets, backstabbing, lies, false accusations, rumor spreading and hostile body language (i.e., eye-rolling and smirking).

These may sound more tame than physical aggression but think about it. How many suicides have you heard about that were due to someone getting beat up repeatedly? Maybe a few. But then think about how many suicides you have heard about from people being ostracized or shamed by groups? I have heard more of those and I am betting you have too.

So this stuff is lethal. It may sound harmless but that is simply not the case. It can lead

 

to very serious consequences including what is being called 3rd prty abuse which is when relational aggression tricks authorities into unwittingly continuing the abuse.

Relational aggression is also stealth. With physical aggression you leave bruises, scars, or broken bones. These things can be seen. People gasp when they see them. But how about relational aggression? You can’t see it. It Is basically invisible. If that wasn’t bad enough, the invisibility also makes it very difficult to challenge. Try proving someone gossiped and spread lies about you. Try disproving a false accusation. Both nearly impossible but both potentially lethal. This leaves relational violence a stealth tool that is so easy to deny. "Who me? I didn’t do anything, why are YOU so upset about nothing?" And of course gynocentrism plays its ugly part in all this in protecting the lying female making matters worse still.

This is not to say that there are no physically violent women. There are. The research has found some interesting things about violent women. It seems that those women who are physically aggressive and men who are relationally aggressive have been found to have more psychological pathological than their counterparts. So be on the lookout for relationally aggressive men and physically aggressive women. Danger Will Robinson.  Danger!

Some are seeing that one precursor for relational aggression is what they are calllng “hostility attribution bias.” Basically this means that the person assumes wrongly that a hostile act has occurred and wrongly assume it was directed towards them. Say a young girl sees two friends whispering and wrongly assumes it is about her.  She is a experiencing hostility attribution bias and this apparently occurs more with girls and women in relationships.

How many times as a man have I heard something from a woman claiming that I thought a certain way or did something for a certain reason. I know it is completely false but she is beyond convinced that she is right and I am lying. This ever happened to you? I bet it has, repeatedly. The researchers are saying that sometimes it is this hostility attribution bias that stimulates the relational aggression. Makes sense to me and it gives us a clue about how to defend ourselves. Beware of the hostility attribution bias. This is a red hot danger sign. Run if you can.

One researcher, Nicki Crick, studied young boys and girls and found some very interesting results. She noted that 15.6% of the young boys used physical aggression but only .4% of the girls. She also found that 17.4% of the girls used relational aggression and only 2% of the boys. Crick totaled these and realized that the boys and girls were equally aggressive, they just had different paths to get there. The boys were more physical, the girls more relational. More and more of recent research is working to measure both relational aggression and physical aggression but you still don’t hear much about that in the media.

One might assume that if boys and girls have similar levels of aggression that you would find that the culture would address both. Right? Wrong. Our gynocentric culture perseverates on the aggression if males and ignores and even promotes the relational aggression. Men’s violence is seen as atrocious and wicked and women’s relational aggression is ignored.

One indicator of this bias was shown by researchers when they studied the animated films of Disney. What did they find? They found that 100% of the animated Disney films contained relational aggression and specifically found that the average was 11 relationally aggressive acts per hour. That’s an act every 6 minutes or so.   The relational aggression was often portrayed as justified and shown to have few negative consequences. The worst news is that such aggression was often portrayed by female characters who were attractive, rich, and popular.

 

The media is literally training our young girls that it is okay to be relationally aggressive, in fact it is what rich, attractive, and popular girls do. There are no calls of concern from parents or teachers to stop this. I hope you are getting a picture of how dangerous this is for men and boys.

The trend for girls to be more relationally aggressive than boys continues into adolescence and beyond. There is some evidence that men start using more relational aggression as they get older but I think the accepted idea is that women are more likely to use relational aggression. It does make one wonder why.

Why Relational Aggression?

The evolutionary psychologists have some ideas about that. They say that men for eons have had to aggressively compete with other men in order to seek reproductive access, in other words, get the girl. In doing this they would form hierarchies not unlike other primate males who physically compete for alpha status. The higher your status in the hierarchy the more likely you get the top female. Men became accustomed to competing with their fellows and taking their place within a hierarchy of winners and losers and all those in between. Women on the other hand didn’t have the same need to aggressively compete for a mate. She was a chooser not a competer. Instead women needed a community to aid her while she was dependent due to being pregnant and raising children.   This pushed women to not compete, but to strive to be an accepted part of the group. If a woman tried to elevate herself above the others in her group she was seen as an outlier, someone who was betraying the group by trying to make themselves appear above the others and this was discouraged or even punished. So the idea was to only be aggressive if it was stealth and could be easily denied. This insured their place in the group.

Present day psychologists see this tendency in the workforce where if a woman appears to be succeeding and doing better than the other women at the office she is often subject to relationally aggressive attacks by the other females. Gossip, finger pointing, rumours, lies etc. This hides their aggressiveness since open aggression would be seen as counter to the group cohesiveness. Making the attacks quiet keeps the group stable. She doesn’t sacrifice her group inclusion.

Researchers have found that Women’s in-group preference, that is an automatic preference for their own gender is over four times as important as a male’s in-group preference is for him. Women depend on other women and are reluctant to risk exclusion.

Another example of women being dependent upon the group is the recent understanding of how women heal from loss and stress. Shelly Taylor’s research found that women, when stressed, move towards interaction and other people. Women depend on others, mostly other women, to aid in their healing unlike men who tend to heal through action, or inaction on their own. This makes a women’s group of friends important to her for her own healing and offers us more reasons why she would not want to appear overtly aggressive and risk being excluded.

This actually explains something I saw in a research study years ago. The study had men and women playing a computer war game. The subjects were to decide how much to bomb the opponents. Under most conditions the women bombed far less than the men, but in one condition they bombed as much or more than the men. That was when others could not see how much the women were bombing!   As long as no one could see, it was bombs away! The researchers were puzzled but Again, this seems to show the female preference for relational aggression that can be hidden and easily denied.

 

Men's Issues

So how does relational aggression play out in men’s issues? Simple. It is embedded in just about all of it. Think about divorce and parental alienation. What an alienating mother does to the child is all relational aggression. She is telling lies to the child about the father, she is attempting to use those lies to hurt the father. This is relational aggression.  And it is obviously lethal.

Think about false accusations. Falsely accusing a man of rape is straight up relational aggression. It is lying with the intent to cause pain.

Both cases, the Parental Alienation and the false accusation show us something important. The lies that are used are very difficult to disprove and are very easily denied. If the father or the falsely accused man challenges the woman it is simple for her to deny and blow it off. If it ever gets to the point of her needing to admit she did this she can then say, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” It is nearly impossible to disprove a false accusation. And keep in mind in both of these instances it is likely the authorities will get involved and become a tag team with 3rd party abuse.

Think of domestic violence. The feminists have maintained for decades that domestic violence is all about violent men beating innocent women. But is that really the truth? There are likely a small minority of couples where the husband is a sociopath and the feminist version is close to being correct but I think those situations are very rare. Research has shown us that most domestic violence is reciprocal. That is, both parties are involved in the altercations. So how did they get to the point where the man would hit her? It doesn’t take much creativity to realize that she likely used relational aggression of some sort that lit his fuse and eventually moved into their violent interchange. It’s a very good guess that she is using her relational aggression skills to create as much pain in him as she can and then he blows his top and the feminist oligarchy comes in and ignores her part in igniting the fuse and only focuses on his overt violence. Then the entire 3rd party abuse Duluth treatment regime takes over and officially sees him as the problem and her as the victim. That is insane.

It wasn’t always like that. When I worked at a mental health center in the 1970’s we were trying to help female victims of DV. At that time the feminists did not have a stranglehold over the services like they do now. There were competing voices. One of those competing voices was those doing family therapy. They believed that in the majority of cases (excluding the sociopaths) that what was needed was to help the couple with conflict resolution. This of course really pissed off the feminists since it negated their idea of bad man victim woman. A huge fight ensued between the two groups and as you can imagine the feminists won. Who knows what sorts of relational aggression they used to get their way. They needed to be sure that their basic assumption of men bad women victim was not tarnished or given a secondary place.   Thus the feminists submarined any kind of attention that might have been paid to the woman’s side of the problem. Only men were the bad guys.

Feminism is Relational Aggression, They are the mean girls.

Where did that come from? Think back to the hostility attribution bias. Remember that? When you wrongly assume intent? The whole of feminism has a massive hostility attribution bias in their assumptions that men are the root of their problem. They blame men. Individuals misinterpret single interactions while groups like feminism misinterpret huge swaths of reality. The feminists have misinterpreted men’s providing and protecting of women for ages as being the oppression of women. That’s hostility attribution bias on steroids. Somehow they have convinced nearly everyone that this falsehood is the truth. Of course it is not and it is merely a mistaken assumption but in this case it is a deadly one.

 

Feminists start by swallowing a huge hostility attribution bias but they go much farther. In so many ways feminists act like mean girls. Don’t disagree with a mean girl, if you do you will pay a huge price. Same thing with feminism. Try disagreeing with a feminist and see what happens. Mean girls. Feminists bully by relational aggression. They have been telling lies and spreading rumors about men for decades and everyone assumes they are being honest. That’s Relational aggression. They threaten their own members with exclusion if they don’t follow the exact party line much like the mean girls do. They bully. They use the same exclusionary threats with legislators when they demand their bills are passed or else they will exclude them and label them as misogynists. Our cowardly legislators have been unable to rise above the bullying and the open blackmailing and this has left us with laws that are written by bullies with a huge bias.

Mean girls know they lie, and so do feminists. But they also lie about lying. Take false accusations as an example. The false accusation itself is purely relational aggression. It is a lie told that is meant to hurt. But the mean girl feminists add on to that. They lie that women never lie. This entire idea of forcing everyone to always believe the woman no matter what, is actually a relational aggression since it is simply a lie on top of another lie. I mean really. Could these people really believe that women never lie? They don’t, but they are willing to lie in order to get their way, just like the mean girls.

In the end it is all about power and control. The two very things they accuse domestic violence abusers of doing. Mean girls demand power and control and so do feminists. I think it is time we started to call feminists mean girls, and point out their relational aggressiveness every time we see it.

We need to do the same thing with the women in our lives whether it is our spouses, sisters, mothers or whoever. We need to keep our eyes peeled for hostile attribution bias and for relational aggression and call them out when we see them. Most importantly we need to maintain our cool and calmness as we confront. Speak the truth and don’t back down. Remember the relational violence is intended to get you upset and pissed off. Don’t let it. Your upset WILL be used against you. Calmness will help you turn the tables. If you disallow them to piss you off it will likely backfire and instead they will be the ones to blow.

So guys I hope you are seeing that relational aggression leaves men in a very vulnerable state. Women are literally encouraged to practice this stuff at your expense and the expense of your children. Use caution and keep in mind that men are good, as are you.

community logo
Join the MenAreGood Community
To read more articles like this, sign up and join my community today
0
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
15 hours ago
The Decline of Feminism and the Manspreading Chair - Regarding Men 27

Recorded 2020 - This conversation was recorded several years ago, but it’s just as relevant today. Janice, Tom, and Paul take a sharp look at the absurdities of modern feminism—including the infamous, award-winning “Manspreading Chair.” They also discuss the growing signs that feminism may be in decline. Take a listen and see what you think.

00:29:04
May 22, 2025
Feminism: Untrue and Unhealthy

Join Tom and David Shackleton for a unique discussion of Feminism: Untrue and Unhealthy. David challenges conventional narratives and offers insights that many others shy away from. The conversation touches on his groundbreaking books, The Hand That Rocks the World and Daughters of Feminism, offering a glimpse into the thought-provoking theories that make Shackleton an important figure in our understanding of men and women. Stay tuned for a look at his ideas that continue to shape our understanding of gender.

The Hand that Rocks the World https://www.amazon.com/Hand-That-Rocks-World-Inquiry-ebook/dp/B00WRBW7X

Daughters of Feminism https://www.amazon.com/Daughters-Feminism-Women-Supporting-Equality-ebook/dp/B07CK19VJK/

00:43:50
April 23, 2025
The Anti-Male Propaganda in Netflix's Adolescence

In this discussion, Hannah Spier, Janice Fiamengo, and Tom Golden take a critical look at the anti-male messaging embedded in the Netflix series Adolescence. Together, they unpack the show’s characters, storylines, and the implausibility of the events depicted, highlighting how such narratives reinforce harmful cultural stereotypes about boys and men. The conversation shines a light on how entertainment media can quietly shape public perceptions, often portraying male characters as either predatory, weak, or disposable, while sidelining the real experiences and complexities of young men.

00:59:27
February 07, 2023
The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings

My apologies for the last empty post. My mistake. Let's hope this one works.

Tom takes a stab at using the podcast function. Let's see how it goes.

The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings
May 13, 2022
Boys and Rough Play

This is a short excerpt from Helping Mothers be Closer to their Sons. The book was meant for single mothers who really don't know much about boy's nature. They also don't have a man in the house who can stand up for the boy and his unique nature. It tries to give them some ideas about how boys and girls are different. This excerpt is about play behaviors.

Boys and Rough Play

Dr Orion Teraban from PsycHacks addressing male disposability.

This is an amazing video and he really lays out the case for men to value there lives. It’s amazing to a tualy see such a Video.

May 09, 2025
The Margins of Mercy

This is an excellent essay on moral exclusion and its impact on men. It explores how men are often pushed outside the boundaries of moral concern and highlights feminism as a likely driving force behind this dynamic.

https://critiquingfeminism.substack.com/p/the-margins-of-mercy

April 26, 2025
MHD - The Princess Treatment Exposed

I follow MHD on Patreon and enjoy many of his vids. Here’s one of his videos that was also on youtube. See what you think.

May 29, 2025
post photo preview
Men in Feminism: The Wrong Conversation
a look at a recent journal article

Context Matters: Why This Article's Tone Is Especially Misplaced

It’s important to note that this article (Men in feminism: A self-determination perspective and goals for the future.) was published in a special issue of Psychology of Men & Masculinities, themed “Uncharted Territory” and intended to explore the possible future of research on men and boys. That context makes the tone and framing of this particular piece all the more jarring. The article isn’t a research study but an opinion-based essay focused on promoting strategies to increase male support for feminism. What? While such a topic might make sense in a feminist journal, its placement in a journal dedicated to understanding men and boys—and especially one tasked with envisioning their future—seems oddly out of place.

Rather than offering new insights into how men might thrive, heal, or participate meaningfully in future gender discussions, the article reverts to a familiar script: men are framed as the problem, their psychological needs treated as secondary, and their involvement tolerated only when it's filtered through feminist ideology.

The piece positions feminism not as a framework for mutual transformation, but as a moral litmus test — one that men must pass by internalizing guilt, accepting blame, and proving themselves worthy through re-education. Instead of exploring what it means to be a man in today’s world or considering the genuine challenges boys and men face, the article doubles down on one-sided concern. Feminism, it declares, is a “nuanced and multifaceted movement that aims to improve the lives of women.” Really?

If this is what the future of men’s studies is supposed to look like — a repackaging of guilt and exclusion — then it offers little to the men it claims to engage.

Coercion in Disguise: The SDT Contradictions

What’s especially troubling is how the article invokes Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a framework — while blatantly disregarding its foundational principles. SDT emphasizes intrinsic motivation, rooted in three key psychological needs: autonomy (freedom of choice), competence (a sense of effectiveness), and relatedness (a feeling of connection and belonging).

Yet the article undercuts autonomy from the start by quoting ​Bell ​Hooks approvingly:

“Sexism and sexist oppression... can only be successfully eradicated if men are compelled to assume responsibility.”

Compelled? That directly contradicts the heart of SDT. Autonomy means choosing to engage out of personal conviction — not guilt, coercion, or external pressure. Framing men’s involvement in feminism as something they must do or be blamed for failing to do strips the motivation of all autonomy.

Worse still, the article insists repeatedly that even when men do participate, they should not expect empathy or appreciation. Instead, they are reminded:

“Satisfying men’s psychological needs does not mean absolving them from responsibility for ways they contribute to gender inequality and sexist oppression.”

Even when men try to help, they are portrayed as morally compromised — always in debt, never fully trustworthy. That guilt-laden framing suffocates genuine engagement.

The article also centers on women's needs exclusively, showing no reciprocal curiosity or concern about men’s experiences, values, or pain. It also relieves feminist women from any responsibility to be patient, non-judgmental or even make the men feel welcome. The goal is not dialogue — it’s correction. This is captured clearly in lines such as:

“It is not feminist women’s responsibility to make men feel welcome or to agree with men, adding emotional labor on top of gendered oppression.”

And:

“We do not mean to imply, however, that it is women’s responsibility to provide patient and non-judgmental spaces for men as this places an additional burden on women.”

So if feminist women are not responsible who is? The article recommends that rather than feminist women helping men understand feminism they should farm out that task to male feminists. This outsourcing of the task to feminist men — rather than encouraging feminist women to engage directly — creates a dynamic where emotional safety is offered only if men are already ideologically compliant:

“Women have good reasons for not trusting men immediately.”

There is no vision of mutual growth or shared humanity. Men are to be “retrained” by others — not included as equals. This fails to model dialogue or mutuality and instead sets up a hierarchy: feminist women as gatekeepers of virtue, men as potential liabilities who must prove themselves.

The result is a message that frames men as morally obligated to support women because of their supposed complicity in oppression, offers no space for their own stories or struggles, and then bars them from expecting even the basic empathy that would allow for meaningful exchange.

This isn’t just intellectually inconsistent — it’s emotionally cold and strategically self-defeating. It asks men to invest in a movement that clearly does not care whether they feel welcomed, understood, or respected. In doing so, the article violates not only the principles of SDT, but any realistic pathway toward lasting engagement or authentic partnership.**


A Better Way Forward: Respect, Not Re-education

For more than 50 years, our public institutions, media, and educational systems have focused intensely on the needs and struggles of women and girls. Perhaps it’s time we reverse the lens — to spend the next 50 years focusing just as deeply on boys and men.

Imagine this: billions of dollars dedicated to researching male development, crafting education and healthcare systems tailored to boys’ needs, launching public campaigns about male well-being, creating commissions and councils that advocate solely for men’s voices. And while all this unfolds, women and girls are politely asked to wait on the sidelines — to watch without participating, without complaint, as the cultural spotlight shifts away from them.

Would that feel fair?

For many women, such a proposal would feel outrageous — as if their lives, their needs, their experiences were being brushed aside. And that reaction is exactly the point.

Because for the past half-century, that is precisely how many men have felt: ignored, blamed, and left out of the conversation. While women were told “you matter,” men were told to man up. While girls’ self-esteem, safety, and education were prioritized, boys quietly fell behind — in school, in mental health, in family life. And yet, few women stopped to ask: What about the boys?

If the idea of sidelining women now feels wrong, then perhaps it’s time to acknowledge how wrong it was to sideline men for so long. The belief that men were powerful oppressors who deserved no empathy was a cultural myth — one that too many accepted without question. And the damage of that myth is now all around us.

We don’t need to swap one form of exclusion for another. What we need is balance. We need to understand that men have struggles, too — and they deserve just as much care, compassion, and attention. Real progress doesn’t come from focusing on just one sex. It comes from listening to both.

Let’s stop pretending that empathy is a limited resource. There’s enough to go around. But first, we have to be willing to offer some to the half of the population who has gone without it for far too long.

Journal
https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/future-boys-men-masculinities

Article
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fmen0000480

Read full Article
May 27, 2025
post photo preview
Using AI with Men's Issues


I’ve created several custom GPTs focused on men’s issues. A custom GPT is essentially a private AI tool built on uploaded material. For example, one of the links below connects to Stephen Baskerville’s book Taken Into Custody. When you click the link, you'll be taken to a page where you can ask the AI questions about the book. It will search the content and provide a summarized answer.

In my testing so far, the responses have been clear and insightful. Occasionally, the AI rephrases ideas in its own words—but in most cases, these interpretations are accurate. Still, keep in mind that AI isn’t perfect. While it’s a powerful tool, its answers shouldn't be treated as final authority.

Currently, there are four custom GPTs available:

I plan to expand this library and would love to hear your suggestions—what other material would you like to see added?

Note: You’ll need a free account with chatgpt account to access any of these resources.


GPT Icon
 

Sex Bias in Domestic Violence Policies and Laws

By Tom Golden

This GPT is designed to offer clear, professional, and well-sourced insights into the often overlooked experiences of male victims of domestic violence. It explores societal blind spots, institutional biases, and the unique challenges men face in being seen, believed, and supported.
https://chatgpt.com/g/g-68178dd19bfc8191a3475bcd8051917e-sex-bias-in-domestic-violence-policies-and-laws

____________________________________

 

Understanding Men and Boys: Healing Insights

By Tom Golden

Built on the insights of three books, this GPT offers thoughtful understanding of the lives and healing processes of men and boys.
https://chatgpt.com/g/g-680ed336677c8191a3527bdf1d4bf17f-understanding-men-and-boys-healing-insights

________________________________________

GPT Icon
 

Taken Into Custody - Stephen Baskerville

By Tom Golden

Built on the insights of Stephen Baskerville's classic book Taken Into Custody. this GPT offers thoughtful understanding of the difficulties surrounding divorce.

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-68239e442d0c81918469f94d38850af5-taken-into-custody-stephen-baskerville
_________________________________________


GPT Icon
 

Boys' Muscle Strength and Performance

By Tom Golden

Research studies by James Nuzzo, PhD, and others provide insights into boys' muscle strength and physical performance.

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-6824833d14d48191be9491084dd4cc8b-boys-muscle-strength-and-performance

Read full Article
May 25, 2025
post photo preview
Memorial Day: Honoring the Invisible Sacrifices


As we honor the men and women who have given their lives in military service this Memorial Day, we often focus on the visible sacrifices: the battles fought, the bravery displayed in combat, and the ultimate price paid with death. However, there are sacrifices that often go unnoticed, those that are felt long after the uniforms are put away, those that exist in the quiet aftermath of war: the mental and emotional toll on soldiers.

For many soldiers, the impact of their service does not end when they return home. While some are physically wounded, others carry psychological scars that may never fully heal. These wounds are not visible to the eye, but they are felt deeply—affecting every aspect of life, from relationships to career choices, to the personal sense of self.

The emotional and mental struggles faced by veterans often go unspoken. Issues like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and survivor's guilt can haunt them for years after the war has ended. While physical injuries can often be treated or managed, the invisible wounds are far harder to address. The pain of loss, trauma, and the moral injuries sustained in combat don’t always show up on medical charts but are carried within.

Many soldiers come home, not only grieving the comrades they lost on the battlefield but also burdened with the weight of the actions they were forced to take in the name of war. The emotional turmoil of witnessing violence, the confusion of being asked to do things that conflict with their moral compass, and the isolation that can come from feeling misunderstood by those who have not shared their experiences, can lead to an overwhelming sense of alienation.

For families of fallen soldiers, the grief is layered. While they mourn the loss of a loved one, they also often wrestle with the emotional aftermath of their service. The long-term impacts on mental health are felt across generations, as the families of soldiers who return physically and mentally scarred deal with the ripple effects of trauma. The strain on marriages, parent-child relationships, and community ties can be immense, yet the support and understanding for these issues are frequently lacking.

Memorial Day is not just a time to remember the men who died in combat—it is also an opportunity to acknowledge the immense emotional and mental cost of war that continues to impact those who survive. It is a reminder that the invisible wounds of battle—those that affect the mind and spirit—deserve as much attention and compassion as the visible ones.

This Memorial Day, as we honor those who have fallen, let us also remember those who carry the unseen scars of war. Let us stand with those who have borne the emotional and psychological burdens of military service, offering our support, empathy, and a commitment to their long-term healing. After all, the sacrifice of our soldiers is not only paid on the battlefield—it is carried on long after the guns fall silent.

Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals