My ‘mankeeper' wife always wants me to share my feelings. Why can't she just leave me alone?

Telegraph

11 hours ago

So it is called 'mankeeping' now, is it? Not 'nagging', or 'pestering', but a nice touchy-feely expression which gives every woman – especially my wife – the right to badger me multiple times a day about how I am 'feeling'?
Last week my wife of 38 years, Diana, reported on this new psychotherapist term, 'mankeeping', in which couples are suffering a detrimental effect on their relationship because women are having to do all the 'emotional heavy-lifting'. 'Mankeepers' grumble that their male partners fail to share their innermost feelings and emotions with them, so they in turn feel shut out of their lives. This very much struck a chord with me as Diana asks me about 10 times a day if I am 'OK'. It drives me crazy – and I think most men will agree.
I fear mankeeping will now become the word of the month in our household – and another stick to beat me with. Yet I do not need to be mankept by my wife or anyone else, thank you very much. We men want mainly to be left alone with our thoughts. We are not all emotional husks and we do have deeply felt emotions that do occasionally come out and, yes, need to be talked about. Just not 10 times a day.
To avoid the never-ending 'How are you feeling? Are you sure you are alright?' series of enquiries about my health, both mental and physical (we're both now 64 years old), I have adopted a kind of rictus grin to allay any fears Diana might have about my state of mind. Sadly, I don't think it works.
I spent 10 years as a TV war correspondent, reporting from Iraq, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Albania, and, because some of my colleagues now have PTSD, Diana wants me to 'vocalise my fears'. Yes, the plight of civilians I witnessed – brutalised and trapped in these places – during my career did have a profound effect on me, and the memories are very deep-rooted. But that is where I want them to stay. If I opened that Pandora's box in my mind on a regular basis I very much doubt that our marriage – or even myself as a sane human being – would survive.
Those memories need to be shared only by the camera operators and other journalists I have worked with over the years, not my wife and children. In other words, people who can relate to those things. When I get together with like-minded people – mostly men, but I also have female war-correspondent friends – we do share feelings and emotions, without the fear that we are burdening someone with them. Because that is how I feel – my emotions are mine. I don't want anyone else dabbling in my soul.
Of course not many men have witnessed such trauma – but I think most do feel like me, that they'd rather trundle on from day to day not thinking about anything very deeply, just putting one foot in front of the other, getting jobs done and looking forward to a beer.
I cannot understand why women need to take their emotional temperature seemingly 20 times each day and tell each other everything. It's as if they are constantly mentally patting themselves down, asking: 'Am I happy?'
Men are not like this. We deal in facts and realities, and practical issues such as: 'Must get more AdBlue for the car.' When my wife looks at me with that annoying 'caring' expression and asks: 'What are you thinking?' I have to swiftly make something up on the spot that I think will please her, when the real answer is 'nothing whatsoever'.
The term mankeeping was coined by postdoctoral fellow Angelica Ferrara, a postdoctoral scholar at America's Stanford University, and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. The term, she says, 'describes the unreciprocated work that women do to manage the emotional and social needs of the men in their lives, an under-recognised form of labour resulting from men's declining social networks'.
Now hold on there! I have quite a few close friends, and we talk a lot. OK, mostly about cars and football and very little about our feelings – but that does not mean the closeness is not there. It is there, in an expression, in a nod, in a hand on the arm. We don't need to emotionally bleed all over each other to feel our support. I know they are there for me, and would go to the ends of the Earth if I needed them.
But we deal with personal issues through jokes and light banter. I rely on them to cheer me up – not constantly mop up my spilt emotions. I can do that myself, thank you. If I really think about it, I don't want to be seen as weak by anyone, especially not my wife or children. That's my self-worth as a man.
I remember an episode in the TV show Friends where one of the characters complains that her boyfriend has never cried. She pursues him until he breaks down and suddenly, he can't stop weeping. Soon after, she leaves him. Point proven! I hate crying in front of my wife. She says it is a 'strength' but to me, I have failed if I let go to that extent. That isn't my role.
I would far rather unburden myself to people who really know what I am feeling inside – and this only very occasionally.
In many ways this has been very helpful to us as a couple – I hope my wife now understands that emoting all over the place makes me feel much worse, not better. I don't enjoy it. I find it confusing and hurtful, and it stirs up way too much inside.
Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in stoicism and presenting a brave face to the world. And, at the end of the day, I like to know I've kept my head down, worked hard and earned a drink. We really are that simple.