He Says He's Fine. Here's How to Tell if He Really Is
A five-minute gut check on how a man is doing after a loss. Take it for yourself, or for the man you love
He’s changed since the loss.
He’s up before everyone. He mows the lawn whether it needs mowing or now. He stays at work longer than he ever used to. He answers every “how are you doing” with “good, busy,” and you know he’s shutting down the conversation and shutting you out. Or maybe he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he snaps at the kids over nothing, or is so zoned out he seems like he’s in a waking coma.
Either way, it’s obvious something is wrong. What’s hard is putting a name to it. It’s easy to label it as a short temper, him pulling away, or turning into a machine who only knows how to work. It’s rarely seen for what it actually is, which is a man in grief who doesn’t know any other way to deal with it.
I’ve spent a long time around men and grief, and I’ve come to understand that most men protect themselves after a devastating loss, and they get damn good at it. It tends to show up in one of four ways:
Some become hyper-producing fixers.
Some become the rock everyone leans on and never let anyone, including themselves, see how brutal it is for them.
Some get angry, because anger helps them temporarily forget how powerless they really are.
And some shut down so completely that you can’t reach them, even when they’re sitting right beside you.
The busy one looks driven. The rock looks strong. The angry one looks scary. The quiet one looks checked out. None of it looks like grief, and that’s the problem, because the man doing it usually can’t see it either.
I know this because I was that man. I spent years not being able to see it and I paid the price for it. So did the people I love who didn’t die.
So I built something to help him, and you, see it.
It’s called the Gut Check. It’s five minutes, it’s free, and it won’t ask anyone to talk about their feelings. It asks a set of plain questions and then shows which of those four a man is most likely doing right now, what it’s costing the people around him, and what tends to help.
This is truly free. There’s no catch.
It isn’t therapy and it isn’t a diagnosis. It’s a mirror. Most people who take it recognize the man in it, sometimes for the first time.
There are two ways to use it.
If you’re a man reading this and any of it landed, take it for yourself. You’ll get a hell of a lot more clarity on where you actually are, and an interactive coach you can talk it through with afterward.
And if you’re reading this about the man you love, because you’re the one closest to it, there’s a version built for you. You answer for what you’ve actually seen from the outside, and it tells you what’s likely going on with him, what tends to help you reach him, and what tends to push him further away. There’s an interactive coach for you too to help you talk through how to support him.
You’ll find both at GutCheck.tools
One more thing. If he’s in real trouble or you don’t feel safe, the Gut Check will point you to help, wherever you are in the world. It was built with safety in mind from the start.
Take it, or send it to the man who needs it. Five minutes. It’ll tell you more than “I’m fine” ever could.