It's been a while since I've written, and I hope things are going well for you during my long absence from email. The thing is... I loathe daily emails and SPAM, and want to reserve getting in touch for the times I feel it's important to share.
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I've been heads down working on a new website, two new books, and a lot of new material and resources to help men and women navigate emotional safety (mostly free!), and haven't had much time to come up for air.
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But as is often the case, I recently felt my heart stirred by a topic that has come into my orbit a few times over the last two years or so.

It's been something on my social media feeds that has caught my attention, not just because it's about men, but because of the thousands of comments in reply, which let me know it's a topic that has struck a nerve with the populace.

Maybe you've seen it too — it's the mention of "mankeeping" floating around places like Facebook, LinkedIn, and... well, I'm too old and curmudgeonly to use other social media. 😬

As I understand it, the term Mankeeping came from Stanford researchers who coined it; VICE ran with it, the NYT picked it up, and it generated a good bit of conversation, some of it quite spirited. The gist is that it describes the emotional labor women take on when the man in their lives has no one else to turn to. I know this to be real for countless women. I've heard it for as long as I can remember, and it's very common for women to reach out, often at the end of their rope and struggling between being completely over it, but also not liking the coldness toward their fella that is coming with that new emancipation.

They're tired. I mean... really tired of this. Exhaustion level. I get why they are, and I think it's a pretty reasonable way to feel.

But something has happened in the public square as the term went viral. It got a bit narrowed, and for many, "mankeeping" has become a pejorative shorthand for "men behaving badly." And I kept noticing that the telescope rarely gets turned around to look at what's underneath the man these women are carrying.

Naturally, as I sit with those men nearly every day, I have a pretty good bead on their insides and the stuff they're battling, and I think one of the best ways to address the issue is not to add another dehumanizing label to them, but to understand them.

And that's why I wrote the article linked below. It doesn't dismiss what women are experiencing, or focus on defending these behaviors in men.

In this article, I'm hoping to shine some light on what's actually happening on both sides of this, and what a real way through looks like — not just for women carrying the weight, but for men who were never given the tools to carry their own.
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If you care about seeing men — not just their behavior, but the person underneath it — I think you'll find something here worth your time.

​Read the full article →​
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Whether you're a man or a woman reading this, I'd love to know what's stirred in you reading this. Where are you, or have you lived in this dynamic? Reply and let me know; I read all of them and responded to a good bit of them, as well.

— Sven
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P.S. I'll be adding comment capability on my articles soon and hope you'll make use of them!