Personal Trainer Explains Why Women Don't Help Their Husbands Carry Groceries Out Of The Store
She's not sure why she would have to help with her husband there.
Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock Outside of a grocery store, in the parking lot, a man sat in his car and recorded a couple of strangers who were loading their groceries into their car. He commented that the wife wasn’t doing anything to help the man, and a personal trainer on TikTok didn’t like that.
A. Michelle, a personal trainer on TikTok, stitched the video and berated the man who recorded these strangers while offering her own opinion on the matter.
The personal trainer claims that her husband is there to do the things that she doesn’t.
The man in the original video seems to have a problem with the fact that the wife isn’t doing anything to help her husband load the groceries onto their car, calling her a “‘Passenger Princess’ for sure,” and although “Passenger Princess” isn’t exactly an insult, Michelle certainly took it as one with the way that she replied to his post.
She called him “convoluted,” questioned his intelligence, and then explained the dynamics between she and her husband whenever they go to the grocery store.
“When I'm with my husband in the grocery store, he's pushing the cart,” she explains. “He's putting the stuff in the cart. He's lifting the stuff out [of] the cart. He's putting the stuff on the conveyor belt. He's also putting all the [stuff] in the car himself.”
While her husband is doing all of this, she claims to be sitting inside the car holding the bag with the eggs and bread. “He's then going to drive said car home with all the groceries that, you know, he pushed and packed and paid for,” she adds.
Once they get home, Michelle walks inside with her bag of bread and eggs and begins unpacking. “Then [he] and my three kids are all going to be outside bringing those bags in. My girls... my two girls are only gonna bring in the light stuff, and then they're gonna stop in that kitchen and help me unpack, and [he] and my son are gonna strong-arm all the rest of those [expletive] groceries.”
“That's that man being a man,” Michelle says, “and… that woman, being a woman.” At the root of the issue, she explains that these are the gendered roles that they both play in a relationship.
“Now, when I go grocery shopping by myself, I do all those things, but there's no way [expletive] I'm gonna do all the things I have to do by myself when I'm in the presence of a man,” she explains. Because, at the end of the day, why would she do the same things she would do alone if her man is there?
Michelle’s argument is that she and her husband both have roles in the household.
These roles are gendered, and while she doesn’t go too deep into explaining what all of their roles are in this specific video, she uploads a second video talking about how she doesn’t want her relationship to be 50/50.
“There's some [stuff] I don't wanna be equal on, okay?” she explains. “I don't wanna take the trash out. I don't wanna do [any] car maintenance. I don't wanna unload [the] groceries. I don't wanna have the mental pain of having to protect the family. I don't want [any] of that.”
The text in the video reads, “He’s fixing the dryer right now and I’ll be prepping and cooking dinner in a few hours,” so her marriage seems to be set up in a traditional way.
In January 2020, Gallup conducted a survey to see who does the chores in a household — and the truth is, things aren’t that far off from the traditional gender roles.
When it comes to the roles of men and women in the household, men are far more likely to take care of the yard work, keep their car in good condition, and handle all of the savings and investment decisions — women take the bulk of what’s left.
Women make the most decisions about furniture and decorations, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even taking care of the kids. Of course, there are several chores that are split between both men and women equally, but there are some clear roles being laid out.
Michelle is honest about her relationship with her husband, but the man meant no harm when he was calling the woman a "passenger princess." Many women even shared that if they tried to help their man, they would tell them to stop, and that’s their choice.
There’s no one right answer for how to approach your relationship dynamics and, at the end of the day, we don’t know what their relationship is really like. We only get to see a few seconds of it.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.