The Untold Podcast
UNTOLD Podcast is where business, family, and life collide—raw, unfiltered, and brutally honest. No fluff, no fake success stories—just real conversations about the highs, the struggles, and everything in between.
The Untold Podcast
Episode 11| It’s Not a Patriarchy If We’re All Broken
Mental Health Week felt like the right time to have this conversation.
In this episode, we talk about the invisible pressure on modern men—from being the provider, to carrying the emotional load, to silently battling mental health behind closed doors. We share personal stories, real stats, and unfiltered thoughts on the stigma around male vulnerability, suicide rates, fatherhood, and why the system isn't built for men to speak up—or survive the pressure.
This one’s honest. It’s heavy. And it might just be the one someone out there needs to hear today.
There's this notion of a patriarchy. Smash the patriarchy men are ruling. Everything Doesn't feel like it does it.
Speaker 2:Jesus Christ, I've completely shifted the direction of my business.
Speaker 1:It feels like they're pushed under the carpet, if they're brought up at all.
Speaker 3:The statistics are so wise because we don't speak.
Speaker 1:Society sees men as these all-powerful things that are actually controlling women all over the place, when, in fact, most of us are struggling.
Speaker 2:The Untold Podcast is proudly sponsored by Aura Surfaces, specialists in luxury surfaces for extraordinary spaces Like creating dream homes. Building a dream life takes work. That's why we had to get behind this podcast. Real stories, real challenges and real success. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everybody to the Untold Podcast. This is Men's Mental Health, is it?
Speaker 2:Men's Mental Health Week. It's just Mental Health.
Speaker 1:Week. Alright, I've genderised that. We're going to start again. Welcome back everybody. This is the Untold Podcast and this is Mental Health Week, so we're talking about something else? No, we're not. We're talking about mental health. My name's Des. We've also got Chris Good morning, and we've also got Ash Evening. Right, let's kick it off a little bit differently.
Speaker 2:Boys, tell me one thing that's happened to you this week that is worth sharing. You've got a minute and a half ash go. Jesus christ, what's happened to me this week? I've completely shifted the direction of my business. Oh, that's a big one. Yeah, completely shifted the direction of the business. After last week's podcast, where I went into depth about things, I allowed me to sit back, look at it from a different angle and say, actually, do you know what we need to be doing this? So I put the plans together, sat down with a team, we're all on board and we'll move Because, like I've said many times, the destination stays the same, but the way you get there can alter along the way.
Speaker 1:Like it, but this is what happens when you have a conversation with this mug.
Speaker 3:You it. But this is what happens when you have a conversation with this mug you decide to flip your business on its head and you change.
Speaker 1:What did you do? Hey, this is what's the name's chris stewart. This is my first beer.
Speaker 3:If you're looking for someone to uh give you some life coaching, you know my telephone number would be in the link in the podcast.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:So you happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I can see not out of the woods yet, no, but I'm happy. I'm content in the way I've dealt with things, I'm content in the future of the business and I'm content in the direction and the path that we want to take to better our lives, as not just me but for the company and the staff. Love it, mate.
Speaker 1:That we're coming back to that in future weeks. Your turn 90 seconds, beat that.
Speaker 3:Worst impossible, mate. You're aware of how much work I'm doing at the moment. I'd say the most successful thing I've done this week is I washed my van hey, good effort.
Speaker 1:I know it sounds really bad. Is that your new pressure washer?
Speaker 3:I haven't washed my van for about 9-10 months and it had you had to do a video.
Speaker 1:It had Merry Christmas written on the back of it it did, but I bet it was, I bet it was.
Speaker 3:No, I did it, I did it yesterday and I took my time to do it as well. Honestly, that is probably the most challenging thing I've had in the last seven days. I'm not going to lie, I love it Really boring for a podcast. But yeah, I said to you last week, I've got no complaints about anything in a minute.
Speaker 2:No, mate. You said in a message yesterday, didn't you? There's me, I'm in this mental space and you're fucking flying high up here in that mental space.
Speaker 1:I've got to say I'm in a good spot at the moment as well. Yeah, I didn't want to say, because we would have been double teaming you.
Speaker 2:That's not fair. I don't give a fuck mate.
Speaker 1:I'm happy for both of you. That's why you thing that mattered for me this week was that my youngest has had two or three shocking night's sleep shocking night's sleep and I've still woken up in a good mood. I've still worked 12 hour days and I'm still positive. You know what I mean. It's a little while ago.
Speaker 3:I'd have been miserable for weeks, but I'm happy that must be hard when you're not sleeping properly, when you're getting up at five every morning as well, surely, Well, luckily.
Speaker 1:I'm just used to it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't sleep at night. I've been awake five o'clock every morning because my brain's going mental Five o'clock in the morning. Now, the last well at least the last two mornings and the last week was slightly different, because I was waking up with stress levels, whereas this week I've woken up because I want to get shit done and I'm thinking what can I do today? And I'm like, right, we're doing that and then get on with it.
Speaker 1:It's nicely said, mate, and it segues beautifully into the topic of this week's Untold Podcast here on Mental Health Week. Well, it's not Men's Mental Health Week, it's just Mental Health Week, but we're going to talk about men because that's what we are. Let's be honest Today I want to talk about the invisible pressure that we as men and, most importantly, we as fathers, have in what is, I believe, a broken system and stacked massively against men. This whole thing that there's this notion of a patriarchy. Smash the patriarchy. Men are ruling everything. It doesn't feel like it does it.
Speaker 3:Those days are gone, aren't they really? I think so, mate. I think so.
Speaker 1:So what I'm going to do today and I know you've got some as well, ash we're going to throw out some stats. I want to caveat all of this that we are not digging out women in this entire episode. In fact, we're celebrating women. We have celebrated women on this. This is not what we do, but we're talking about our experiences and we're going to throw out actual statistics. So if you are a lady listening to this and you're triggered, I'm sorry that's not on us. All right, I'm putting that out there first of all, but disproportionately in the workplace, men are affected in ways that women aren't, but there are also ways that women are affected.
Speaker 3:Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Shall, we Working dads are now the most stressed demographic in the UK. Ash, what's that statistic you threw at us yesterday about suicide?
Speaker 2:About 6,000, but this is stats from 2023. 6,000 people took their own lives in 2023. Of that, 75% of them were men wow, males wow, suicide is the biggest killer of men.
Speaker 1:They talk about prostate cancer.
Speaker 3:It doesn't touch the suicide rate of men, it's more awkward to talk about and that's why I don't mention it. That's true.
Speaker 1:That's true because in reality, men are still expected to be the primary earner and a present parent, and we can't do both and we're running out of mental energy to do it both.
Speaker 2:So when you were in the Sorry mate, go on Sorry. Are we expected to be, or is that expectations we put on ourselves? That's a great point.
Speaker 1:That's a good, Because I was hoping this would come up. I'm happy to take on that role because I was hoping this would come up. I'm happy to take on that role, but I wonder whether that's our generation where we are. But I wonder if it's younger generations that can't and that's why birth rate is declining. I'm wondering. But when you're the provider and you crack and there is no soft landing, do either of you feel that there is space to admit that you're struggling?
Speaker 2:Oh, hell, yeah, I do, but that's only because I've been on this journey and I know how important it is to be open and honest with people about the way you're feeling, the way you're doing. Look, it's sort of going off on a tangent, but last week I said to my wife I said everything in my life feels like it's a fucking mess. My car's a mess, my head's a mess, the house is a mess, the garden's a mess, everything's a fucking mess. And it hit me, it was like fucking hell, go and clean your car then. So I went and cleaned my car, I sat down and reflected on the business, tried to tidy that up. I'm never going to tidy my head up, let's be honest, because it is what it is. But that, but that's sort of I think. And I said that, and I said those things out loud instead of just thinking them internally. And then I think sometimes, by speaking and listening to yourself, you think, oh, actually, okay, right, can I flip that on its head?
Speaker 1:yeah, how about you mate?
Speaker 3:so I think this is really difficult and very, very good question. To be fair, I personally don't think there is. Um, like I said a couple weeks ago, I didn't start talking about anything until about 18 months ago bottled all my problems up. I'm very lucky that I do have a very uh I don't know what the word is but my wife listens to me a lot. Now, you know, I can talk to her quite quite openly.
Speaker 3:Still don't like doing it because as a man, I feel like my wife has got problems of her own and I don't want to burden her with my thoughts and my problems and my worries, because they then become her worries and her thoughts and her, you know, and her stresses and I know it's not for this is we're talking about us but as a man, from my own point of view, I look at my wife as if she does she does a hell of a lot more than I do, but it's stuff that you don't actually see that she does. I mean we had a discussion about yesterday. To be fair, I spoke to you a minute ago. Um, we do the stuff that's seen. You know, the men go out physically. They go get their shoes in the morning they go to work, they earn the money, they pay the bills. I know we know two household incomes now, but, um, we're talking about us boys again.
Speaker 3:We come home shattered, you know. I come home, I sit on the sofa and I want a cup of tea first thing I want to do. My wife I'm lovely makes me a cup of tea and I chill out for five minutes and then I'm on with boys. Daddy, daddy, daddy. So then I'm done, right, so I'm playing all that. But while I'm doing all that she's not been grafting all day she's now doing the dinner she's getting ready for like bedtime and all that sort of stuff. So I don't want to burden my missus with all of my crap that I'm thinking about, and I certainly don't want to burden all of my mates with it, because I know they're blokes as well and they're going through the same thing themselves. So, um, there will be people out there that won't want to burden other people, and that's what I kind of feel like it is a burden.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, 100%. That's how I am, mate. That's exactly how I am. You don't want to put that pressure on your other half when you know that they're doing as much as they possibly are. And it's the old stereotype, isn't it? Husband comes home from work hello, how was your day? And he'll listen to her problems and take them on board.
Speaker 1:Never, then, shares his own, and, from my own point of view, I've been playing out my life on social media, this whole journey about what I'm doing. If I crack, that would disarm an awful lot of people into not starting their business, which goes against everything that I want to do online. So I don't have many people to share with. One of the reasons why I went to therapy so there was someone that I knew that couldn't talk about it out loud that I could actually share it with. It's brutal, isn't it, then? This is, this is the thing society sees men as, these all-powerful things that are actually controlling women all over the place, when, in fact, most of us are struggling, most of us are crumbling oh yeah, I said to chris last week I literally felt broken.
Speaker 2:I went, I didn, I sat in the office upstairs. I really need to go home. I really need to go home. And actually what you're saying, what I've said, I'm going to contradict myself now because I sat out there and I didn't want to take home the way I was feeling. I sat in that office I don't know, it might have even been an hour just thinking, writing, journaling, doing whatever I could to try and flip my headspace. Because it's not fair. I don't feel it's fair for the kids to see me aggy, miserable, moody. I don't think it's right for my wife Like my wife's going through her own things. She's got her own things to do. She's stressing about the same things I'm stressing about.
Speaker 2:But, sometimes I think oh shit, yeah I don't know, she's let's do. You know what I mean. So I think you're right. Actually, I will talk to people if I'm happy to put my heart on my sleeve and be very authentic with it, but then to the right people, yeah.
Speaker 3:I actually talk to people when I'm spoken to. That's the difference with me. I don't talk to people unless I'm spoken to. That's the difference with me. I don't talk to people unless I'm asked. Yeah, Someone asks me what's wrong with you, I'll tell them, yeah, but unless someone actually sits down and takes the time to go right what's going on? Why are you so moody? What were you thinking about? Or one of my mates goes Chris, you're not yourself recently.
Speaker 1:You're saying, never the sort of person that will just start talking to someone making other chats. I'm not feeling great. Yeah, I know when I'm in a bad way I'm unreasonable. I know I am. I know I know I am. But I hate being that person out loud because I know I'll come across as a dickhead. So I hide it as much as I possibly can. Sometimes it's impossible because it will fucking leak out. I mean, I was a bit of a knobhead to youth boys last week. I know I was. I was unreasonable. That happens so rarely. But at the same point I'm doing so much to bottle that person up. It can't be healthy.
Speaker 2:Amazing, isn't it? It's not, and this is why I think it's. And this sort of does pull down to mental strength, mental strength, health, because we do live our life. Like you just said, you live your life through social media. Yeah, you don't want to be seen to be broken, because then you're going to discourage the people you've been trying to encourage in, yeah, but then people see oh, this is fantastic, this doesn't have no problem, this is all resisting this is a robot.
Speaker 2:This is a robot 5 am we're we're not so I think and this is this is where I think a hell of a lot of it comes from of why the suicide rates are going up in. I spend way too long scrolling through social media way too long, and that doesn't help up here. It does, because I switch off in that moment but I could be doing better things. But then you're watching oh, look at him, he's driving a Lambo. Oh, he's doing this, he's doing that. And I have to snap myself out of it and think he's got there through hard work and determination and he's put himself in the right place at the right time. I can do that. My time's not come yet. Let's move on from it.
Speaker 2:You ain't going to do but that's, that's what I mean, that's what I'm saying, like you sat here and openly admitted that you don't want to be seen to be struggling, broken down because you might discourage the people, and that is, I think, a big reason of why mental health in everybody. Look at kids there's kids with anxiety and depression. I know this is about men, but there's kids that are struggling because they're constantly watching the highlight reel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, this is the irony right, because we all appreciate when a woman is going through problems, they get all the support. Whether that's a PMD thing or whether that's an anxiety thing, it could be any one of female-related issues, yeah.
Speaker 1:The men issues it feels like they're pushed under the carpet, if they're brought up at all. And when it is addressed, it's very much a surface thing and the men aren't necessarily getting the help and because of that, the problem isn't being looked at. Because the problem is being ignored, you're never going to have the right solution. This is a proper yeah, this is a proper triggering thing. But we talk about domestic violence Men. 34% of all domestic violence victims are men, one in three. Now you tell me, men to women ratio for refuge homes for domestic violence victims. How many female ones do you think there are?
Speaker 2:I have no idea. I wouldn't even like to have a stab in the dark at that one.
Speaker 1:Let me have a minute Pause. This for the edit. I need this to be seamless. Okay, there are 4,344 women's refuge centres in the UK. There were 436 men. So even though every victim is one in three, a refuge centre is one in 10.
Speaker 3:And I think the potential reason for that is because men would feel weak and ashamed to admit that Exactly you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it. It's not the women's fault. I want to make this clear. No, no, no, and you know.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've seen it, I've, I've, I've seen it in my own eyes. Don't think for one minute. My missus beats me up because she doesn't, but I have, I have seen it with my. Get to a point where you're not going to speak to anybody, because why would a man let a woman abuse him? He's a man, because he's a powerful man.
Speaker 1:You should be able to say no, I'm a man, you do not abuse me.
Speaker 3:Exactly. It's back to that archaic caveman side of things, isn't it? So that's 100% why, but the whole system, I mean we mentioned's fault, other than the people that look after this country. I'll say look after it to ruin this country the highest rate of homelessness is men.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the highest rate of assault victims are men. The highest rate of prisoners are men. The lowest paid in society are men. The highest rate of suicide are men. It's nuts. And we're not even talking about the family courts and separation. We're going through contact with kids and child maintenance.
Speaker 2:We're not even going down that road. That's for another day, cause that disgusts me.
Speaker 1:That absolutely disgusts me.
Speaker 3:So how is this a patriarchy We'll probably find, actually, while talking, just quickly touching on that, the system that is deciding how much men have to pay towards their ex-wives or their ex-girlfriends or whatever that take their kids away from them, stop them from seeing them, just basically make the man's life a misery. There's a probably massive percentage of that suicide rate that is because of that exact reason. It's 100% true. So it's not just being the alpha man, you're actually punished for just pretty much everything as you go through life. Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:This is the thing, though. There are lots of things People are having to do the work the people that have been through it, like us, for example. The people are having to do the work to help other people in that situation. Because you go to your GP and say, as a man, and say, right, I'm depressed, they'll give you pills Now. Man, and say, right, I'm depressed, they give you pills now, whereas the tablets will work for certain people.
Speaker 2:There are, I think, there are better ways to deal with it. There's places like andy's man club, which are popping up everywhere now, and it's fucking brilliant. You've got groups like men and their emotions on facebook, which are very highly looked after by people, and people are putting in there some really really close to themselves things you can post anonymously, and there's other lads on there that are helping them helping them with legal advice, helping them with places to stay, helping them with a roof over their heads, dropping them a bit of money for some dinner and stuff. But the problem is we're having to do it. You go to the gp. Oh, it needs to see what's the waiting list to see what's the waiting list to see someone about your mental health god, years, exactly by that time, the poor, the person, they've ended it all because there was no light at the end of the tunnel, exactly just another statistic and when you've got half of the population that are affected by these societal lies.
Speaker 1:let's call it what it is people aren't being born anymore, Birth rate is as low as it's ever been. Our kid got into the best school in the area and schools are literally fighting for children to go now because they can't fulfil subscriptions anymore. And it's going to get worse because the issue with men isn't being treated because they've just been hired. In the last two years, a minister for women has been created.
Speaker 2:There's no minister for men. Yeah, it's brutal. It's sort of been pushed, isn't it? It's been pushed. Yes, I agree with everything that happened in the in history and that women going in the army and women voting rights.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, we should all be equal yeah, and violence to women and girls is unacceptable. Right, I was mental about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah and we've all, but then it gets pushed too far. It gets pushed too far. This political stuff oh, you can't do that in a workplace, because she's a female and he's a male. You can't do that. But that's not, obviously. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about mental health.
Speaker 2:But as, as men, we take on a lot of responsibility I know I do, and I can only talk for myself. I feel responsible for making sure that my wife doesn't need to be stressed about money. My kids have everything that they need. We get to do nice things. I take that on and that stresses me the fuck out, but I carry on doing it because I want the best. I was privileged enough to live a good life as a child and have things that other kids didn't, and I want that for my kids. But that puts a massive strain on me, and what I've realised over the last couple of weeks is I'm not present with them and enjoying time with them because I'm focusing too much on trying to give them more when really they might not want more. They might just want more of me, if that makes sense. Much on trying to give them more when really they might not want more.
Speaker 3:They might just want more of me. That is all they want, isn't it really? I've seen it in the last couple of weeks the difference between my little boy compared to what he was with me beforehand. He just wants your time. That's all they want. They just want the time.
Speaker 2:Apart from when they get a bit older.
Speaker 3:When are they going to get a bigger house? Can we have a swimming?
Speaker 2:pool. I want a horse in my garden. My friend's got a horse in their garden. We can have one, but it's a bit small.
Speaker 3:I think, as men, though, we do have to take a bit of responsibility here as well, because I'm sitting here listening to you two and obviously I'm listening to myself as I'm speaking, you know, saying that I don't speak here unless I'm spoken to. The statistics are so wise because we don't speak. If we started speaking more and we decided that actually, yes, we're men, but it's 2025 now, it's not fucking 1960s. We don't have to be that man that we used to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look, listen, I'm not suggesting we all start wearing eyeliner and eye shadow and everything you know and turn into women, but we have got to start speaking out. We have got to start asking for help. We have got to start asking for change. That's the main thing, yeah, and the only way things are going to change is if people do start asking for it. Otherwise, those statistics are going to get worse and worse and worse, and we'll be sitting here, hopefully, in a couple of years, but not sitting here hopefully having this conversation. Yeah, otherwise, we will. You know, yeah, there's no change unless you try and change it yourself.
Speaker 1:No, that's true, and I will go so far as to say our generation and this is why I believe this podcast works is we are aware, we're all self-aware enough to know when we're mentally struggling and we're all conscious enough to know we chose this. Yeah, but we come from the generation where it was taught upon us by our parents, wouldn't? We're the men, we're the paycheck, we're the support, we're the rock.
Speaker 1:We do all that, so we're doing it willingly yeah, we're also pressurized into it, but we are doing it willingly. It's the generations that come after us where they're seeing us be more hands-on. My dad never changed a nappy in his life. Yeah, he's. He's got nine grandkids still, hasn't Me and my two brothers? We were much more hands-on on the day-to-day but we worked fewer hours than my dad did, in fairness to him. But I know that we're impressing upon our kids, our boys, that it doesn't have to be the way of our generations before.
Speaker 3:It's just teaching them the mental capacity to also be confident enough that when they're struggling they need to ask. My worry that for the youngsters now is that there's so much mental health problems but they don't actually know what it's going to feel like to not feel like there's something wrong, so they're just going to think that it's normal to feel like that. That's a good point.
Speaker 2:I mean it, it's almost been. There's a glorified market, isn't there, for mental health and stuff, and there's a this is the thing that the youth of today are growing up oh what. You can go on reddit and there's a form that you can read how to get pip. There's forums on like reddit. You can go onto know exactly what happens. The gp's sitting there, okay, yeah, well, he's ticked that box. He's ticked that, yeah. Okay, yeah, you qualify for pit. We'll speak to you in a year.
Speaker 2:The gps don't care, so it's being encouraged because it's so easy to do not the. And there's people that are genuinely really struggling, really contemplating life, of going through some real shit, who can't get the help they need. And and that's what I think's wrong Obviously you can't. It's very difficult for a GP to define on the phone whether someone's really mentally ill or whatever, and that's I think that's it's been glorified. I'm sorry to say it, but mental health has been glorified. You look at some of the old comedians 15 years ago and they talk now like we didn't know what ADHD was. We didn't know what ADHD was. We didn't know what. I'm not saying it's not real, no, so don't like.
Speaker 1:But they're all miserable, those older comedians yeah.
Speaker 2:But they got through life you got through. I've got a question for you. If you, you've obviously been through some tough both of you, some tough times. Look back at a time that's pretty fucking tough that's been. How did you get through it? What was you going through? Not what was you going through, but how did you feel at the time and did you come out the end of it. Is there a time you can think of?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm not going to say the time, but no, it's easy to come out the other end of it. If you realise in life you'll come out the end of everything, yeah, that is, that is at the other end of it. If you realise in life you'll come out at the end of everything, yeah, that is, that is. It's an obvious answer. Everything will always get better. It might feel like everything is the shittest it's ever been in your entire life, but if you keep going, one day it's like it's like we spoke about the other week.
Speaker 3:When you start a new job, you think you're crap at it to start with. The more you do it, all of a sudden you wake up in the morning. You go to work. You don't even think about working. That is how change comes. You just get on with life, you do what you've got to do to just get through every day, and then one day you will wake up in the morning and everything will be better. I don't give a toss how bad your issues are. Sorry if I'm saying this out of turn. It will eventually get better, but you have to just get yourself through to that point.
Speaker 1:It's happened a few times where I know it's going to get bad. So I literally I block my calendar out. I make sure that the gym is a non-negotiable, I ring up my mates, let's go for a beer, and I book therapy. I know if I'm going down the bad road. Right, get yourself physically fit, get yourself mentally fit and get through the day to day.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? It's the classic stuff.
Speaker 1:Talk to people. Talk to people, surround yourself with friends, do some exercise. That the irony is, when I'm in a good mental place.
Speaker 3:I don't do any of that. That was a much better answer than mine.
Speaker 3:to be fair, I that was a much better answer than mine, to be fair, I just went down the route of I just literally concentrated on myself and nothing else and tried to get myself through it and obviously years ago I never spoke to anybody or did anything to better anything in my head. But even I got through it. You know, and I was one of those closed books that never speak to anybody. I know that you would easily speak to more people than I would.
Speaker 2:So kind of shows two different completely different personality I mean, yeah, my brain goes into fight or flight mode and it's literally, it's nothing or everything, and it will tell me every single time I can go back, however many years my memory serves me, every single time I sat there whether it was relationships, whether it was this, whether whatever it was every time my brain would tell me worst case scenario, the worst possible thing is going to happen to you, and a hundred percent of the time, it never fucking happened. That's it, man, and that's what I thought of to myself last week. No, get on, forget that. You can't be, you can't let your past dictate your future. No, you can only live in the present. Yeah, it's happened in the past. Learn from it. I learned a hell of a lot mentally. Mental resilience is something that I'd like to learn more about, because it's it's powerful when you're going through these things, having that mental resilience, understanding that your brain's telling you something that's probably not gonna actually come to fruition.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's quite an important thing to learn, I think.
Speaker 1:No, it's interesting. It is interesting. And again we're kind of in a system where we can't we can't say we're proud, men, and thump our chest and go, yeah, look at us, free guys, men, power, look at us, we're, we're doing it.
Speaker 1:The messaging that females have is very different from the messaging that men are allowed. It's very different from the messaging that men are allowed. It's feeling like and I'm willing to be proved wrong in the comments here it's feeling like men are treated more as objects than women are. And yes, there have been decades and decades and decades where men treated women like objects. Currently it feels like it's the other way around. There is girl power, women power on TV shows. Us girls stick together.
Speaker 2:When would men ever get away with saying that yeah yeah, you can't put on a chocolate bar, mate. For men, you can't have Kleenex men-sized tissues anymore. We've taken something and instead of piving it and balancing it in the middle, it's now pushing the other way.
Speaker 3:That's it. You can have pink tissues and it says on the box women's tissues, Girls' tissues. The box women's tissues girls tissues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are all sorts of products that we sell on tiktok.
Speaker 3:Yeah, women only. Yeah, can't.
Speaker 1:There's what's the men only product.
Speaker 2:Yeah, apart from because we're not allowed to do it because political and this pc bullshit has pushed it has pushed it too far. Yes, it needed to change. 100. Agree, it needs to change. We should be treated as equals. If the, if the female in the relationship is the breadwinner wet bread winner then that's great. If the male's the breadwinner, great. Obviously we're in a point now where both of you have got to go out and earn the same money because society is fucking us, yeah, from every angle, with the cost of everything. So now we're sort of we're in that sort of limbo, whereas it should have sat on the seesaw and balanced it out, but instead it didn't.
Speaker 3:It pushed it too far, the wrong way, that's it that's what I think, but again, kind of people have to take responsibility for what they've caused, because it's the people that have caused a lot of that at the same time exactly, right, exactly, and then it'll be in court at the moment.
Speaker 1:How's that working out for your pal?
Speaker 3:yeah, exactly, it's the same people that are causing those problems that are then moaning about those problems very publicly, yeah, you know. So it's just. People just really need to just fucking get a grip, as far as I'm concerned, not with their mental health, but with themselves that are just causing most of the problems at the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm not going to go into it, you know, you know where I'm going with that, but I'm not going to do it on a podcast no, I don't, I don't, and there is an awful lot that men are to blame for. There is an awful lot that men are to blame for for the last 20 years, but it feels like at the moment, we're to blame for everything and that don't seem fair.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean person in this country. That's a man that's to blame for pretty much everything at the moment, isn't he?
Speaker 1:All right, all right.
Speaker 2:The bitching man or the Coke sniffing. We won't go into that. That's quite funny. That that's quite funny that, but I think, like I don't know what anyone else has got to say, but if there's someone listening to this who really, really is in a dark, deep place, what would your one bit of advice be?
Speaker 3:So I've actually had something in my head that I wanted to say at the end anyway, so I might as well say it now, because it kind of leads straight on. If you are now listening to this and you are thinking that the world is a better place without you and that people will be better off without you, I can guarantee you they will be more upset with the fact that you are not here than you are here, and things are going to shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whoever you are listening to this, you have touched more lives than you will ever know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the thing that, like, when you read these statistics and stuff about, that wasn't just a statistic that was someone's dad, that was someone's brother, that was someone's son, that was someone's boss, that was someone's best mate, that was someone's. Do you know what I mean? And it's then you're not just a statistic. The world will not be better off without you Reach out. There's plenty of places that you can go, you can take yourself.
Speaker 1:It's like AA isn't it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people that go to AA that don't mention it. There's plenty of places like Andy's man Club. If you're really struggling. I know firsthand from other people that have visited one of these. It's changed their lives and it's all anonymous. You can post anonymous on groups and people will come back to you. You have to realise that people are going to still be dickheads, because there's dickheads in the world, but 99% of the time you will get constructive comments on whatever you're going through. Absolutely Someone's been there, someone's done it and someone's got out the other end.
Speaker 1:And if you are a parent and you're feeling that way, it will mess your child up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, whatever the situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, enough of all this laughter and bants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's an important topic to discuss. It is and it's Mental.
Speaker 1:Health Week. It's important. You're dead right. You're dead right. Yeah, we couldn't, we couldn't I mean we couldn't.
Speaker 3:There's been loads of points throughout the podcast where I wanted to throw a joke in, just like a minute ago, where you said you know you've touched more people's lives than no one else there was some serious jokes coming in there.
Speaker 1:It's not really that podcast. Is it today? No, so, it is quite a serious one.
Speaker 3:But I just go back. I've seen it firsthand. My auntie committed suicide when I was like 15, and it was fucking horrible, really really horrible. Like my mum was in bits. She'd lost my nan and my granddad about a year and a half beforehand, and to watch my mum go through that was disgusting, was like really horrible to watch and my auntie just thought the place was, the world was a better place without her because she couldn't cope, you know. So that's why I said that, because it's really really important to to understand that. You know, if it is it, things are shit. I've had mind fucks where I thought I'm better off not here, but I've never been at that point where actually I think it's something that I'm going to do. But it's so important to just, if you ever get to that point, just really think about what you are leaving behind, what, rather than now think about the future for all those people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and if you are over 30 and you're a man and you're struggling, and all of the stuff that we've talked about is something that you're relating to. This is how it's important to know that you're not on your own, because it is a pressure that all men are going through at the moment this bit where we're meant to be all powerful, all strong, all supportive, yet, at the same point, nobody's talking to us about our feelings. It's a hard role to play, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:It is. It is, and we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves More than we put. Like I can sit and speak to my wife. She said, yeah, but you don't need to do that. But me, internally feel like, yeah, but I need to do that, and that's me, because I want to strive for better things. But that's just the way I'm wired. We're not all wired the same and that's a really important point to make Everybody's different. Everybody's going through different stuff.
Speaker 2:But the way out of it is not to take the way out, the easy way out. The way out of it is to work on yourself, to work on it, to speak to people, to open up where your heart and your sleeve. You'd be amazed how, even when we sit in here and we chat the three of us you take it makes you feel better. When we sat and spoke last week and I was going through hell I come away from that conversation I felt like I'd got it off my chest. I felt like I'd got it off my chest, I felt like I'd let it release and it was gone and now I was ready to move on. Yeah, I think it's important to sometimes, obviously you don't want to become a needy. Oh, mate, I've been really upset this week Cause your mates will get fed up with you, cause that's not banter, but if you're really struggling you will have friends that will be there and they will listen to you so one word answer.
Speaker 1:Who are you working this hard for?
Speaker 3:shouldn't have thought about that so hard, should I myself? I like it because, if I've said it before, if you don't love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love you? If you're not working for yourself, you're never going to better yourself and people aren't going to be happy around you. That was a lot more than one word.
Speaker 2:You've got to leave by example. Can we edit that?
Speaker 1:out after one word myself no editing, it's unfiltered.
Speaker 3:No, I'm joking, just apart from that massive pause when Des was trying to remember the statistics. I remember it.
Speaker 2:Oh we, oh we'll put an ad in there. Let's put an ad over that bit.
Speaker 1:My roadshow, anyway, go on.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think it is important. You don't want to become a softie, you don't want to. That's not politically correct. I can't say that. You don't want to become that needy friend. But I've got friends who I know. If I reach out to them and say, and they always pick me up, always up to them and say, oh, and they always pick me up, always because they can look at it from a different angle, you'll think you'll be internalizing that your world is about to end and then really it's not. All you take is for someone from the outside looking in and be yeah, mate, but you can do this and do this and do that, it'll be all right, yeah I don't feel so bad about my 25 word answer now.
Speaker 1:I don't feel so bad about my 25-word answer now, I thought we'd done that. I thought we'd passed that.
Speaker 2:No, I was going to say myself as well.
Speaker 1:I was in the corner nodding. I thought you saw me.
Speaker 2:Oh right, I was going to say myself as well. I was going to say myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, what about you, let's not let you get out of it. Family, yeah, yeah, I got into this whole thing. Every time I close my eyes and I've got the money I've got in my head it's the family doing something. I didn't want Claire to go back to work she was on maternity didn't want her to go back to work. I wanted my kids to have a better life. I was just there too you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:That's how I see it. I just feel like everybody else around me is happier when I'm happy that's the other thing mate yeah you can pull people up, can't you?
Speaker 2:you can either pull people up or you can be a mood hoover and pull people down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that's the other thing as well. I'm willing to bet every man out there that is breaking themselves with work and all of the pressures that we're going through, they're doing it so they can have a better life, so everyone else can have a better life as well, right.
Speaker 2:Shall we wrap that up then, boys, I think we have, I'm brushing myself.
Speaker 1:What should we talk about next?
Speaker 3:week, desperate for the tour.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about how traffic wardens should be armed or something next week, should we? Right everybody? Let us know what you think in the comments. We are expecting some strong opinions on this. Bring it on, that's all. We love all of you. There's no such thing as a troll. If you're talking. Constructively, because we understand that there's all sorts of sides of the debate on this one, we'll leave it be Ash. See you later, chris. Constructively, because we understand that there's all sorts of sides of the debate on this one. Uh, we'll leave it be Ash. See you later, chris, See you next week. Tell all your friends We'll be back next week, take care.