“Speak up” is half the advice. The other half is who you tell.

Men are always told to speak up.

I did.

In my first year of marriage, rent became a problem. I ran around looking for money. I didn’t keep quiet about it. I told friends. I told brothers.

Some of them set up a meeting to discuss how to help me. Nothing came out of it. The meeting only dragged the situation on. Later, when they were alone, they gossiped about it and made fun of me.

So here is the question I’ve carried since: was speaking up the mistake?

I don’t think it was. But I no longer believe “speak up” is the whole advice.

For a Nigerian man, money is never just money

First, what this is not about. My marriage was wonderful that first year, and it has always been wonderful. The hardship was money, not the marriage.

But in Nigeria, money trouble rarely stays a money problem for a man. It becomes a question about what kind of man you are.

The anthropologist Daniel Jordan Smith drew on twenty-five years of experience in south-eastern Nigeria. He found refrains about financial hardship everywhere, often in a single line: “to be a man is not a one-day job” (University of Chicago Press). In an interview about the book, he names the trap. Men “need money to be good men,” and how they spend it “becomes all the more scrutinized” (Gottlieb, 2018).

His research covers one region, not every Nigerian man. But it describes the pressure I’m writing about.

Today I provide for my family, though not as much as I want to, because of the economy. At times that has made me feel like pulling back from doing much at all.

That pulling back is a failure nobody sees.

Speaking up is not the same as being heard

When the rent problem came, I felt terrible. I felt helpless. I didn’t know what to do. There were times I just kept wondering.

So I talked. That’s what we tell men to do.

The advice isn’t wrong. It’s incomplete.

Psychologists who study disclosure find that opening up helps under certain conditions. It depends on what you hope to get from it and on how the listener responds (Chaudoir & Fisher, 2010). A review of 146 randomised experiments on sharing thoughts and feelings about personal and meaningful topics found a real benefit, but a small one (Frattaroli, 2006).

Speaking is not magic. Who hears you matters.

Research on secrets points the same way. People tend to confide in those they see as compassionate and assertive. Being merely polite or enthusiastic doesn’t earn the same trust (Slepian & Kirby, 2018).

I learned that the hard way. Since then, I’m careful who I open up to. A lot of people only want to hear your story. They won’t help. Later, they use it to make jest of you.

These days I put it simply: “I do not have friends.”

Help came from the circle I didn’t count on

Here is the part I want told plainly.

The help came from my in-laws. My brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law contributed money. My wife was working, and she contributed too. Between them, the rent was paid.

It didn’t come from the meeting or from the people who made fun of me. It came from my wife and my in-laws.

The script says a man provides alone, and if he can’t, he has failed. But that script was never the whole truth. Smith’s research shows that men’s money in Nigeria is deeply social. Men “put money into the service of sociality,” giving to kin, friends and lovers (Gottlieb, 2018). Money moves through families. Sometimes it moves towards you.

Community can mean support or it can mean scrutiny. A study of two southern Nigerian communities found that women facing infertility were treated very differently depending on how their families were organised. In one community they were disadvantaged. In the other, maternal kin and voluntary associations supported them (Hollos et al., 2009). Same country. A similar private setback. A different circle, and a different outcome.

The lesson isn’t “trust family” or “don’t trust friends.” It’s that the people who will actually carry a burden with you are not always the people you expect.

Scripture says it simply: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2, KJV).

That is what my in-laws did. They didn’t hold a meeting about the burden. They picked up part of it.

Silence costs more than we admit

I have watched other men go through a lot of things without talking. Silence has a price, even when nobody sees it.

In a mental health survey across 21 of Nigeria’s 36 states, only 16.9% of adults who had major depression in the past year had received any treatment (Gureje et al., 2010). For mood disorders, the median delay before people first sought help was six years (Gureje, 2008). Those figures are about mental illness, not rent. But they show how long people carry things before anyone helps.

The heaviest numbers are these. The World Health Organization estimates Nigeria’s 2021 age-standardised suicide rate at 15.1 per 100,000 for men and 2.9 for women, about five times higher for men (WHO Global Health Observatory). These are modelled estimates with wide margins of uncertainty. They don’t prove that silence about money causes suicide. But I can’t look away from them either.

The law has made it harder to speak. Attempting suicide is still a crime: under section 327 of the Criminal Code in the southern states (Criminal Code Act), and under section 231 of the Penal Code in the north (Penal Code Law, 1959). In September 2026, the Federal Executive Council approved the health ministry’s position on decriminalising it, and the matter now goes to the National Assembly (Federal Ministry of Information, 2026).

The psalmist wrote: “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long” (Psalm 32:3, KJV). He was writing about unconfessed sin, not money trouble. But the picture fits any burden carried in silence.

If you are at that point now, please don’t carry it alone. The Suicide Research and Prevention Initiative (SURPIN) runs a 24-hour toll-free line: 09034400009  (LifeLine International; SURPIN). In an emergency, call 112 (NCC).

Keeping quiet is sometimes wisdom. Shutting down is not.

There is a strong case for keeping your business to yourself. Gossip is real. Nigerian startup founder Samuel Uduma said in Quartz: “Here in Nigeria, we stigmatize failure and I think that’s why founders don’t divulge because it just becomes gossip” (Quartz).

I know that’s true. It happened to me.

So I won’t tell you to tell everyone.

But careful is not the same as closed. One large set of studies on secrets found that the real weight isn’t the effort of hiding something. It’s the way the mind keeps going back to it (Slepian et al., 2017). Other research shows that people underestimate how much others are struggling, and that this underestimate goes with more loneliness (Jordan et al., 2011).

Shutting everyone out doesn’t remove the burden. It just means you carry it alone.

Faith helped me carry mine. I’m a Christian, and I believe things will get better. “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again” (Proverbs 24:16, KJV).

I still believe speaking out and meeting the right people helps. I just believe the second half of that sentence matters as much as the first.

What I would tell a younger man

If I saw a younger man going through the same thing, I would go to him. I would tell him to speak out and to meet people who can help. Then I would add this:

1. Speak, but choose the listener. Look for people who have actually helped before, not just people who are curious.
2. Notice who wants your story and who wants to solve the problem. A meeting that only delays things is telling you something.
3. Count your whole circle. That includes your spouse and your in-laws. Help may not come from where your pride expects it.
4. Letting your family carry part of the load is not failing as a man.
5. When you see another man going quiet, go to him first.

Speaking up was never the mistake

I spoke up, and some people used it against me. I spoke up, and the rent still got paid, by my wife and my in-laws.

Both of those are true. That’s why I can’t give the old advice on its own anymore.

Speak up. But think about who you’re speaking to.

Before you close this page, think of the people who have actually helped you. Not the ones who asked questions. The ones who carried something. Do they know what you’re carrying right now?

When you’ve struggled with money, who actually helped, and was it who you expected?

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References

1. Smith, D.J. (2017). To Be a Man Is Not a One-Day Job: Masculinity, Money, and Intimacy in Nigeria. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo27128843.html
2. Gottlieb, A. (24 Jul 2018). To Be a Man Is Not a One-Day Job: a conversation with Daniel Jordan Smith. https://almagottlieb.com/2018/07/24/to-be-a-man-is-not-a-one-day-job/
3. Chaudoir, S.R. & Fisher, J.D. (2010). The disclosure processes model. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 236–256. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20192562/
4. Frattaroli, J. (2006). Experimental disclosure and its moderators: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 823–865. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17073523/
5. Slepian, M.L. & Kirby, J.N. (2018). To whom do we confide our secrets? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(7), 1008–1023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29534648/
6. Hollos, M., Larsen, U., Obono, O. & Whitehouse, B. (2009). The problem of infertility in high fertility populations. Social Science & Medicine, 68(11), 2061–2068. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19356835/
7. Bible Gateway, King James Version: Galatians 6:2; Psalm 32:3; Proverbs 24:16. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%206%3A2%3B%20Psalm%2032%3A3%3B%20Proverbs%2024%3A16&version=KJV
8. Gureje, O., Uwakwe, R., Oladeji, B., Makanjuola, V.O. & Esan, O. (2010). Depression in adult Nigerians. Journal of Affective Disorders, 120(1–3), 158–164. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19450883/
9. Gureje, O. (2008). Common psychiatric disorders over a lifetime: age of onset, risk and treatment contact in the Nigerian survey of mental health and wellbeing. African Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, 37(3). https://www.ojshostng.com/index.php/ajmms/en/article/view/1444
10. World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory. Age-standardized suicide rates (per 100,000 population), Nigeria, 2021. Indicator page: https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/age-standardized-suicide-rates-%28per-100-000-population%29. Data: https://ghoapi.azureedge.net/api/MH_12?$filter=SpatialDim%20eq%20’NGA’%20and%20TimeDim%20eq%202021
11. Criminal Code Act (Nigeria), s.327. https://jurist.ng/criminal_code_act/sec-327 ; Penal Code Law, Northern Region No. 18 of 1959 (annotated edition), s.231, via the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies repository. https://ir.nilds.gov.ng/bitstream/handle/123456789/651/The%20Panel%20Code%20Law%2C%20Northern%20Region%20No.18%201959.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1
12. Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation (10 Sept 2026). FG moves to decriminalise attempted suicide as FEC approves ministry’s position. https://fmino.gov.ng/fg-moves-to-decriminalise-attempted-suicide-as-fec-approves-ministrys-position/
13. LifeLine International. Nigeria (SURPIN). https://lifeline-international.com/member/nigeria-surpin/ ; SURPIN. https://www.surpinng.com/
14. Nigerian Communications Commission. Special Duties Department Service Charter (112 emergency number). https://ncc.gov.ng/about/servicom-charter/departmental-charters/special-duties-department-service-charter
15. Quartz Africa (2018, updated 2022). How Nigerian startup founders cope with the stigma of failure in an unforgiving market. https://qz.com/africa/1277993/nigerian-startups-keep-failing-without-funds-unlike-silicon-valley
16. Slepian, M.L., Chun, J.S. & Mason, M.F. (2017). The experience of secrecy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 1–33. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28481618/
17. Jordan, A.H., Monin, B., Dweck, C.S. et al. (2011). Misery has more company than people think. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), 120–135. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21177878/