Therapy with Men
“Not in his goals but in his transitions is man great.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The “Tough Guy”
A lot of the lessons men are given about strength came with a cost.
From an early age, many men learn that being strong means being self-reliant, keeping your emotions in check, pushing through discomfort, and taking care of everyone else. We learn to solve problems, stay composed, and keep moving. There is value in those qualities. The problem is when strength becomes synonymous with never needing help.
Men are often given very little room to experience fear, sadness, uncertainty, or vulnerability. Anger may be acceptable, but the emotions underneath it are not always given the same permission. We learn how to handle a crisis, but not necessarily how to talk about what the crisis is doing to us.
The problem is that we cannot selectively shut off emotions. When we become highly practiced at avoiding pain, we often become less available to the rest of our emotional lives too. Connection, intimacy, joy, and vulnerability can become harder to access along with the emotions we were taught to suppress.
You can be successful at work and still feel disconnected at home.
You can be the person everyone calls when there is a problem and still have no one you feel comfortable calling when you are struggling.
You can love your family deeply and still have difficulty letting them see what is happening beneath the surface.
Previous generations often had fewer opportunities to question these expectations. For many men, survival, providing, and protecting were the priorities. Those qualities helped families and communities endure difficult times. But the world has changed, and the same strategies that helped us survive may not always help us build the relationships and lives we want today.
Research increasingly shows the importance of emotional connection, social support, healthy relationships, and the ability to manage stress. When those things are missing, men can be more vulnerable to depression, anxiety, anger, substance use, relationship difficulties, and chronic stress.
Strength can mean knowing when to push forward, but it can also mean knowing when to pause. It can mean protecting the people you love while allowing them to know you. It can mean handling difficult things without having to handle everything alone.
You do not have to give up independence to let someone in. Sometimes real strength begins when you no longer have to pretend you are fine.
The “Nice Guy” Syndrome
In our cultural narrative, the "Tough Guy" takes center stage. Yet, for every "bad boy" archetype, there's another kind of man: the Nice Guy.
The Nice Guy is the one women love having as a friend but hesitate to pursue romantically. He's sensitive, kind-hearted, and always tuned into others' feelings, often taking a back seat in his own assertiveness. Though he may understand what others desire, he struggles to define his own wants and needs. His strategy? To cater to everything he believes a woman desires, hoping it will win her affection. Unfortunately, this approach rarely leads to success.
There is nothing wrong with being kind, thoughtful, or considerate. The problem begins when being "nice" becomes a strategy for getting approval, avoiding conflict, or making sure other people are happy with you.
Some men learn early that being agreeable is safer than being direct. We become very good at noticing what other people need, while losing touch with what we actually want. We say yes when we mean no. We avoid difficult conversations. We give more than we have to give and quietly hope that someone will recognize our effort and love us for it.
From the outside, this can look like being the perfect partner. Inside, it can feel very different.
Over time, resentment can build. You may feel like you are doing everything right and still not getting the appreciation, respect, affection, or intimacy you hoped would follow. But because anger and disappointment do not fit with the identity of being the "nice guy," those feelings often stay underground.
Eventually they have to come out somewhere.
Sometimes these emotions show up as withdrawal or passive-aggressive behavior. Sometimes it is irritability, pornography, alcohol, work, or another way of escaping feelings that are difficult to acknowledge. And sometimes the person who has spent years trying not to disappoint anyone suddenly finds himself deeply unhappy and unsure how he got there.
"I don't feel seen."
"I don't feel appreciated."
"I don't know how to ask for what I want."
"I'm afraid that if I disappoint you, you won't love me."
The answer is not to become less kind or more aggressive. It is to become more honest.
The goal is not to stop being a nice guy.
It is to become a man who can be kind without abandoning himself.
A New Generation of Men
American men are faced with an impossible, paradox.
The old image of masculinity was relatively straightforward. Be tough. Be independent. Protect your family. Don't complain. Don't show too much emotion. The John Wayne version of masculinity had a pretty clear script.
That script has changed, and in many ways, that is a good thing. Men have more permission to talk about mental health, relationships, emotions, and vulnerability than previous generations did.
But the old expectations haven't completely disappeared. They have simply been joined by a new set of expectations.
Today, men are often told to be emotionally available, communicate openly, know how to talk about their feelings, and be vulnerable. At the same time, they are still expected to be confident, successful, physically capable, protective, decisive, and emotionally steady when things get difficult.
In other words, men are often expected to be both strong and vulnerable, confident and humble, protective and gentle, independent and emotionally available.
That's a complicated balancing act. And a LOT of pressure. The ideal man is often expected to be physically confident and successful while also being emotionally sophisticated. He should be comfortable crying, but not seem fragile. He should be assertive, but not controlling. He should be ambitious, but not consumed by work. He should protect his family, but not be overly traditional. He should know what he wants, while also being completely attuned to what everyone else needs.
It is not surprising that some men feel like they are constantly trying to figure out whether they are doing masculinity "right."
For some, that uncertainty turns into anxiety. For others, it becomes shame, perfectionism, anger, withdrawal, or simply the feeling that no matter what they do, it isn't quite enough.
I don't think the answer is to go backward to an older version of masculinity. I also don't think the answer is to create a new version of masculinity where men have to perform vulnerability just as they once performed toughness.
The goal is something more personal.
Who are you when you stop trying to meet everyone else's definition of what a man should be?
Maybe strength means being able to handle difficult things without pretending they don't affect you. Maybe confidence means knowing what you believe while remaining open to being wrong. Maybe vulnerability means having the courage to let someone you trust see the parts of you that you normally keep hidden.
There is no single way to be a man.
The work is figuring out what kind of man you want to be, what values actually matter to you, and whether the way you are living reflects those values.
That is a much more meaningful definition of strength than simply learning how to never show that something hurts.
What do we do?
As a therapist who frequently works with men both individually and in various group settings, I encounter an equal distribution between those who fit the Tough Guy mold and those who align more with the Nice Guy persona. This balance underscores the importance of addressing issues like addiction, anger, passive-aggressive behavior, anxiety, depression, and relationship challenges.
However, addressing these issues goes beyond surface-level fixes like quitting drinking or curbing porn consumption. It requires delving deeper into the complexities of masculinity and the societal expectations placed upon men.
I firmly believe that the key to navigating the double standard imposed upon men lies in discovering our inner strength – a strength that emerges from genuine emotional connection with ourselves and others. When we operate from a place of authenticity, rather than conforming to societal norms, we unlock the true sources of Power, Strength, and Peace within ourselves. This is some of the most powerful and rewarding work I do.