If your husband does this, your marriage is already over
A heavily pregnant wife’s short response as her husband watches her scrub the shower is evidence modern marriages are doomed.
A husband who filmed his heavily pregnant wife scrubbing the shower on her hands and knees has ignited a conversation about how “undesirable marriage is” to women today.
A young woman named Madison shared a video titled, “somebody’s gotta do it”, which showed her completing a difficult household task at almost 39-weeks along.
“In 3 days, she’ll be 39-weeks pregnant,” he can be heard saying from behind the camera, as the video shows Madison in a pair of black shorts and a white T-shirt crouched down cleaning tiles.
She then stands up, looks at the camera and awkwardly laughs, before getting back to the job at hand, stating: “Somebody’s gotta do it.”
Her husband replies: “Someone’s gotta do it.”
But while the US-based mum, who has since welcomed a little girl, expressed happiness at “nesting” ahead of the baby’s arrival, social media users have been quick to discuss the apparent inequities in household labour between her and her husband.
“Nobody makes marriage look more undesirable than married people,” noted the top comment on the clip, which has been viewed 1.8 million times.
“Somebody’s gotta do it = she knows you’re not gonna do it,” said another.
As another shared: “The feminine rage we all feel for this woman.”
Others claimed the video highlighted a classic example of a “married single mother”, a phenomena Melbourne psychologist Carly Dober said is “more common than we would like to think”.
“There have been large gains over the last few decades of more equitable divisions of labour within typically heterosexual relationships, however, too many partners look to their wives to manage their lives, the household, and to do the brunt of the child raising,” she told news.com.au.
“This is largely because women’s work is invisible, and caring work is heavily undervalued.”
But while “many women have seen their mothers, sisters, aunties, and grandmothers engage in similar relationships”, she said, the tide of acceptance is changing.
“They’ve seen the toll this has taken on them and many do not want it for themselves,” said Ms Dober, who works at Melbourne’s Enriching Lives Psychology clinic.
This sentiment is echoed in the comments section of Madison’s video, as well as by popular dating coach Shawnda Patterson, who responded to the clip on her own TikTok channel.
“I feel like the whole, ‘somebody’s gotta do it,’ is actually just code for ‘it needs to be done so I guess it’s gonna be me’,” she said.
“At 39 weeks pregnant, everything probably hurts, everything is sore, extremely uncomfortable, but rather than put down the phone and picking up the sponge, he’d rather record you because he thinks it’s a cute little moment.
“I hope for her sake this is a random one off and that he isn’t usually this tone-deaf.”
The popular online feminist went on to beg men everywhere to next time “not film your wife, help your wife,” adding that while they were at it, guys need to stop asking for lists and instead “use your eyes”.
“Right now she’s laughing, saying ‘somebody’s gotta do it,’ but eventually she’s going to get resentful and she’s going to get tired if that somebody is always her,” Ms Patterson said.
Lots of women agreed, stating it’s the same men who will claim they ‘didn’t see it coming’ when their wives file for divorce.
“‘The divorce came out of nowhere’,” scoffed one.
“Married single motherhood is a real thing,” added another.
While one argued: “It’s easier being a single parent, than with a ‘partner’ who does things like this.”
While divorce might be the answer for some couples, Ms Dober recommends weekly discussions with partners to help alleviate building tensions.
More Coverage
“Writing down all of the work or chores that are done within the household and bring to attention how much time is spent maintaining the current lifestyle,” she said.
“Get into a conversation and be curious – did your partner know how much you do and how much time it takes? Are they open and willing to take on more work to make the partnership more equal?
“Keep the conversation open and check in with each other frequently because some weeks you might have more time than other weeks.”
