Grief doesn’t care who you are or how tough you think you are. It doesn’t knock politely at the door; it drags you down into the underworld. One day, you’re living your normal life, and the next, you’re standing in the wreckage of something you never thought you’d lose.
Loss comes in many forms. A wife or partner lost too soon. A divorce that rips your foundation apart. The unthinkable death of a child. A parent or sibling whose absence leaves the house feeling hollow. A friend you thought you’d grow old with — even the death of a dog or cat that was your anchor through the dark nights. If you’re navigating grief, your pain is valid. It counts, no matter what shape it takes.
The truth is, nobody prepares for it. Loss ambushes you. It rips up the map and drops you in a place that feels unmanageable. If you’re like most men, no one ever taught you how to survive that descent. The instinct is to clamp down, bottle it up, and keep moving like nothing happened.
But here’s the reality: you don’t get to skip grief. Nobody does. The underworld has no shortcuts. What you can do is move through it without losing yourself. And if you’re willing to face it, grief can become the forge where a stronger, deeper version of you is made.
On today’s episode of the Men’s Therapy Podcast, I sit down with three men who know grief inside and out: Dr. John A. King, Jack Lambert LMHC, and Ben White LCSW, CGP. We recorded this one on September 11th, a day already heavy with national mourning and made even heavier by a school shooting in Evergreen, Colorado. The timing wasn’t planned, but it couldn’t be more raw. This roundtable goes deeper than just naming grief. It’s about how men face it. When the world tells us to bottle it up, numb it out, or pretend we’re fine. We talk about how ritual, therapy, and straight-up connection can turn grief from a dead weight into a crucible for growth.
From day one, most men are handed the same script: suck it up, don’t cry, handle it. That programming doesn’t just vanish when life knocks you flat. Whether it’s a funeral, a divorce, or losing the only dog that ever understood you, the world feeds you the same toxic command: man up.
The problem is that script doesn’t help you crawl out of the underworld. It buries you deeper. The cost is bottled pain that rots inside, numbing behaviors that turn into addictions, and isolation that eats you alive one silent night at a time.
The numbers don’t lie. Nearly 86% of adults report experiencing grief in the past year, yet less than half know how to find support. Men are hit especially hard because they’re less likely to seek help. When a spouse dies, research shows widowers are about 30% less likely to join support groups or counseling than widows, and many report ongoing loneliness and trouble functioning even a year later.
For fathers, the descent into the underworld can be brutal. Studies show men who lose children are at higher risk of depression, substance abuse, and relationship collapse compared to mothers. Instead of expressing grief, many fathers suppress it, which only increases the risk of prolonged or “complicated” grief that can linger for years.
And here’s the kicker: sudden or violent losses hit men hardest. Between 33% and 65% of people who lose loved ones in accidents, overdoses, or violent events develop prolonged grief symptoms, and men are more likely to mask it or avoid support entirely.
This is the weight you weren’t taught to carry. Navigating grief as a man isn’t about pretending you’re untouched by it. It’s about realizing that bottling it up only drags you further into the shadows of the underworld. Real strength begins when you stop carrying it alone.
When the underworld opens up beneath your feet, most men don’t know how to walk through it. Instead, they default to survival strategies that look strong on the outside but hollow them out on the inside.
For a lot of men, the first response is to bury themselves in work. Staying “productive” becomes the shield — meetings, projects, and late nights on the laptop. The logic is simple: If I keep moving, maybe the pain won’t catch me. But it always does. Overworking doesn’t resolve grief; it just delays the collapse, leaving you exhausted, disconnected, and more vulnerable when the dam finally breaks.
Others take the edge off by pouring another drink, lighting up, or zoning out with endless entertainment. Addiction isn’t always a whiskey bottle. Sometimes it’s scrolling TikTok at 2 a.m., chasing dopamine on dating apps, or disappearing into video games for hours. These things feel like relief, but they’re just counterfeit comfort. Navigating grief in this way is like drinking saltwater in the desert: it may seem like it helps, but it leaves you feeling emptier.
Because sadness feels “off-limits,” many men funnel their grief into anger. You snap at your partner, scream at the guy who cut you off in traffic, and punch the steering wheel when no one’s watching. Anger feels powerful, but it’s a borrowed sword: it burns hot, then leaves you standing in the ashes of relationships you need to survive this.
The final escape hatch is isolation — ghosting friends, ignoring calls, and skipping family gatherings. You tell yourself you’re sparing them from your pain, that you don’t want to be a burden. The truth is, you’re just locking yourself in the darkest chamber of the underworld. Silence doesn’t protect you; it suffocates you.
Justin lost his father suddenly in a car accident. He didn’t cry at the funeral, didn’t talk to his siblings, and went right back to work the next Monday. On paper, he looked like he was “navigating grief” well: meetings booked, projects delivered, weekends packed with errands. But inside, the underworld was eating him alive. He drank at night just to fall asleep, snapped at his wife over nothing, and stopped answering texts from his closest friends. Three months later, he admitted he felt like a ghost in his own life. “If I slow down,” he said, “I don’t know what will happen. I’m afraid I’ll never get back up.”
All of these moves — working harder, numbing out, exploding, or disappearing — might keep you busy. They might distract you from the rawness for a while. But they won’t keep you whole. They don’t help you climb out of the underworld. They just chain you to it.
Navigating grief like this turns pain into poison. And the longer you let it sit, the deeper it carves into your body, your mind, and your relationships.
When life falls apart, our resilience makes us rise again. In today’s podcast, we dive into the complex intersection of men and mental health and terminal illness with guest Sheila Clemenson. She is a certified career and grief wellness coach. She explains about the mental health retreat for grief and loss. Sheila reflects on her personal journey of supporting her first husband through his battle with ALS. She discusses various aspects of ALS support. She offers a raw and honest look at the emotional toll of grief and caregiving. Sheila focuses on how to keep a relationship strong in the face of a devastating diagnosis.
If you’re navigating grief, you need more than clichés and empty encouragement. You need real tools. Think of them as gear for surviving the underworld: lanterns to light the path, weapons to fight the monsters, and maps drawn by men who’ve walked this terrain before you.
The truth is, grief isn’t something you “get over.” It’s something you learn to move with. And the right resources can keep you from getting lost in the dark. Books that give language to what you’re feeling. Talks that spark a shift in perspective. Podcasts that remind you you’re not the only one carrying this kind of weight. Rituals and practices that ground you when everything feels unsteady.
Justin, the client we met earlier, didn’t start climbing out of his grief by brute force. He began by picking up tools like these. He read a book on father-loss that finally cracked him open, then found a podcast where other men told their stories. For the first time, he felt less like a ghost and more like a man finding his way back.
Grief strips you down. But tools like these help you rebuild, piece by piece, until you can walk out of the underworld stronger than you went in.
Grief is heavy.
It twists you up inside and makes you feel like you’re the only one stumbling through the dark.
But you’re not alone—and you don’t have to do this by yourself.
At Men’s Therapy Online, our men’s groups are a place where you can bring the raw truth of your grief without judgment.
You’ll sit shoulder-to-shoulder with other men who know what it’s like to lose, to rage, to despair, and to keep living anyway.
Together, we don’t “fix” grief, we face it.
Grief lies to you. It tells you that you’re a lone wolf, that real men don’t need help, that you’ll figure it out if you just keep grinding. But here’s the truth: lone wolves don’t survive long. Wolves thrive in packs. Men do too.
The underworld of grief is designed to isolate you. It whispers that no one will understand, that you’re a burden if you share, that the best move is to disappear. That’s the trap. Connection is the rope that pulls you back into the light.
So how do you know when it’s time to call in reinforcements? Here’s a scale to check yourself:
Remember Justin, the client we met earlier? His turning point came when he realized he couldn’t do it alone. He started by telling a close friend how bad it had gotten, then reached out for therapy. That decision didn’t erase his loss, but it gave him a way to carry it without breaking.
And this is where men’s groups matter. At Men’s Therapy Online, our groups give you a pack: other men walking through their own fire, willing to sit in yours. You don’t have to explain away your grief; you just have to show up. Connection is what turns isolation into strength.
If you’re navigating grief right now, call in reinforcements. That’s not weakness, that’s how men survive the underworld.
Every myth about the underworld ends the same way: the hero doesn’t stay there. He descends, suffers, and learns, until eventually he climbs back out, changed forever. That’s the initiation.
Grief works the same way. It isn’t just pain, it’s a crucible. If you let it, grief will strip away the illusions, test every weak point, and reveal the man underneath. It will show you who you are when all the masks are gone. And on the other side of that fire, you can become someone stronger, steadier, and more alive than before.
This is the paradox of navigating grief: the very thing that threatens to break you is also the thing that can forge you. Suppress it, and it turns into poison. Let it flow, and it becomes power. Anger, sadness, and longing stop being enemies and start being teachers.
And here’s the deeper truth: allowing grief to shape you is the best way to honor the legacy of the fallen. Whether you lost a partner, a child, a parent, a brother, or a friend, carrying their memory as fuel for your own transformation is a living tribute. You don’t honor them by bottling it up and turning cold. You honor them by letting their life and their absence change you into the man you are meant to become.
Justin learned this, too. Once he stopped running from grief and started listening to it, he found it pushed him toward the kind of father and husband his dad had always wanted him to be. That’s the gift of grief when you treat it as initiation: it doesn’t just mark an ending, it forges a beginning.
Grief doesn’t run on a clock. There’s no deadline, no “normal” recovery time. Some men feel the sharpest pain ease in six months. Others carry the ache for years. Both are valid. Navigating grief isn’t about hitting milestones; it’s about moving at the pace your soul can handle.
But let’s be clear – real strength isn’t stoicism. It’s not clamping your jaw and pretending nothing happened. That’s not strength, that’s denial. Strength is transformation. It’s taking the hit, walking through the underworld, and letting it change you into a deeper man.
Strength is not powering through, but moving through. Not hiding the hurt, but handling it head-on. Grief doesn’t make you less of a man. Ignoring it does.
Justin figured this out the hard way. For months, he wore the mask, convinced that keeping it together made him strong. But it wasn’t until he stopped bottling it up — until he let the tears, the anger, and the love surface — that he finally felt like he was climbing back into the light. That’s when his strength returned. Not the old strength, but something more grounded.
If you’re navigating grief right now, hear this: you don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through the underworld. You can face it, move with it, and let it forge you into the man you were meant to become.
Grief doesn’t play by rules. It shows up in your body, your mind, and your relationships.
You can try to bury it, but it always finds a way back.
Individual therapy gives you a place to stop running and start facing it.
A place where you can bring the rage, the numbness, the guilt, the love, all of it, and not be told to “get over it.”
Working one-on-one means you get tools and support that fit your grief, your story, your pace.
Because there is no right way to grieve, but there are healthier ways to carry it.
Marc Azoulay LPC, LAC, CGP, ACS is the founder of Men’s Therapy Online, a community and healing hub for men who want to get back on their feet or take their lives to the next level.
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