A note for the men reading this

This page is for the men. The providers. The ones who’ve probably felt left out — and probably still do.

Most of you are reading this at 2 or 3am. In a private tab. Haven’t told anyone. Or your wife sent it, your girlfriend sent it, and you opened it because none of the other stuff you’ve read sounded like anyone was actually talking to you. Same old tired shit.

So let me be clear about what I won’t do.

I’m not going to tell you that you need to be regulated, or learn to be less angry. I’m not going to use words like that with you. I’m not going to make you talk about feelings if you don’t want to. I’m not going to ask you about your father in session one — and we never need to get there if that’s not where the work is. We’re just going to call it as it is. No BS. This isn’t about turning you into the man the world wants you to be. Your wife, your girlfriend, your mum. That doesn’t solve the point.

Because here’s the frame we’ve been holding all this time: you’re the provider. Can’t be too angry. Bring home the bacon. Be good with the kids. Be assertive but not aggressive. Be a good listener, but also know what to say. All of it.

And yes. It doesn’t work. The joke’s on you. This fucking story doesn’t work, and we know it’s a shitshow — we’ve seen it play out through our parents, through the guys around us. And we keep running it anyway.

It’s taken its toll. You get pissed off quicker than you used to. You’re exhausted in a way sleep doesn’t fix. And probably the most important thing — you can name what everyone needs from you. Your dad, your mum, your kids, your wife. But you can’t really name what you need.

It’s not that you haven’t tried. You’re not an idiot. You know something’s off. You’ve tried things. They haven’t worked.

Some of what you’ve tried isn’t on anyone’s approved list. The drinking. The girl at work. The porn. The gaming. The hours at the office that became an excuse to be anywhere else. The bet that got bigger. I’m not here to make you feel bad about any of it. They were trying to get you to a feeling. None of them got you there for long.

I’m still doing this work myself. And I’ve done some of it.

Here I am — a Singaporean man, with the same emotional and cultural and societal expectations you grew up with. I went to the States, trained there, learned a lot of this stuff, reflected on a lot of it. Then I came back. And the Singaporean-man part of me didn’t go away. It won’t. It’s a core part of who I am. So the work has been figuring out which parts of the script I inherited, which parts I kept, and which parts are actually me. Calling my own BS along the way. I’m not asking you to do anything I haven’t had to do myself.

So here’s what the work actually is. Figuring out what’s eating you up inside. Calling it for what it is. And accepting that we can’t keep providing like this. You already know. The shorter fuse. The sleep that doesn’t fix anything. The way nothing really lands anymore. That’s the knowing. We just need to stop pretending it doesn’t count.

And part of the work — eventually, not session one — is being willing to see the other side of the story. The checkbox your wife gave you. The list of things she says she needs. It’s not really about the checkbox. It’s that she’s stuck in a script too. Nobody taught her how to say what she actually wants either, so it comes out as a list. Yours comes out as providing. Hers comes out as boxes. Same problem, different shape. We’re not doing this work so you can tick her boxes better. We’re doing it so both of you can eventually drop the script.

We’ve been talking about providing this whole time. Because that’s the script. And if there’s one thing to take from this page, it’s this: doing this work is providing. Facing yourself is being the provider. Showing up for yourself. Saying how you actually feel. And if you don’t know how to say it yet — just feeling it. That’s the providing.

It’s not easy. I know.

When you come in for a meet and greet, you don’t need to know what’s wrong. You just need to be willing to figure it out. Army speak, gym speak, whatever lands — you just need to be willing to do the rep. Go to the chin-up bar and try.

Because when we do the work for ourselves, not for someone else, we get to actually see ourselves. Not just doing things so we can be seen.

If any of this landed — book a meet and greet. We don’t need to figure anything out yet. You don’t need to know what’s wrong. Just show up. That’s the rep.