Many of my clients expected to find fulfillment from their career, marriage and home. Instead, they feel grief
“I have the career I wanted, but at this point I just don’t care.”
“I have friends, but we don’t really talk much.”
Different men begin therapy circling the same problem. They arrive at my practice naming anger, numbness or isolation. But over the weeks that follow, the problem they first brought into the room is rarely where we end up.
Many have achieved what they thought they wanted: a good career, a comfortable home, a partner, friends. Yet they feel restless. The new job was supposed to be fulfilling. Marriage was supposed to feel like arriving. Instead, the life they worked for leaves them cold.
When a man finally reaches the future he has spent years imagining and it fails to satisfy him, disappointment can harden into bitterness. He feels trapped by the very ambitions and responsibilities he believed would make him happy.
What he is feeling, but often cannot name, is grief.
Many had never examined why they pursued the lives they did. They shared an unconscious belief that if they worked hard, built stable relationships and took care of themselves, they would eventually arrive at a life of meaning and ease.
It’s often when that promise fails that they knock on my door.
There’s no blueprint to grieve a future that was expected to bring happiness. There’s no event, no funeral – so it doesn’t get named, and often isn’t processed. The consequences of it, though, run deep – and it’s where men find themselves the loneliest and the most unhappy.
I find that men who live with this are more likely to experience conflict in their relationships, and are less likely to maintain close friendships or pursue community and investment outside of work.
This grief isn’t unique to men. But four patterns can make it particularly difficult for men to recognize and process.
First, men don’t recognize it as such. Prof Kenneth Doka coined the term “disenfranchised grief” for losses that come with no ritual or social acceptance. Most boys are still taught that vulnerability is weakness, and stoicism is strength. They’re trained out of naming sadness long before they experience anything this large. The result is often confusion about why things don’t feel right, and anger at the feeling of powerlessness.
Second, there’s the shame. Men receive a linear social script that centers the provider role. The unspoken contract for many is simple: if you do what is expected of you, one day you will arrive at a life of meaning and satisfaction. Many men’s identities are still tied to their ability to achieve and produce. If they can’t for one reason or another, it leaves them feeling worthless and helpless. Shame blocks mourning, and you cannot grieve what you blame yourself for.
Third, the unnamed grief shows up sideways. For many of the men I work with, it presents like anger and numbness. Both of those responses function as protection against something that feels too big and overwhelming to face directly.
