The other night, I was visiting with a friend who told me he felt stuck in his life. He held a senior position at a bank. His income allowed his family to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, and his benefits provided security for the present and savings for retirement. He knew he should feel fortunate. From the outside, he appeared successful.
Then my friend became quiet. For a moment, I wondered if we had lost our cell phone connection.
“Are you still there?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.
“I hate my job,” he said. “Sunday nights are the worst.”
“Why Sunday nights?”
“Because I dread going to work on Monday.”
I did not try to tell him what he should do. I simply sat with what he had said.
I understood why he felt trapped. Leaving his job could affect his family, his income, his health insurance, and his retirement. Staying meant continuing to surrender a large part of his life to work he had come to hate.
Neither choice felt safe.
I had been in his shoes, and his words stirred memories in me. I remembered the dull ache that would settle into my stomach and the anxiety that sneaked in around the edges of the night. I remembered the dark clouds gathering on the horizon as the weekend came to an end.
Mostly, I remembered wanting the feelings to leave me alone.
I kept myself busy. I worked longer hours, traveled, or found something else to occupy my mind. Constant activity gave me places to hide. As long as I stayed busy, I did not have to listen to what was happening inside me.
But Sunday nights had a way of finding me.
The house would grow quiet. The weekend would begin slipping away. Monday morning waited on the other side of the darkness, and the truth I had avoided all week would return.
Something in my life was not working.
For many men, work is more than a paycheck. It becomes part of how we measure our worth. We may be providers, leaders, problem-solvers, or the people others depend upon.
Admitting that our work is draining the life out of us can feel like admitting that we have failed.
So we keep going.
We tell ourselves that other people have it worse. We remind ourselves to be grateful. We look at the mortgage, the health insurance, and the retirement account. We convince ourselves that our unhappiness is simply the price of being responsible.
“And sometimes responsibility does require sacrifice. But there is a difference between making a sacrifice and slowly disappearing inside the life we have built.”
My friend sighed.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.
I still did not have an answer for him. Perhaps, in that moment, an answer was not what he needed.
He needed someone willing to hear him say, “I hate my job,” without judging him, correcting him, or rushing to solve his problem. He needed somewhere he could tell the truth before deciding what that truth might ask of him.
I told him about the men’s group I attend every week on Zoom and how it had become a lifeline for me. The group is part of a larger community called MenLiving, where men gather to listen, reflect, and speak honestly from their own experiences.
The men in my group have not fixed my life for me. They have done something equally important: They have walked beside me while I learned to face my life for myself.
I suggested that my friend might find value in a community like that—not necessarily because the men would tell him whether to leave his job, but because they could provide a place where he would not have to carry the question alone.
As our conversation ended, my friend thanked me for listening. I told him I should be thanking him. It had taken courage for him to speak honestly and allow another man to see behind the outward appearance of success.
After we disconnected, I felt something warm in my heart. Nothing about his circumstances had magically changed. Monday morning was still coming. His job would still be waiting.
But perhaps Sunday night would feel a little less lonely.
He had told another man the truth.
And another man had stayed to listen.