Men Don’t Need a Woman to Heal Them (They Need Other Men)

Few men realize they have daddy issues … until they step into deep growth work exclusively with other men.

This is when men start to see just how much they project their ”father anger” and/or ”father hunger” onto the whole world around them.

Ten years ago, in one men’s group I was part of, another man in his mid-30s showed up to a weekly meeting after having not attended for 6 months, angry at me. It was a surprise to me, as we’d had disagreements, but I’d never experienced us being in actual conflict until that moment. Nonetheless, I had become in his mind, if unconsciously, his intense and domineering father with whom he had not yet made any peace. Neither of us understood that at the time, and by the end of the night he was demanding that either I leave the group or he does.

Yet where I was at least willing to work through it and reconcile, he was not. Rather than confront his projection and turn to the task of escaping the oppressive shadow his father still cast upon his psyche, he instead only confronted me with an ultimatum and escaped nothing. I was committed to staying, yet was unwilling to accept his father projection, so he left and never came back.

It happens in every men’s group I’ve ever facilitated or been part of.

Eventually, inevitably, as men start trusting each other enough to get real, we start to see the signs of projection pop up: frustrations start to get expressed, judgements spoken aloud, young resentments beginning to sprout, lamentations of being misunderstood by the others.

When I’m leading the group those projections usually fall first on me.

Even though I’m (mostly) able to facilitate in ways that don’t put me on a pedestal above anyone, as the primary “authority“ it’s natural that a man still angry at/hungering for the presence of his father will see me as He who can either heal their wounds by giving them what they lacked as boys, or further wound them by letting them down – oppressing, denying, competing with, or just somehow injuring them – just like Dad did.

One man in his 60s straight up spoke the words to me after our group had skillfully navigated some conflict that had arisen when one man felt aggrieved that I’d misunderstood him: “You’re the dad of the group.”

Make no mistake: I welcome conflict in my groups.

It’s actually one of the best things that can happen, and I always hope it happens early on in our formation. Because it is through moments of conflict navigated skillfully that the real, deep, most profound healing often begins for a man.

Few men have ever seen conflict handled well, by which I mean handled in ways that actually meaningfully resolve the issue at hand and yield more understanding and connection on the other side.

Most of us have only seen conflict between our parents and other adults as unproductive if not outright destructive and painfully disconnecting, and then swept under a living room rug as if it never happened.

As children, we can’t pretend it didn’t happen happen; our psychological defenses haven’t yet formed to allow us that particular trick. Nor can we really talk about it. So we’re left to feel viscerally the tension pervading the home, our tiny bodies like little lighting rods absorbing the lightning discharge of last night’s storm still arcing through the wallpapered nervous system of our only home.

Before my parents divorced when I was 4, in my only memories of them together they are fighting.

I also remember being terrified to allow my body to poop. I’d sit in a corner, my 4-year old body curled into a tight little ball with one hand placed over my butt, and I would tightly contract myself, for hours, to prevent poop from coming out. I don’t think anyone ever made the connection between my body contracting itself and the emotional contracting my parents routinely played out before me.

Fast forward 35 years, on the second day of the first men’s workshop I ever attended, when I was 39, a sudden rage erupted out of me that I’d never expressed before in the presence of other men. I didn’t even know that rage was inside me – well, it’s more honest to say I would never have acknowledged it. Because I had seen in years past, though only in the presence of two other people: with an ex-girlfriend throughout our tumultuous 5-year catastrophe, and then with my actual father the day after I tasted a betrayal by his hands. Other than that, I was sure I was just super chill!

Since that men’s weekend workshop over a decade ago, in which my “father anger” was skillfully seduced out from the murky shadows of my psyche where it lay hidden like a coiled cobra, I’ve had plenty of occasion to practice working with anger – both mine and other men’s – through the more intentional interactions that occur in men’s groups.

Ten years ago, I knew to not accept a man’s father projections onto me, but I didn’t know how to work with him through it. Actually, I could only project my own father anger right back at him. Two men acting out their unconscious father wounds towards each other can never resolve a conflict, but they can make it worse.

Today, a man’s anger (disappointment, frustration, feeling wounded), though I never intentionally try to provoke it, is one of my favorite things to happen in my groups, but only because I know a profound opportunity for real healing is presenting itself.

When directed at me, sometimes a simple, sincere apology – taking ownership of how I may have overstepped a boundary (even if it hadn’t yet been communicated or I wasn’t clear), or came off harsh (regardless my intentions), or simply said something unskillfully – does wonders for a man who never heard his father apologize.

Indeed, I’ve rarely heard a man share that he’s ever heard a genuine apology from his father for some injury (much less the most painful of woundings) he has visited upon his son, even if unintentionally.

Nope, our fathers swept the pain of their relationships with us under the same rugs they used with our mothers. Thus the work to clear this karma is left to us, should we choose to take up the task.

If we don’t, what’s left but to repeat our father’s legacy? Stay angry at women, at the world, at ourselves? Keep pretending we’re ok even when we’re dying inside, just like dad?

I’ve heard it said that we men pick up where our fathers left off, as women pick up where their mothers left off. Perhaps it’s not so simple as that, but it’s surely true that what our parents couldn’t model for or teach us we must learn on our own.

For a man, intentional “men’s work” alongside other men is the only arena in which he gets to safely push up against other men such that he learns what it truly means to be his authentic self, an authentic man living connected to his deepest sources of power.

He’ll never truly get at this in relationship with a woman, for she can only reflect back her own aspirations for what she wants (expects) a man to be – and surely her own father wounds will be fiddling with her aspirations (and aversions), as well.

To the man reading this, who might yet still harbor some friction with your father, whether spoken or otherwise – and you can know by how much you’re able to deeply trust in other men, feel safe with other men, and skillfully, vulnerably, authentically communicate even your most awkward truths with other men – consider exploring men’s work.

There are many flavors of men’s work in the world; I offer but one through my ELEVATE 2026 year-long men’s small group coaching adventure.

Whatever you choose, I wish you well on your journey to wholeness.