The Weight of Showing Up:On fatherhood, presence, and the things dads carry quietly

Written by Evan Vukets, RCC, Registered Clinical Counsellor in Abbotsford, BC. I support men in Abbotsford, the Fraser Valley, and online across BC. Learn more about me.

The photo accompanying this post is one I treasure deeply. My dad on the left, my son in the middle, and me on the right. Three generations of men learning, in our own ways, what it means to show up.

Everything I learned about how to be a dad came from watching mine.

He was the kind of man who showed up. He coached our sports teams, played guitar at school talent shows, built a career in business, and later retrained as a certified financial planner because he genuinely loved helping people. He was present in the way that mattered most; consistently and reliably, without making a production of it... Unless he was (mostly) sarcastically asking for praise for his cooking, that was always a production!

It was not until much later that I learned how much he had been carrying in the background. He had been living quietly with depression for years, the way a lot of men do. He tried therapy, and some of it helped, but a lot of it did not. The sessions that failed to help shared something in common. Those therapists failed to understand him. They failed to see that his drive to provide was not a symptom of something broken. It was a cultural value, a deeply held sense of what it meant to be a good man and a good father.

One therapist told him to stop working. Another told him to cut out connections she deemed toxic. He did not need to be managed, he needed to be seen and empowered. There is a difference, and it matters more than I can find words for.

That difference has become a large part of why I do the work I do.

The Doing Is the Loving

Alfred Adler, one of the founding fathers of psychology, wrote about what he called the tasks of life: work, friendship, and love. These are the domains where we find meaning, belonging, and identity. He believed that a healthy life required genuine engagement across all three. When one task expands to fill all the space, every part of life suffers.

For a lot of fathers, the task that carries the most weight is work. I do not write that as a criticism as for many men providing is not simply a job or a preference. It is the blueprint for how they understand their worth, their role, and their reason for being valued. It is socialized, it is often cultural, and for many men it is a genuine expression of love.

The problem is not the value. The problem is when it becomes the only value. When a man's sense of self lives entirely in what he produces or provides.

I see this show up in different ways in the men I sit with. The dad who works sixty hours a week and genuinely believes he is doing it for his family but has forgotten how to just be with them. The one whose lawn is always perfect, whose garage is always organized, who is never still because stillness feels like falling behind. The fixer, the coach, the one who is always useful to everyone around him and quietly unsure of who he is when there is nothing left to fix.

These are not absent men. They are men who were taught that doing is loving. They are not wrong. But that same instinct, the one that keeps them productive and reliable and always useful, is often the same one that lets friendships quietly fall away. Because friendships do not reward doing. They reward showing up in a different way, without an agenda, without a task, without something to fix.

The Friendships That Quietly Disappeared

This is where fatherhood tends to quietly strip away something most men do not notice until it is already gone.

Most male friendships are often built around a shared structure. A team, a workplace, a neighbourhood. The connection happens naturally because you keep showing up to the same place. But these friendships often stay in their own lane. It is hard to tell your old teammate about the stress you are carrying at home or tell a colleague about something going sideways in your marriage. The friendship was not built with that kind of depth.

Then fatherhood arrives and the calendar fills with school pickups, hockey practices, home repairs, and work deadlines. The structures that held those friendships together start to thin out, slowly enough that it is easy not to notice, until one day a man realizes he cannot name the last time someone asked him how he was actually doing.

Men are not always taught to maintain relationships without an external structure holding them together. Reaching out, making plans, staying connected without a reason, it can feel unfamiliar or even unnecessary. So a lot of fathers end up more isolated than they expected, carrying more than they should, without anywhere to put it and without a friend to lean on.

What My Dad Deserved

My dad deserved a therapist who understood that his identity as a provider was not the problem. That his way of loving his family through presence and provision was not toxic masculinity waiting to be dismantled. It was a man trying to do right by the people he loved, in the language he had been given.

Some training programs spend considerable time exploring the ways masculinity can contribute to harm. There is often far less focus on recognizing healthy masculinity and understanding the values many men hold around work, provision, responsibility, and protection. If the phrase "toxic masculinity" has ever felt oversimplified or alienating, I wrote more about how as a therapist that combination of words gives me an ick.

My dad was a man who needed to be seen and empowered, not judged, dismissed, or re-educated. That distinction is one I carry into every session.

What Range Looks Like

The goal in my work with fathers is never to take away what is already working. The provider, the fixer, the man who shows up; those things have real value. The goal is to add range:

• A dad who provides and knows how to be present.

• Who fixes things and can sit with something that cannot be fixed.

• Who shows up for everyone and has somewhere to go when he needs to be held up himself.

• Who works hard and tends his friendships with the same intention he brings to everything else.

That is not a different man. It is the same man, with a little more room to breathe.

For the Dads Reading This

Father's Day is a complicated day for a lot of men. Some are proud. Some are exhausted. Some are grieving their own fathers, or grieving the relationship they hoped for but never quite had. Some grew up without a father at all and are quietly figuring out what kind of dad to be without a map. Some are carrying things they have never said out loud to anyone.

If any of this resonates, that is worth paying attention to. Not as a problem, but as an invitation.

You have spent a long time showing up for other people. If you are ready to show up for yourself, counselling can be a space to do that. I work with men and fathers in Abbotsford, the Fraser Valley, and online across BC. A free consultation is available if you want to see whether it feels like a good fit.

To every dad carrying more than anyone knows: the weight of showing up matters, even when no one sees it.

Frequently Asked Questions about Counselling for Fatherhood and Men's Mental Health

Do I need to be in crisis to start counselling? 

Not at all. Many of the men I work with are functioning well on the outside, holding down jobs, showing up for their families, but feel disconnected, stuck, or like something is quietly off. Therapy is not only for rock bottom. It is also for the men who sense they could be living more fully and want a space to figure out what that looks like.

What if I do not know where to start or what to say? 

That is more common than you would think. You do not need to arrive with a clear agenda or have things figured out. Most men find that the first session is more of a conversation than anything else, a chance to get a feel for the space and start to name what has been sitting in the background.

What makes working with men different? 

Men often come to therapy having spent years pushing through rather than slowing down. The work is not about dismantling who you are. It is about understanding yourself more fully, so you can show up the way you actually want to. That requires a space that respects how you are wired, not one that pathologizes it.

Does becoming a father change men's mental health?

For many men, yes. Fatherhood can bring a deep sense of purpose and joy, but it can also increase stress, responsibility, isolation, and pressure to provide. Many fathers find themselves carrying more than they expected while having fewer places to talk about it. Counselling can offer a space to slow down, reflect, and navigate this transition with support.