I don’t get many clients who say it in those exact words, “I don’t know how to be a man”, but the feeling sits underneath a lot of what brings men into the room. It surfaces in relationship difficulties, in confusion about ambition and success, and in a kind of quiet embarrassment about not having this figured out yet.
Louis Theroux’s recent documentary on the manosphere spotlighted one place some men go looking for answers. The tone of that content, often crude and sometimes openly misogynistic, gets most of the attention. But many of the men I see are somewhere quieter: unable to name what they feel, unsure who to tell, and not really looking for a blueprint online or anywhere else. Just lost.
What they bring is uncertainty about relationships, work, fatherhood, and a reluctance to admit that uncertainty out loud. Not because they’re chasing discipline or control, but because nobody showed them how to name what’s going on inside, let alone say it to someone else.
“My partner wants me to see a therapist”
This is a common way men end up in front of me now. He’s not there because he decided, on his own, that he wanted to talk to someone. He’s there because his partner asked him to, sometimes after years of him not sharing what’s going on for him at home.
It’s rarely framed as a crisis. More often, it’s an ongoing frustration on the partner’s side: a sense of talking to someone who’s present but closed, who deflects with humour or goes quiet when something real comes up. The man himself often isn’t sure what he’s meant to be working on. He knows he’s been asked to change something, but not always what.
I don’t see this as a lesser reason to be here. Being asked, or even pushed, into therapy by someone who loves you can still be a way in. The work usually begins by helping him discover, in his own time, what he wants from being here, aside from what he’s been asked to fix.
The goalposts are changing
Previous generations grew up with clearer, if flawed, male role models. For many Irish men that map was tied to land, farming, faith, and a fixed role at the head of the household. Those anchors have been eroding for some time, often for good reason. But the erosion has happened faster than anything has arrived to replace it, and many men are getting lost in that gap.
What’s asked of men now has shifted quickly, and it’s shifted in several directions at once. Be strong, but also open. Provide, but also share the load. Lead but also listen. Reasonable expectations individually, but arriving all together, with very little instruction on how to hold them at the same time.
This isn’t just an abstract identity crisis. When men don’t have a workable map, and don’t feel able to ask for one, the coping mechanisms that fill the gap can be dangerous. Men are more likely than women to use alcohol or other substances to manage what they feel rather than name it. They’re more likely to act out through risky behaviour instead of sitting with distress. Suicide rates among men, particularly young men, remain far higher than among women. And a man with no language for his own pain is also more likely to turn that pain outward, including into abuse within relationships.
None of this is inevitable, and it is not simply a matter of individual weakness. It is what can happen when the old map disappears and nothing takes its place. The silence that once looked like strength begins to work against the men who carry it.
Tall Poppy Syndrome
There’s a well-worn habit of cutting down anyone who stands out. Sometimes referred to as Tall Poppy Syndrome, it is the idea that the tallest poppy is noticed and cut down first. Admiration curdles into begrudgery the moment someone gets too big for their boots. I think the same instinct can operate inside men around emotion. I notice it in clients as a flicker of irritation, even contempt, toward a man who cries openly or names his feelings without flinching. Who does he think he is. It is usually a defence: a way of keeping distance from openness that feels too risky to attempt yourself. The very thing that might help a man feel less alone gets mocked instead, and everyone stays stuck a little longer.
The pull toward vulnerability, and the difficulty of it
At the same time, there has been a real cultural push for men to be more open, emotionally available, and able to say when they are struggling. I think that change is positive, but I also see how difficult it is to live out in practice.
Vulnerability doesn’t come with a script. There’s no clear standard to hit, no obvious marker of doing it “right”. Men who try to be more open often find it doesn’t land as expected: a friend changes the subject, a partner isn’t sure how to respond, or the words simply don’t come. For a man who’s spent years not naming what he feels, wanting to change doesn’t make language appear overnight.
How I work with it
I don’t begin with a theory of what masculinity should be. Instead, I get curious about what’s going on underneath and why it has stayed unspoken. The work is less about masculinity as an abstract idea and more about helping a man find words for what he has never been able to say, while learning to sit with the discomfort of having no fixed script. When drinking, risk-taking, or anger have become the default ways of managing what lies beneath, they need to be part of the conversation too: coping strategies that once made sense but can be replaced with something less costly.
Men are often surprised by what happens when they finally say “the thing” out loud, sometimes for the first time in their lives. They describe it as a weight lifting, a sense of relief, or the feeling of finally being able to breathe. It is rarely as dramatic as they expected, and rarely painless, but there is something freeing about no longer carrying it alone. For a man who has spent years believing he had to manage everything internally and by himself, that relief can be the first real sign that another way of coping is possible.
If this sounds familiar
If any of this resonates, whether you came here on your own or because someone else suggested it, you don’t need a crisis point before seeking support.
John Igoe is a counsellor and psychotherapist who works with adults experiencing emotional, relational and life difficulties. His work is informed by an integrative approach, with particular interest in how early experiences, family relationships and deeper emotional patterns can shape the way we understand ourselves and relate to others.