Dad Tired Dad Tired Daily: 5 Reasons Empathy Is Hard for Men (And One Simple Practice)
Jan 16, 2026
Empathy can be a tough nut for many men to crack. Childhood lessons often teach boys to suppress emotions instead of embracing them. Chronic stress adds another barrier, leaving little room for others' feelings. There's also the fear that empathizing means agreeing. Many men lack role models for empathetic relations and often struggle with the vocabulary to express emotions. A simple three-step practice can help guys learn to pause, name their feelings, and stay present, slowly building that emotional muscle.
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Consoling His Wife During Crisis
- Jerrad describes consoling his wife who was terrified because her family in Iran was unreachable amid dangerous unrest.
- He used that moment to intentionally practice empathy rather than problem-solving or minimizing her fear.
Childhood Survival Teaches Emotional Armor
- Many men learned to survive by suppressing emotions because their childhood required toughness over feeling.
- That early training creates emotional armor that blocks present-day empathy with spouses and children.
Stress Shrinks Empathy Capacity
- Chronic stress and exhaustion put men in fight-or-flight, reducing capacity to carry someone else's emotional weight.
- Empathy needs bandwidth that constant survival stress often removes.