Maintaining strong friendships throughout our lives is a key factor in living a happy, healthy, long life.** Creating, developing, and maintaining social connections gets harder as we get older. Once you retire, there is a huge shift because you suddenly lose daily contact with work colleagues. It’s one of the key areas that newly-retired folks struggle with. This has an even bigger impact if you’re in a relationship where you’re mankeeping.
Latest Research
Don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of mankeeping. It’s a term used in a recent paper from Stanford University. The term is new; the phenomena is not.
…mankeeping is defined as the labor that women take on to shore up losses in men’s social networks and reduce the burden of men’s isolation on families, the heterosexual bond, and on men.*
Perhaps you’ve experienced having extended family members only contact the female partner about what foods to bring to the next family get together, regardless of whether their husband is the blood relative? Perhaps you know a man who only socializes when his wife invites other couples for dinner?
Mankeeping Effects
Mankeeping is a recent term for a phenomena that has been around for generations. It’s the work a wife does to keep her husband socially connected. It’s reminding her husband to text his friends, to phone to congratulate them on the birth of a grandchild, or suggesting that he meet them for coffee. It creates extra work for the wife, but it also means that the husband isn’t taking responsibility for creating, developing and maintaining his social connections independently. That can lead to loneliness and resentment.
Part Of The Loneliness Epidemic
The resentment builds in women who mankeep. The men are burdening their partners with doing the social connecting for them while not reciprocating. When the man doesn’t equally promote and support his wife’s social connections, resentment builds.
Over the past 30 years, studies in places like North America and Europe show that men’s social networks have shrunk significantly in comparison to women. Fewer close relationships between males may cause some men to rely heavily on relationships with women, specifically romantic relationships, for emotional support in ways that are not always fully reciprocated. This theoretical article argues that a decline in men’s social connections may increase the work women exert to support men through a phenomenon we call “mankeeping.*
Bring Awareness
- Drawing awareness to this practice of mankeeping is the first step to making some changes. Many people may not even be aware that they’re part of this pattern.
- Secondly, some folks aren’t aware that they don’t have any close friends.
“How good your friendships are count more than how many friends you have. Having a broad network of friends and contacts might be good. But having close friends who mean a lot to you does more for your sense of self.”** A close friend is defined as someone you could call for help in an emergency in the middle of the night. It’s someone that you can trust and confide in.
Shameless plug: If there aren’t people in your contacts that fit the bill, you may need a friendship boost. Working with a life coach can help you to develop and foster friendships independently of your partner’s support. Loneliness is curable. (click here)
Gently Push Back
In our family, over the years the women have pushed back from some of the mankeeping work. When those holiday emails start circulating regarding where to get together and what foods to bring, we make sure that they are also sent to the men in the family. The men are then responsible for organizing and bringing the food to their extended family’s gathering. This is a learning process and takes years for it to become an established pattern.
You Can Develop A Rich Social Life
It’s each individual’s responsibility when it comes to making significant changes in their pattern of creating, developing and maintaining friendships. Loneliness doesn’t have to happen when you retire, there are ways to counteract the sudden loss of social interactions without leaning on and relying on your partner.
What are some ways that you build social connections? Comment below.
Retired, And Now What? 