Who should a man share his burdens with if not his wife?

Part of the cure of loneliness is your brotherhood, the people you can rely on. As a priest, who do I rely on? Other priests. I do not rely on my parishioners to carry my burdens. I do not rely on my wife or my children. So in a certain sense I am alone, but I never feel lonely, because I know there are certain people I can turn to and share the struggles and problems and adversity I am facing, and they are there to walk through it with me.

In reality I am still alone. They are not with me every single day of the week. They are not there to hold my hands. But alone? I am with God alone. That is my connection to God through prayer: although I may be a bit alone in this world, God is always with me and watching over me. Loneliness gets compounded when we do not feel we have anyone willing or able to carry that burden who is in the same stage of life as us, a real brotherhood.

This is one of the reasons we created the Skool group, so that men had a place to share their burden with other men, like-minded individuals all going in the same direction, each battling forward, trying to take the kingdom of heaven by force, all pursuing this life of trying to become more like Christ together.