Complicated Relationships with Our Fathers and Why Men's Mental Health Matters

As a therapist, I avoided working with men for many years. The work felt complicated, and if I'm honest, I didn't always understand the depth of what many men were carrying. That has gradually changed. I've come to hold much more compassion for the struggles men face and much more hope for healing the collective masculine wound. In working with men, I've seen how often they carry pain they rarely talk about (often related to difficult or painful relationships with their father) and how that pain can quietly affect their mental health and the people they love. I've also sat with many female clients who have shared stories of difficult relationships with their fathers and romantic partners—relationships often shaped by generations of unprocessed trauma, emotional disconnection, and the messages men receive about what it means to be strong. 

For some, their relationship with their father involved physical or emotional abuse. Others grew up witnessing their father's abuse toward their mother. Some describe fathers who were absent, critical, emotionally unavailable, or simply unable to provide the connection and support they needed. While every story is different, one theme I encounter repeatedly is that many men are carrying emotional wounds they have never fully had the opportunity to acknowledge, process, or heal.

As Men's Mental Health Awareness Month reminds us, these struggles deserve greater attention and understanding.

One of the things I have learned through my work is that many men were never taught how to identify, express, or make sense of their emotions. Instead, they learned to protect themselves.

Often, the defenses men develop are remarkably strong. These defenses can help them survive difficult childhoods, challenging relationships, loss, trauma, and adversity. They may learn to suppress sadness, minimize hurt, intellectualize painful experiences, stay constantly busy, or focus exclusively on solving problems rather than feeling emotions.

These coping strategies often serve an important purpose. The challenge is that what protects us can also limit us.

Over time, emotional defenses can make it difficult for men to recognize what they are feeling, communicate their needs, seek support, or form deeper emotional connections with others. Many men tell me they know something feels wrong, but they struggle to put words to their experience because no one ever taught them how.

I don't believe this is simply an individual problem. It is also a cultural one.

For generations, many boys have been raised with messages that equate masculinity with stoicism, independence, and emotional control. Whether those messages came from parents, coaches, teachers, peers, media, or society more broadly, the lesson was often similar: be strong, don't cry, handle it yourself, and keep moving forward.

Many fathers taught these lessons because they were taught the same lessons themselves.

This is not about blaming fathers. In fact, many fathers were doing the best they could with the emotional tools available to them. Yet it is important to recognize that when boys are repeatedly discouraged from expressing vulnerability, asking for help, or talking openly about their feelings, they may grow into men who feel isolated from their own emotional lives.

In my work, I have seen how this isolation can contribute to depression, anxiety, substance use, relationship difficulties, loneliness, anger, and profound feelings of shame. What is often misunderstood is that underneath anger, withdrawal, or emotional distance, there is frequently grief, fear, hurt, or unmet emotional needs.

Many men have spent years carrying these experiences alone.

What continues to stand out to me is not a lack of resilience. Men are often extraordinarily resilient. Rather, it is the lack of spaces where they feel genuinely safe to be vulnerable without judgment.

Men need support.

They need relationships where they can speak honestly about what they are experiencing. They need mental health services that recognize the unique ways emotional distress may show up in men. They need permission to ask for help before they reach a crisis point. And they need a culture that recognizes emotional openness as a form of strength rather than weakness.

Seeking support is not a failure of independence. It is a healthy human response to suffering.