Nobody Taught Men This: The Masculinity Advice That's Failing Men & Why it Matters More Than Ever

Men are tired, and it’s not just work and bills, it’s the mental pressure of trying to decode what “being a man” is supposed to mean now. One voice says masculinity is toxic. Another says you have to be an always-on, hyper-disciplined “uber man.” Jeremy Jeremiah and Mario Andrew of Cloud of Witnesses sit down with special guests Deacon Anthony (https://st-anthony.org/) and Jacob Sadan (LMFT) (https://jacobsadan.com/) and name the real problem: the narratives we inherit about manhood, and the damage they cause when we never slow down to test them against truth.
Men are getting whiplash from culture: “too manly” vs “never soft.” We talk responsibility, emotions, and why Christ is the model of healthy masculinity.

We talk about why men feel pulled between competing cultural definitions of masculinity and how that confusion spills into family life, relationships, and the church. We connect Christian manhood with responsibility, emotional honesty, and the courage to live with integrity instead of performing a persona.

• competing messages about masculinity and the search for real authority
• responsibility accountability and integrity as core markers of healthy manhood
• fatherhood as presence guidance affection and example not only providing
• masculinity as what we do and what we refuse to do
• thoughts feelings and behaviors as a cycle shaping identity
• church seasons as a healthy place for repentance joy and emotion
• therapy work on balance when men suppress or overflow emotionally
• examining the narratives we inherited about manhood and love
• vulnerability as the foundation of real relationships and the fear of rejection in dating

Together with Deacon Anthony and Jacob from a clinical therapy perspective, we get concrete about healthy masculinity and Christian manhood: responsibility, accountability, and integrity that show up at home, at church, and in everyday relationships. We talk about fatherhood that goes beyond providing and protecting, because kids learn what love is by what they watch, not what they’re told. We also challenge the idea that emotions make men weak, pointing to the Church’s wisdom around repentance, tears, joy, and self-control, and to Christ himself as the fullest picture of strength that includes compassion and honesty.

“The more you deny your emotions, the more emotional you are.” A deacon and a therapist unpack why men shut down, why it explodes later, and how the Church can help you heal.

We also go into what therapy rooms are seeing right now: men swinging between emotional shutdown and emotional overflow, the body storing anger, and the fear of vulnerability that makes dating and intimacy feel risky. If you’ve ever felt like you’re performing a role instead of living with integrity, this conversation offers a path back to center, with practical insight and spiritual grounding.

Providing and protecting isn’t the whole job. What do kids actually learn from a father’s presence, integrity, and apology? We get practical about manhood, family, and relationships.

Questions about Orthodoxy? Please check out our friends at Ghost of Byzantium Discord server: https://discord.gg/JDJDQw6tdh

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Transcript

Thoughts Feelings And Behavior Loop

SPEAKER_03 0:00

On a therapy lens, we understand that a big part of your mind is is what you think, which affects how you feel, which affects what you do. And so you need to kind of tend to all three of those things. My thoughts, my feelings, and my behaviors.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Uh we teach our kids by showing them what to do. Does that mean masculinity is a behavior purely? Is it just what you do? The more you deny that you're emotional, is the more you're emotional you are. Because at the end of the day, you're not a robot.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Um if I just if I just focus on what I do but not how I'm thinking about this or how I should be thinking about manhood, I think I may be missing something. And then I think as as men especially, we can really tend to ignore our feelings. And that can be a huge blind spot for us. Well, I'm just I'm gonna train the mind, I'm gonna train the body, but I'm not gonna tend to the heart or or perhaps the messages that I've received about manhood that are not working for me. And so I wonder where the solution is in that, and and if we could take it a step further, where the church comes in.

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Hi, welcome to Cloud of Witnesses. Jeremy Jeremiah here. We're really excited about this episode. This episode is created with you in mind. Please, if you're enjoying this content, give this video a like, hit that subscribe button, and most importantly, if you can, ring that bell. It does help others find this content as well. Cloud of Witnesses is all about making Christian content that is hopefully edifying to you and is building up the kingdom of God. Please stick around to the end if you can. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy.

Why Manhood Feels So Confusing

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Men are confused. Men are constantly getting different messaging in the society, right? Maybe they're hearing masculinity is too much, right? You can't don't be too manly because then you're going to be uh hurting people or or bulldozing over people, being a bull in a china shop. Then on the other side of things, you're you're they're being told, well, no, you you know, you have to be um the Uber man, right? You have to be in the gym six hours a day. And if you're not ripped, then you know, what do you think? Exactly. What is going on? Why is it so confusing to be a man in 2026?

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Part of the reason men are so confused in 2026 is because the narrative that we have about what it means to be a man has been changed and corrupted. And so, as opposed to having one tried and true definition, this is what authentic, clean, healthy manhood looks like, we've got 10 different variations and no one knows who to believe. And so then the question becomes who can we believe and who is the authority to speak on this? Who's the authority to speak on manhood? And I wonder if you can speak to that, Deacon Anthony.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Well, before that, actually, if you want to go through this, why this is important. I mean, why do you think this is very important? I know the effect of it in our community community and with our uh people that we meet every day, which I can briefly say, but I want you also to have your opinion in it. For us as as a clergy in the church,

Responsibility Accountability And Integrity

SPEAKER_00 3:06

we see a lot of people are uh not following their duties, if you can say, or uh their responsibilities, not in a negative perspective, but in a way that it will not enable them to be fully who they're supposed to be. And once you fail or you're not fully into what you're supposed to be, people around you suffer. For example, a mom, if she did, or a father, he did not take care of a certain hole in the backyard, the kids will fall in it, just for an example. So it does not need someone. Uh it's sometimes if you don't do something that will reflect negatively on someone else. That's what we see for us.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

But what about you? Well, you mentioned duties, which kind of goes back to narrative. So that that that's that assumes that there are certain things that we should be doing as men that we are failing to do now. So what are those duties?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

I mean, there is a lot of them. I mean uh the first thing always pops in my mind responsibility, accountability, and integrity, for example. You have to always be responsible to take lead and because you're usually the leader of the house uh spiritually, uh, you're you're you're being a good example for the people in your community at your work. Uh that's one of the aspects that always come into my mind. And if you don't be accountable for what you're responsible for, usually it will not go through. I mean, you will you will fail of doing your responsibility later on, and integr integrity usually continues that. It it what keeps you on the check always, just to make sure that you are following going through what you failed in responsibility, and you took like action after for accountability and maintaining it with integrity, always consistency. That's what integrity is.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Do you think we need permission to do those things? Do you think someone needs to tell us, hey, you're you're allowed to be responsible for this, or this is this is what I want you to do, or do you think this is something that we should just do ourselves?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

And that's that's why I think part of why we're here, because uh a lot of men are not bad inherently, and they just fail to know what they want to do and what they have to do, or what they should do, or that what they should

Fatherhood Beyond Providing And Protecting

SPEAKER_00 5:44

do. For example, uh, I talk to friends like fathers, and for them, being a father is just to protect and provide, and they completely miss uh their role as a father, as a father figure also to their kids, where to lead them, uh to show them how to fix the sink or how to fix the drain in the house or how to be a good husband sometimes, how to show affection, how to show affection.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

These are the types of things I think we get gets lost in the mix sometimes, right? Exactly. I'm sure Deacon Anthony, you've heard people come to you, I would imagine, a scenario of something like, Deacon Anthony, I go to work, I pay the bills, I'm responsible. What more, what what would that person maybe be missing if they who has that perspective of, hey, I'm responsible, I go to work and I pay the bills. What more can you ask of a man?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

I know. I I mean from my from our perspective, that's just one of a lot of things. You being available in your kids' life, for example, leading them, and not by preaching on them, but being available when when they need something. Like, for example, you can say to the one kid, forgive, forgive, forgive, love, love, love. But at the first moment that uh your someone cut you off in the street and you start angry, and the child will say, Dad, where is the forgiveness? He will never say it out loud. Of course, he will just think that you're we're just hypocrite. And so for us being there and following uh what we're supposed to follow, from living spiritual life, going to church, or if you always tell a kid first thing is the church, Christ is the center of your life, and then you don't go to church every Sunday, or you miss uh services, or that the church is not the center of your life, the kid will see then how Christ is the center of our life. Right. So there is this absent message, or this message of absence that we send to our kids and to the k to the people around us, including the wife, the moms, our mothers, our fathers. If if uh if if a parent did not take care of his parents, what do you think will happen? The kids will learn, and then by default, they will not take care of their fathers or mothers later on. So it's a cycle of life, it's something that will go on. Uh we teach our kids by showing them what to do, and that that like get people all over the world.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Does that mean

Christ As The Model Of Manhood

SPEAKER_03 8:34

does that mean masculinity is a behavior purely?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Is it just what you do, or it's not about what you're doing, it's about how you're living, also. I mean you can be uh you you can see masculinity as as as as I said, not only as it's your role, it's how to become like how to become like a Christ, because for for us Christ is the perfect man, Christ and you see Christ did not go to the gym six hours a day, and he was masculine. He was kind, uh he he was loving, he was compassionate, he loved the truth, and that's a big part. For example, when we go uh in Genesis uh chapter three, we see the the story between uh the serpent Adam and Eve, and we see that Adam is standing up there watching the serpent talking to Eve and him not doing anything, he's allowing this to happen. Where if he was responsible or he took responsibility, and like literally he would tell Eve, what you're doing, you should not be doing what you're doing. So it's not only what we do, it's also what we don't do. It's both of them together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

I wonder from a therapy lens, we understand that a big part of your mind is what you think, which affects how you feel, which affects what you do. And so you need to kind of tend to all three of those things my thoughts, my feelings, and my behaviors. And and there's they do interact in a cycle and one affects another. How I think about manhood is going to affect how I feel about manhood and myself, and it's gonna affect the behaviors that I engage in, and then the behaviors I engage in are gonna affect how I think about myself. And so how do we address all of those things? Because I think if I just started doing things that I think are manhood, which we still haven't completely defined, we're touching on accountability, integrity, responsibility. Um I do, but not how I'm thinking about this or how I should be thinking about manhood, I think I may be missing something. And then I think as as men especially, we can really tend to ignore our feelings. And then that can be a huge blind spot for us. Well, I'm just I'm gonna train the mind, I'm gonna train the body, but I'm not gonna tend to the heart or or perhaps the messages that I've received about manhood that are not working for me. And so I wonder where the solution is in that, and and if we could take it a step further, where the church comes in.

Emotions In Church Without Shame

SPEAKER_00 11:13

I mean, our church is full of feelings and emotions. I mean, and we always see that during the whole year. You have seasons where uh length of repentance and tears, and like, oh, I am a sinner, which allow you to express those negative feelings in you. And then there is the seasons where Christ is risen and the joy and the happiness. So feeling as itself is not something bad, and that's that's very important to understand because our emotions are part of us. We are not just body, but we are we are a very emotional creature. And by the way, the more we deny our emotions, the more we are trapping them where they will explode more and more. In another way, the more you deny that you're emotional, is the more you emotional you are. Because in the end of the day, you're not a robot. Like when I talk to some like young adults or even old men, they let me feel like oh, I'm I'm I'm Chad GBT, like I'm I'm so emotionless, I'm very logical, and emotions is only for women. And to be honest, I was guilty of that, and but then I tapped into uh like with that church with my spiritual father and with the friends, like to see how emotions are part of your life and it it complete you as a man, and we see that with Christ Himself too. He he knew that Lazarus will raise uh rise up, uh be alive again, but he did cry. He's not a great point. Uh we see that with his with m multiple times in the Bible. He was angry, uh he was compassionate. When he saw the widowed woman's son died, he he went and he did not deny his emotions. So we see that uh when in Jesus money when he was uh praying, we see the fear, we see all this because he was fully mad. And he did not deny or shove down those emotions, thinking that he will be less of a man if he did not face them. But the full picture, and that's what the church, that's what the gospels brings for us. And in confession, it's always there's and that's why actually in the prayer robe, we always like find the stencils, like and the father say we use it to wipe our tears. So there is nothing wrong with with us being emotional, as long as we are in in control and aware of what we are doing, not ruled by our emotions, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Jacob, be on that, kind of piggybacking off of that, I I'm curious from a psychological, clinical, you know, practice perspective, what does it look like when you're you're working with men who come to you who maybe have gone one way or the other too far?

Therapy On Balance And Narratives

SPEAKER_01 14:35

They've either overprioritized their feelings and emotions because they're trying to get in touch with their feminine side, or they're on the other side, right? They're like, I don't need this, you know, I don't need my emotions, and they've only gotten me in trouble in life. What are you seeing out there in the real world in terms of your practice and and and what advice would that give and lead to this conversation in terms of from what Deacon Anthony was just now saying to us?

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Gosh, what a great question. Um clinically, generally speaking, uh, men or or whoever you're working with, men or women, um, if you're out of balance, if you've swung to one side or the other, the goal becomes how do we achieve balance? Um, so I have men come in who are typically, not to be too stereotypical, but typically suppressing a ton of anger that that if is not being expressed is being embodied, so kind of being tense and stored up in the body and then manifesting itself in all of different, all kinds of different ways. Or have swung to the complete other side and are expressing everything. And as a result of expressing every thought, every feeling, and an inability to tolerate anything that comes up are creating a sort of lack of safety around them, especially with women. Um, and and so then the goal becomes how do I help you? Um I'm trying to think of the perfect metaphor here. Perhaps there's not one, but how do I help you just kind of swing back to the center and reconnect with yourself and determine for yourself what does manhood look like? And even that can be a balance. What does manhood look like for me in a sort of I hate to use the language, my authenticity, my truth-ish kind of way, and how do I look to greater authorities to help me balance that out? And and to be honest, that kind of clinical work can be kind of dicey. A huge, huge, huge part of it has to include what messages did I receive about manhood? Who told you that to be a man was to live like this, to talk like this, to behave like this, to treat others like this? And unless we can kind of go back and examine and reflect and say, oh, it was Uncle So, and so are Papa so, and so are this person or that teacher who told me X, Y, Z, then we're gonna be continued, continually ruled by these narratives that no longer work for us, that create chaos and swings in our lives and in our bodies. Um, and we're victim to them, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

I love that. It's a great answer because you're speaking of these narratives that we tell ourselves, we've heard in our lives.

What Kids Learn About Love

SPEAKER_01 17:13

They're probably disordered narratives in many ways. And Deacon Anthony, if I'm hearing you correctly, the church has the proper narratives. Yes, right? The church has the lives of the saints, we have the gospels, we have the epistles, where it's just filled with the narratives of balance and and and and that that's the that's where the beauty comes.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

And remember, we are creatures that learn by example. We don't learn by books. I mean, we I mean, we we can't deny books, but we learn better by example with the discipleship. So for example, if you grow up in a house that your parent, your father uh specifically, uh disrespect you by yelling at you or screaming at you or calling you names, and you grow up, you think that's the normal. Right. And I know a lot of ladies, for example, growing up in in environments like this, when a gentleman comes to them and he does not do that, they think he does not love us. He's he's there's something fake in him. There is something not genuine in him. So you're literally setting up the standard for your for your uh for your kid's partner when you do that, because uh my dad and mom supposedly are the where I am safe and where I am loved. So when so that's how safety and love, and that's why we find a lot of uh uh marriage like abuse marriage relationship, the the the ladies also still go to an abuse uh husband because this is what they're used to, this is what they know.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Because what's not repaired will be repeated. Yeah, exactly. And so if they learned it, if they saw it, if this is what they were taught, this is what masculinity looks like in my home, in my upbringing, then I'm gonna seek somebody like that. And and when that person is different, it's gonna feel foreign.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah, it feels like home. And I again a lot of examples here, like uh my husband is uh boring, or he's too quiet, he does not yell, he does like you hear some weird stuff going from people, like and like yeah, that that that's actually good. Like, I mean, like take it. I mean, you why do you want him yelling every night? Exactly. Like you see, it it we think it's crazy, but if you are it it does not feel home, it does not feel like uh like this is love. Literally, I was told multiple times that oh my uh your dad does not like personal, like your dad does not love you because uh he does not uh talk to you a lot, basically, but uh he does, but he does not yell at me or or disrespect me or passionately tell his opinion, so it will look it's like he like you see what I'm saying? Yeah, so you're like what you're saying, like so. You see the definition of what love is, even is very like uh miss like misunderstood. And I love like now you can go to Google and write what is love, what is bad love, what is healthy love, and you start comparing and like I am in this bad love, for example, and like I show people like oh look, this is what love, or because it is hard to comprehend, for example, in many aspects from the gospels, but love is a

Vulnerability Rejection And Dating Fears

SPEAKER_00 21:07

truth, for example, it's not just an emotion. Uh it's I love you, I want to tell you the truth. Not a lot of people accept that this is love now, and you measure that, and another aspect also without vulnerability, there is no real relationship because then you're not showing who you really are, and you're just uh portraying a different person that who is not you, and I see and Jacob can talk a lot of on that because when we're vulnerable, we we we are we can get hurt deeply. And not to be deeply hurt, we avoid and we build walls, and then people will not see who we are, and that will not be good for our uh Like, like, and I'm not saying be vulnerable with every person that you meet, but at least you have to have your spouse, your spiritual father, a couple of friends that or brothers or sisters that you really, really trust to be vulnerable and open with, because this is where you will get the feedback for your journey of repentance and becoming whary.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

And it's so interesting you say that because so many men come into therapy so afraid to show the people they love who they actually are. And and they're so deeply, deeply afraid of rejection, especially in dating. I mean, people are dating less than than they ever have, even though we have these apps and these things that we can swipe on all day long. People are dating at historically low numbers. Wow. And uh a big part of that, I think, is this apprehension and this fear to put myself out there and to be rejected. Yeah. And so we embody these personas, and the issue with that is, well, you're not you're not being rejected, the persona's being rejected. And what would have happened if you would have actually shown up authentically? Interesting. Um the goal should be in in not to go on a dating tangent here, but the goal should all with all of us in all of our relationships should be to treat everybody like we treat our best friends. To be to be real, to be fun, to be funny, to be playful, to be vulnerable, like you're mentioning. Because then if they reject us, at least it's the real us. Right. Not this other fake thing that we presented like we were going to a job interview.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Right. Yeah, and and I know relationships that they go for years and they're hiding who they are, and they they lived a life, a lie, a life of lies. Because when they open up, they can be, as you said, rejected. Because to be honest, they were never loved how they're supposed to be loved. And that's that's that's where the problem, uh, because people like they're just scared.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Look at that, you made it to the end.

Patreon Support And Final Sendoff

SPEAKER_01 23:59

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