It’s meant to be a romantic sentiment, if your partner gazes at you lovingly and whispers that you’re ‘their whole world’. But if you’re a woman in a heterosexual relationship, sometimes being on the receiving end of that compliment can actually be something that’s taken too literally.
In the latest edition of ‘Are the straights okay?’, our attention has been turned to ‘mankeeping’, a term coined by Angelica Puzio Ferrara, a social psychologist at Stanford University, back in 2024. In her research, she found that in some relationships, women are taking on a heavier emotional load than their male partners. But what does that actually mean, in simple terms?
“Mankeeping captures how women often act as emotional anchors, social organisers, and unofficial therapists for their male partners, largely because men have fewer close friendships and support systems,” explains integrative therapist and co-founder of mental health platform Auxylia, Dr Isabel Kloiber.
“It’s a modern reflection of outdated gender roles, where women are expected to carry the emotional load, often without it being recognised or reciprocated.”
Effectively, as men tend to have fewer emotional outlets, or fewer systems to keep things in check, female partners fill the gap. And it’s something we’re still socialised to do, Kloiber adds: “[Women] are taught to care for others’ emotional needs and are more likely to be seen as ‘natural’ caregivers.”
However, according to Dr Bijal Chheda, chartered psychologist and Founder of Nos Curare, this “constant emotional vigilance” can have a detrimental impact on a our emotional wellbeing. “Mankeeping can lead to symptoms of anxiety, burnout, and even depression,” she says. “While well-intentioned, this over-functioning is exhausting and eventually unsustainable, particularly for women juggling careers, children, or their own emotional recovery from mental health issues.”
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While some elements of women being forced to ‘mankeep’ may bear resemblance to ‘weaponised incompetence’ (where someone pretends to be bad at doing a task in order not to do it), there is a key difference.
“Weaponised incompetence is often framed as strategic, but men behaving in the manner that leads to their partners ‘mankeeping’ is not intentionally done in a malicious or calculated way,” Chheda continues. “Often, it’s a learned helplessness. It can root from a lack of experience with certain emotional or domestic responsibilities.”
Unsurprisingly, it’s making some of us reluctant to date; one US study found that 62% of women are not looking for a partner — and why would we? Who wants to be a therapist with benefits?
Sound familiar? Cosmopolitan UK asked women their experiences of mankeeping — and how it made them feel.
‘I was his personal diary’
“My ex used to use me as his personal diary. I always got questions from him about what plans he had during the week/who he was meant to be seeing/when he was free. The amount of times I told that boy to get an actual calendar…”
‘I had to remind him when Mother’s Day was’
“I’ve often had to remind partners to buy birthday cards or gifts for their own family members — especially for really significant events, such as Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.”
‘I’ve written congratulatory texts for him’
“I’ve written texts for my partner when his friends have announced a pregnancy/gotten engaged or something — he panics and doesn’t know how to write a basic congratulatory message. Also, the amount of unused diaries that I’ve bought him is a joke. We’ve been on multiple trips now where he’s had to take meetings, or has forgotten to book the time off even though I’ve repeatedly reminded him and asked him to.”
‘Tidying up after himself was not an activity he partook in’
“My ex-boyfriend was incredibly loving and for the most part, a wonderful partner. But his brain did not function when it came to basic daily tasks. Doing the washing, knowing to take the bins out, and tidying up after himself (the amount of times I had to wipe his beard trimmings out the sink) were just not activities he partook in. Sometimes I felt I was turning into his mother, the amount of nagging I would do.”
‘I’m tired of being the expected person to clean the house’
“We’re tired of making dinner and trying to provide a healthy lifestyle. We’re tired of being the expected person to clean a house and dishes. We’re tired of being the errands boy for everything. We’re tired of doing EVERYTHING to keep the relationship together while making sure his volatile ego is not bruised.”
‘If I asked for help, I was labelled a nag’
“There was little/no equality in child raising, meals errands, medical appointments, housework, relationship attention, etc. I know it’s also about picking the right partner, but I was certain they were and things changed greatly as the years passed. They did less and I did more. Asking for help, I was labelled a nag... but they made me become one by not being an equal partner. I remind them to help or I do it myself. I heard things like, ‘I don’t notice that the floor needs a vacuum, so if you tell me to do it I will’. Well, that’s just one more task for me. I sum my 20-year marriage up as going to war to fight for it when he couldn’t even be bothered to lace his boots.”
‘He slept on a broken mattress until I told him not to’
“I dated a guy whose mattress was all sunken in between the slats of his bed. He had never heard of a box spring until I told him to get one. He went to the mattress store the next day and changed his whole life. This was a grown ass finance bro, three years out of [university].”
‘I would do all the emotional and mental work’
“My ex recently contacted me to ask me if he received by mistake one of my bills. He did not even read the bill, where there was clearly the name of someone else, not mine. This event made me start thinking how exhausting it was to advance in life with him. And I am so surprised I never realised it at the time. I just had a general feeling of being tired (I was commuting a total of four hours every weekday, so I thought that was the problem).
I used to think that we were splitting the burden because (due to my long work commuting) he was doing all the shopping and cooking and we were splitting the cleaning. But I was doing all the emotional work, and all the mental work. From holidays to house renovations. The guy is afraid to pick up the phone to make a restaurant reservation.”
‘I even mankeep at work’
“I think this is just the expectation of women in society. It even happens to me at work. I swear that the men I work with think the women are their secretaries. I’ve had a few call me and ask me stupid questions they can look up. I usually just reply, ‘Why would I know that if you don’t?’. I usually do know but I’m not their assistant. My brother sometimes texts me to ask where mum is, like I’m supposed to know her whereabouts 24/7. It’s not just romantic relationships.”
‘He would ask me what the weather forecast was because he couldn’t be bothered to look it up’
“I raised two kids to become wonderful adults. Then I realised that even though they were grown, their dad still acted like a child, expecting me to do all kinds of small things adults do for themselves. Little things like looking at the weather app and explaining the forecast for several days, while he watched videos on his phone and I had to repeat myself, because he wanted to know the weather but couldn’t be bothered to look it up. Or filling out paperwork for his doctor visits because he acted like he didn’t have the patience for it. He also thought I should care about the current condition of his bowels, and plan meals around that after getting the poop report. I started pulling back from doing all of these things so that, at half a century old, my husband could become a real adult.”
If you’re reading all this in horror, don’t be too alarmed; there are ways to roll back on the mankeeping.
“Clearly addressing the issue might be a first helpful step — often, where issues are unspoken or unnoticed, patterns can deepen over time without the core challenges being addressed,” explains author and psychotherapist Eloise Skinner. “Speaking to a partner about any potential imbalances within the relationship could be helpful, and then perhaps planning a few practical steps to rebalance the relationship. These could be things like supporting your partner to join a social group (perhaps based around a hobby or a sport), or encouraging them to deepen and develop older friendships.
“For some men, it might also help to read into the research around the importance of social connections (especially when it comes to long-term health and wellness), since clear data can sometimes form a great starting point for taking responsibility and practical action.”
Kimberley Bond is a Multiplatform Writer for Harper’s Bazaar, focusing on the arts, culture, careers and lifestyle. She previously worked as a Features Writer for Cosmopolitan UK, and has bylines at The Telegraph, The Independent and British Vogue among countless others.
