It is toxic to accept only the exact reaction you want from your partner. It is toxic to police your partner’s reaction. It is toxic to expect your partner to act as your only support system. It is toxic to expect your partner to fill the role of a trained professional therapist. It is toxic to punish your partner (with silence, passive aggressive “I told you so’s”, or anger) if they are unable to provide all the support or validation you need.

I did not make any assumptions about the context in which a man might choose to disclose to his partner. You added the “hounding”. Pestering someone to divulge emotionally charged information they don’t want to is also toxic behavior. It’s wrong, but it wasn’t part of my original statement. Your comment makes a lot of assumptions, and is steeped in a culture of “toxic masculinity”. There is nothing that you or I can do about the cultures in which we were raised. But recognizing and actively questioning these assumptions is the first step towards freeing ourselves from them.