What Is 'Mankeeping,' and How to Tell If It's Draining Your Relationship

Throughout their long marriage, Hannah Newman* of Seattle has handled the couple’s social calendar. She makes friends easily and has a lot of them while her husband is less outgoing and more of a loner, and so she is also his main emotional confidant. When he retired, he was stressed out about transitioning to a life not dominated by work; he needed some friends but didn’t know how to make them. Newman ended up “setting him up” with the husbands of her book group members; they were looking for a fourth for their weekly pickleball game. She pushed him to accept their overture and though nervous, he eventually said yes—and gained three instant new friends.

“I do sometimes get annoyed when I am always the one planning things and I often wish he’d be more receptive or take more interest in our social life,” Newman says. “But in the grand scheme of things, while frustrating, it isn’t a deal-breaker. He is supportive in other ways and handles other responsibilities that I’d rather not tackle. It’s a trade-off.”

If you sometimes feel like Hannah—that you are your husband or boyfriend’s best (or maybe only?) friend, social secretary, and therapist all rolled into one—you may be engaging in mankeeping or managing the social and emotional needs of your male partner. In doing so, you’re far from alone (the writer of this article is raising her hand).

A term coined in 2024 by Angelica Ferrara of Stanford University, mankeeping refers to the often several hours a week some women dedicate to this usually unrecognized and unreciprocated labor, and it is something a lot of them do without even realizing it, says Brie Temple, Chief Matchmaker and Chief Commercial Officer of Tawkify, one of the nation’s largest matchmaking service. “They become the planner, the feeler, the fixer, and the emotional manager,” she notes. “She’s the one who remembers everyone’s birthdays, keeps his friendships alive, interprets his moods, etc.” Mankeeping often involves being the primary, and sometimes only, emotional sounding board when a male partner feels stressed or overwhelmed.

Experts don’t necessarily think that mankeeping is increasing but rather that it is being recognized more. “The behavior has been around a long time, but it might feel like it’s on the rise because women now have a term and way to name it,” says Dayae Kim, an LMFT in Los Angeles. “More women are reassessing their relationships and noticing the ongoing work they have done in organizing their male partners’ social and emotional lives.”

As women’s own lives have gotten fuller, busier, and harder to manage, says Dr. Suzanne Wallach, a psychotherapist in Los Angeles, “the imbalance becomes impossible not to notice. What once felt normal may now feel exhausting to women who want a man/guy who puts in as much emotional energy as they do.” Of course, not every man struggles with expressing emotions and developing social relationships and not every woman is very comfortable with sharing feelings or making friends. But of the single women surveyed in 2025 by the Relationship Wellness Institute, 72 percent indicated that they were tired of emotionally mentoring their male dates.

You may be mankeeping if you feel like you are your boyfriend’s or husband’s social and emotional manager. You may remind him to call his friends or to pick up a Father’s Day card. Or you may feel a bit like his therapist, helping him to process his feelings. After the husband of Cleveland’s Wynn Nelson* spends a night out with his friends, he comes straight to her bedside to give her the full recap—who said what, who overshared, etc. “I’m his chosen audience,” she says. “It’s funny and sweet, but it’s also a subtle example of mankeeping. I become the processor, the sounding board, the keeper of social context, even in an otherwise healthy, modern relationship. Mankeeping is about how instinctively women become the emotional home base and how rarely we stop to notice we’re doing it.”

While it may feel flattering at first to be someone's only confidant, like Nelson above, such a dynamic is usually unsustainable over time. “While healthy and appropriate to be the person your boyfriend or husband turns to when they are struggling emotionally,” says Sara Haynes, an LMFT in Denver, “I also think it’s important that each partner has circles in their life, or a source of support to turn to that is outside of the relationship. We can’t always be everything for our partner all at once.”

However, many women don’t realize they are mankeeping until they notice they’re more tired in the relationship than anywhere else in their life, adds Sanya Bari, a psychotherapist in Bernardsville, NJ. “What often gets mislabeled as ‘relationship problems’ is actually burnout from carrying too much of the emotional load,” she says. “Women often believe something is wrong with the relationship, when what’s actually happening is depletion from carrying too much responsibility for another adult’s emotional life.”

Aja Chavez, LMFT of Long Beach, CA, has had both personal and professional experience with this phenomenon. “When I found myself being the only person my boyfriend/husband turned to for everything, it felt heavy, and I became drained,” she says. “Every problem at work, every family issue, every decision he needed to make, every feeling he needed to process, it all came to me. The relationship stopped feeling like a partnership and started feeling like another job.”

“What I’ve learned from my work is that healthy people need more than one person in their lives,” she adds. “They need friends, they need hobbies, and they may need their own therapist. When someone makes their partner their entire world, it's not romantic; it's really a red flag that something's off balance.”

As the wife of a military member, Marla Bautista of Tampa, FL, had to ensure that her spouse at all times felt ready for war. “His focus had to be on our nation's military mission, not my feelings,” she says. “After the war in Iraq, I spent many hours explaining his alcoholism or strange behaviors to those who didn't understand the weight of war. It was burdensome.”

“I was his counselor, PR professional, companion, and sometimes even his mother,” she adds. “The support I gave him didn't bother me until I realized I had lost myself, but by then it was too late. I gave everything I had, and my cup was empty.” The couple divorced after more than 17 years of marriage.

Women are often socialized from a young age to be emotionally attuned, relationally responsible, and accommodating, while many men aren’t encouraged to develop the same emotional skills or taught to express and share their feelings, says Chloe Bean, LMFT of Los Angeles. “As adults this can create a dynamic where women naturally step into the role of the emotional organizer, caretaker, or even parent without realizing it,” she says. “Over time, mankeeping can create an imbalance that replaces partnership with management and caretaking.” Adds Bari, “because many men are socialized to limit emotional expression outside romantic relationships, this can place disproportionate emotional labor on the female partner, who becomes the primary processor, confidant, motivator, and stabilizer.”

Also feeding into the mankeeping phenomenon is an overall decline in the number of close friendships nationwide as revealed in the May American Perspective Survey. Men have suffered a far steeper drop off than women, with 15 percent reporting no close friendships at all.

“Very often I hear this line in couples’ therapy: ‘I just wish he would take more initiative for reaching out to other men for plans,’” Bari says. “It’s not uncommon for women to ‘set-up’ their partner with a friend’s husband. I also hear that some women feel guilty socializing because their husband doesn’t, and that she has best friends to rely on, while she’s it for him.”

The friendships a man does have may differ markedly from those enjoyed by his wife. A study conducted by Pew Research reveals that men’s friendships with other men are less intimate and more surface level. Women are much more likely than men to talk to their close friends about their family and their physical and mental health; men more often stick to sports and current events.

A lot of women who end up leaving a relationship like this do not do it because they’ve stopped loving their partner. “They have stopped the relationship because they are exhausted from being the emotional parent of their partner,” Temple says. “The people who manage to escape this type of relationship and still be with their partner are the ones who are willing to do the emotional work, being honest and calling out the imbalance. This is essentially what turns a draining relationship into a real, equal partnership.”

However, Bari adds, “If the imbalance has been clearly named, space has been given for adjustment, and the partner consistently resists taking responsibility for his own emotional life, the issue isn’t about effort—it’s consent. A relationship can’t stay healthy if one person has to over-function for it to survive.” In these instances, say experts, support from a relationship therapist can be very helpful.

Tera Wages of Nashville has been married for 17 years, but eight years into it, she asked her husband for a divorce because she felt lonely and emotionally disconnected from him. “There was a long season when my husband was emotionally absent from our relationship,” she says. “I realize now that it was a coping mechanism. He wasn’t taught to navigate his emotions and he especially wasn’t taught how to talk about them. So, he stuffed them inside and they all showed up as anger or absence.”

Fortunately, her husband stepped up and found the tools to improve the marriage, including therapy and relationship coaching. “Having a man who is willing to put effort into a relationship is a sign that you can move through the hard seasons together,” Wages says.

In my own longtime marriage, I am both my husband’s primary (though not only) emotional sounding board and the manager of our social calendar. I make the dates with other couples, write the thank you notes, make donations in memory of someone’s loved ones, buy the birthday and other cards for Great Aunt Suzy, send out baby gifts (to the mini-boomlet of our friends’ grandkids), pick up the hostess presents, remind my husband to call the friend who had the knee replacement, etc. I don’t mind doing all this; I guess what I miss is the recognition that it is really work that takes time and effort. But like Newman, I see some of this as a trade-off of responsibilities. I’d rather make our social plans and offer my husband emotional support than balance our checkbook or oversee house repairs, two tasks he does without my support. And I do see signs that the younger generations are working to balance this issue in their relationships. I love getting a thank you note or text written by the groom or new father whose wife has her own busy life—especially if he’s the one I watched grow up.

Our experts weigh in on how to best equalize a mankeeping relationship:

• “Start by inviting your partner into a dialogue and try to make it clear that while you value the relationship, you need more balance. Avoid blaming each other and use ‘I statements’ to focus on your experience and what you need moving forward. It is then up to him to make the necessary changes or not. To shift this dynamic, he may need to nourish his male friendships, find a men’s support group, or begin therapy.” Ross Kellogg, LMFT, San Diego
• “The first step is to admit you're in the situation without blaming him, because you didn't get to this point alone. From there, work through the problem. Can you share the load of who is initiating social plans, who is checking in on the other person, and who supports one another when there are problems? Men can implement change by seeking more social and sometimes therapeutic support.” Dr. Suzanne Wallach, psychotherapist, Los Angeles
• “Realize that the work isn’t about fixing or managing a partner—it’s about role recovery. That means naming what you’ve been carrying without blame, allowing your partner to experience discomfort instead of buffering it, and shifting toward mutual responsibility rather than emotional management.”Sanya Bari, psychotherapist, Bernardsville, NJ
• “To create more balance, it’s often helpful to name and give voice to the felt sense of imbalance. This can be done with a supportive and compassionate tone and acknowledging that your partner may struggle opening up to others, while also being honest about your own experience of irritation, depletion, or limited capacity.” Sara Haynes, LMFT, Denver
• “It all starts with healthy communication and gentle nudges. It’s probably not helpful to simply instruct a man to ‘get more friends’ as many men are loners or have a social skill deficit. Men are more likely to ‘parallel play’ watching sports or doing hobbies together. Suggestions for female partners might be to help him find a club or class that focuses on whatever he enjoys, whether it be politics, classic cars, photography, sports, etc.” Dr. Wendy Walsh, Psychology Professor and Relationship Expert at DatingAdvice.com​
• “Understand that ‘initiative’ for your partner can also look like becoming more involved in their community or reaching out to a friend that they haven’t talked to in a while. Small, but consistent efforts can have a big pay-off in helping to equalize this dynamic.” Kristen Mosier, LMFT, New York metro area

*Names and identifying details have been changed for privacy