The Loneliness of Being Useful

For many years, I carried a guilt that rarely left me entirely. Leaving my partners felt like the right decisions, yet alongside that certainty sat another reality: it meant spending less time with my children. I remember the questions that would surface unexpectedly during quiet moments. Had I done the right thing? What had my children lost because of choices I had made? Looking back, I think that experience taught me something important about the emotional lives of many men. We are often capable of holding complex and conflicting feelings simultaneously, yet many of us do so in silence.

As Men's Mental Health Month drew to a close in June, I found myself reflecting on a particular kind of loneliness that I encounter frequently, both in my work as a counsellor and in conversations with men outside the therapy room. It is not the loneliness of physical isolation, nor the loneliness that comes from a lack of relationships. Rather, it is the loneliness of being needed by many people whilst feeling known by very few.

Many men spend much of their lives occupying roles that carry significant responsibility. They are fathers, partners, sons, friends, employers, employees, carers, and providers. Others rely upon them. Their presence matters. Their contribution matters. They are often the people who are expected to remain steady when life becomes turbulent, the people others turn to when problems need solving or difficult decisions need making.

There is, of course, something deeply meaningful about being needed. To contribute to the lives of others, to support those we love, and to know that our efforts make a difference can bring a profound sense of purpose. Yet I sometimes wonder whether many men gradually come to equate usefulness with worth. The message is rarely stated explicitly, but it can be absorbed over many years: your value lies in what you provide, what you achieve, what you can fix, and how well you cope.

When usefulness becomes closely tied to identity, it can become difficult to reveal the parts of ourselves that feel uncertain, frightened, overwhelmed, or vulnerable. If our role is to be the dependable one, what happens when we are struggling? If we are accustomed to carrying others, how do we acknowledge the weight of what we are carrying ourselves?

Over the years, I have become increasingly aware of how much many men hold beneath the surface. The concerns themselves are often familiar enough: financial pressures, worries about ageing parents, challenges within relationships, anxieties about health, regrets about the past, uncertainties about the future. What strikes me is not the existence of these struggles, but their invisibility. Many are carried privately, tucked away behind competence and responsibility, hidden even from those who care most about them.

One of the great myths about men is that they do not feel deeply. My experience suggests something quite different. The men I meet are often carrying rich and complex emotional worlds. They grieve. They worry. They experience shame, fear, sadness, disappointment, and loneliness. They question themselves. They replay old decisions and wonder whether they could have acted differently. They carry hopes they rarely articulate and fears they seldom reveal. The issue is not an absence of feeling; it is more often an absence of places where those feelings can be safely expressed.

I am reminded of the phrase I have heard many times over the years: "I don't want to burden anyone."

It is usually spoken quietly, almost apologetically. Yet behind those words often lies a significant amount of pain. There is a particular irony in the fact that those who willingly support others can be the least likely to seek support themselves. The very people who are always available to listen may struggle to imagine that others would genuinely want to listen to them.

This is where loneliness can take root. Not because there is nobody around, but because there is a difference between being appreciated and being understood. Many men are respected for what they do. They are valued for their reliability, their competence, their practical support, and their willingness to shoulder responsibility. Yet some quietly wonder whether the people around them truly know what is happening beneath the surface.

Being needed and being known are not the same thing.

Being needed speaks to our function. Being known speaks to our humanity.

To be known is to have someone who can sit alongside our uncertainty without trying to immediately remove it. It is to be able to acknowledge fear without feeling diminished by it. It is to speak honestly about regret, sadness, confusion, or loneliness and discover that the relationship remains intact. Being known requires a level of emotional safety that many people, not only men, find difficult to create and difficult to trust.

When discussions about men's mental health arise, there is often a call for men to talk more openly. Whilst I understand the intention behind that message, I sometimes wonder whether it misses something important. Most people are capable of speaking honestly when they feel genuinely safe to do so. The challenge is often not a lack of willingness but a lack of environments in which vulnerability feels welcome.

Perhaps the question is not simply how we encourage men to talk. Perhaps it is also how we create relationships, families, friendships, and communities where honesty is met with curiosity rather than judgement, where vulnerability is met with compassion rather than discomfort, and where a man's worth is not determined solely by his usefulness.

As I reflect on my own life, I recognise how much easier it can be to offer support than to ask for it. I suspect I am not alone in that. For many men, seeking help can feel unfamiliar, uncomfortable, or even threatening to the identity they have spent years constructing. Yet I have come to believe that there is considerable courage in allowing ourselves to be seen, particularly in those places where we feel most uncertain.

Perhaps one of the most meaningful questions we can ask the men in our lives is not, "How's work?" or even, "How are you?" but rather, "What are you carrying at the moment?"

It is a simple question, yet it acknowledges a truth that many people instinctively recognise: behind the competent exterior, behind the responsibilities and routines, there is often a human being carrying far more than anyone realises.

Being useful is important. Most of us want to contribute, to support others, and to matter. But usefulness alone cannot protect us from loneliness. What eases loneliness is the experience of being known; of discovering that we are valued not simply for what we do, but for who we are.

And perhaps that is something all of us, regardless of gender, need far more than we sometimes realise.