Those jokes do real harm to the many men who struggle with involuntary childlessness, Wollongong man Michael Hughes says.

"There's a perception that guys don't want to get married and have children, they just want to play the field," he said.

"I can tell you that is not the case. There are men who yearn to be fathers."

Mr Hughes, from NSW's Illawarra region, is one of an unknown number of childless men in Australia.

Very little research has been done on the experience of men who are childless by circumstance, rather than child-free by choice.

"There's a lot of shame and stigma that sits behind being childless," he said.

"Childless men are forgotten about, because there is a perception that we don't grieve, which is wrong, and because we are not good at talking about our feelings."

Michael and his wife went through ten years of IVF treatments.

They didn't even consider the possibility it might not be successful.

Then, in their 40s, they had to re-imagine what their lives would look like.

"When we got spat out the other end we realise we hadn't had a holiday in 10 years because they were all taken up with IVF treatments," he said.

"We had to come to terms with the fact it would be just us and no children."

The couple went through counselling, and took a number of overseas holidays.

They found others struggled to relate to their grief; they also withdrew from many gatherings, which became painful reminders.

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Michael said they also experienced a lot of judgement, and said at the end of the day the childless community just need understanding.

"We use what we have to enjoy life, which can come across as a bit selfish," he said.

"But we're compensating for the fact that our life is not like others.

"I'd just like people to understand being childless is a very different way of existing in the world. It's not that we're sad and depressed people, we just have to exist in a different way."

Michael has thrown himself into supporting and advocating for other childless men.

He now runs an online support group for childless men across the world, called The Clan of Brothers, and is part of a podcast about the childless experience called The Full Stop Pod.

He will also be on SBS' Insight program on Tuesay night to speak about his experience.

"The childless community is the gold standard on how to provide empathy," he said.

"When you reach out, you realise you can make a difference to other people."