The male loneliness epidemic and why women are still carrying the emotional load

Last month, I contracted what I can only presume was the plague. It may have been a bad cold, but let’s err on the side of the plague. I was coughing, sneezing, having dizzy spells and complete brain fog. When I’m sick, I admit that I become an absolute moan, and I defend my right to feel very sorry for myself – but I’m self-aware enough to do so in the privacy of my own company, away from judging eyes or irritatingly speaking mouths. For everyone’s safety, I don’t want anyone near me unless they’re bringing me tea and chocolate, so when I got sick, I told my partner I was going to bail on our weekend plans and instead stay in bed and try to sleep it off. So when the doorbell rang that Friday evening, I grumbled my way down the stairs to the front door, bedraggled and clutching a hot water bottle. A Deliveroo driver handed me a bag and walked away, and I confusedly thought he’d brought me someone else’s dinner. But no. Inside was a care package with tea, milk, and some of my favourite junk food snacks, sent from my partner – a man who knows when to keep a healthy distance for his own safety, but to throw in treats to keep the beast friendly.

Before anyone gets too swoony – I taught him the care package trick. I have sent him many a Deliveroo treat box before when he’s been sick, stressed or overworked. And I learned how to show care like this from other people. From my Mam, who is the most giving person I know and who never comes over to mine without a bag of gluten-free treats and candles and ‘little bits’ just because she “saw these and thought of you.” From my parents’ friend Vivienne, who is an art teacher and magic fairy who has perfected the art of the gift basket, always dropping over a handmade hamper of goodies every holiday, complete with homemade art and seasonal decorations – bunny stickers and mini chocolate eggs for Easter, candy cane and pine tree branches for Christmas – and never forgetting to include cat and dog treats for the family pets. From my friends; Sarah, who sends beautiful flowers and drops bags of treats on my doorstep if I’m having a rough time; and Dee, who always loans me books that turn out to be the best thing I’ve ever read and once gave me a crystal ball for my birthday – a present that was so perfect I don’t think it will ever be topped. And from people like my cousin Susie, who is the person who will phone or call over when times are rough and other people have gone quiet, not with pity or a cliched script, but a full-hearted “This is sh*t. I’m here for you, and not going anywhere.”

Learning how to care for people is a skill, and I have learned how to do it from so many women in my life. My goal in life is to keep learning and hold close to the people who do it well, which is why my partner paying attention to how I care for him and offering it back was gorgeous – but also needs to be the norm. Research shows that for women who date men, there’s a quiet, persistent imbalance simmering beneath the surface — women are expected to provide far more care than they receive.

This isn’t just about household tasks or parenting duties, though endless research has shown that women are still doing far more than their fair share of that at home. No, the imbalance of care extends to the invisible, cognitive work that keeps relationships intact – and here, again, women are taking on the lion’s share of the work. I can immediately think of three friends who had major health issues or had a death in the family, and whose boyfriends simply went silent, not checking in, sending anything or showing up for their struggling partner. These were men who had been cared for and supported for years by my friends, who simply could not extend emotional or tangible support back in times of need. I’d love to say that my friends dumped these men immediately, but as so often happens, excuses were made around the negligent behaviour. “He gets uncomfortable around vulnerability.” “I think he’s scared of doing the wrong thing.” “He doesn’t know what I need.” Let me repeat: caring for people is a skill that is learned – and these men were choosing not to learn it. That is what we call weaponised incompetence – the strategic avoidance of a task or skill by pretending to be or deliberately remaining inept at it so it never becomes your responsibility. What was fascinating about my friends’ reaction to their partner’s negligence was that not only were these men’s (in)actions excused, but my friends started doing the work of understanding what was going on for their partners emotionally that would lead them to be so uncaring. Women weren’t being cared for and then were doing more work to figure out why they weren’t receiving that care.

Feminist scholars have long analysed this dynamic as emotional labour, but researcher Ellie Anderson has recently identified a more nuanced layer: hermeneutic labour. Hermeneutic labour is the demanding, often unrecognized task of interpreting and articulating one’s own emotions, deciphering the feelings and intentions of others, and navigating the resulting interpersonal tensions. Anderson breaks it into three stages: understanding your own feelings, desires, and intentions, Interpreting the other person’s emotions, often through minimal communication or nonverbal cues and reconciling both sets of emotions to resolve conflict. Far from being an innate trait, what we often label ‘women’s intuition’ is, Anderson argues, the result of this labour – a skill painstakingly developed over years of emotional work. Women are not naturally more empathetic or perceptive; they are trained to be vigilant interpreters of their partners’ emotional landscapes. Men, in turn, benefit from this work, having their emotional needs anticipated and met without recognizing –let alone reciprocating – the effort involved. We’ve all seen this pattern play out repeatedly: wives who intuitively adjust to their husbands’ moods, girlfriends who parse their boyfriends’ cryptic texts with friends over dinner. This emotional attentiveness often stabilizes relationships, but the unspoken expectation that women will perform this labour by default turns a compassionate act into a draining, obligatory role. Over time, the cumulative weight of this work fosters emotional exhaustion, frustration, and resentment.

The consequences of this imbalance of care become especially stark during moments of crisis. Studies reveal a telling disparity: men are significantly more likely to leave a female partner when she falls seriously ill, while women overwhelmingly stay and assume the role of caregiver when the situation is reversed. Men, it seems, are accustomed to receiving care, while women are socially conditioned to provide it. In later life, this dynamic sharpens: men are more likely to age with a partner or family member tending to their needs, while women are disproportionately left to navigate ageing alone. Of course, women’s longer life expectancy does affect this, but it’s not the sole explanation. It’s also been discovered that after a divorce, men are far more likely to remarry and remarry much quicker than women do – because men receive far more care and support in their relationships than women do, along with more assistance doing domestic work and childcare. In all realms, men benefit from the care of women in their relationships, while women who end relationships with men often find that the tangible and emotional demands on them decrease massively. This asymmetry exposes a deep cultural assumption that is playing out in relationships between men and women: the assumption that care is a woman’s responsibility, not a shared human one. This is why, even though I’m of course happy to be with a partner who pays attention to the ways I like being cared for, and obviously thanked him for my treat-filled care package, I don’t want to do what we so often do and overly praise him for something that women do in spades and never get thanked for. When something is assumed from women and overpraised in men, it contributes to the assumption that care is innately feminine. It’s not – women are just taking on more of the work, aren’t getting thanked for it, and aren’t getting the same level of care back.

In feminist philosopher Kate Manne’s excellent Substack More To Hate, she explores this gendered dynamic, wondering if the lack of care women receive from their male partners is part of the reason the booming, uber-profitable, so-called ‘self-care’ industry is primarily directed towards women, writing “I cannot help but wonder if the huge proliferation of the self-care industry for women owes something to the feeling of being fundamentally unheld and uncared for by the men with whom, again, statistically, many of us cohabitate… I can’t help but feel that, often, in order to feel truly cared for, other people need to see us and hold us and support our basic needs materially: making us soup, bringing us a bowl of soup, buttering our goddamn bagel.” Manne’s argument is well-made. Even if we excuse the capitalistic hijacking of ‘self-care’ – a term that has been diluted from Audre’s Lorde’s feminist, political definition and turned into an expensive habit of buying bath bombs – we can see how it’s a market predicated on the idea that women aren’t receiving enough care from others in their lives. Candles, face masks, meditation apps; these products are marketed not as indulgences, but as essential survival tools for women running on emotional empty. The message is implicit yet clear: if caring for everyone else leaves you depleted, the solution is to care for yourself. This framing offers temporary relief but sidesteps the larger issue – why are women expected to self-soothe while continuing to meet the emotional needs of others?

While it’s clear that men need to step up and learn, as women do, how to care for those around them, this upskilling won’t just benefit women – it will benefit men, too. Men are also suffering from this lopsided care arrangement, though in a different form. The same system that burdens women with hermeneutic labour deprives men of emotional literacy. Many men are never taught how to care for themselves, let alone others, contributing to what experts increasingly describe as the male loneliness epidemic. Cut off from the emotional skills necessary for intimacy and connection, men find themselves isolated – beneficiaries of women’s care but ultimately deprived of the deeper, reciprocal relationships that nurture human well-being.

What might a more balanced future look like? Imagine a world where both partners share the work of emotional interpretation and support – not as a duty but as an essential part of loving one another. This shift requires more than individual reflection; it demands a collective reimagining of gender roles and emotional education. Perhaps the more radical question is this: is the booming self-care industry truly empowering women, or is it a temporary salve for a deeper, systemic wound? What if, instead of teaching women to recharge in isolation, we taught men to carry their share of emotional labour? A more equitable, compassionate world is possible but only if we stop relying on women to build it alone.

Photography by Unsplash.