A trip to the grocery store can be more revealing than you think.
One woman shared her experience in a TikTok video that went viral. Nickie (@nickiechantale) said in the video that her husband, who usually does not accompany her while grocery shopping, came along. On the trip, he found out by coincidence that the tea he drinks daily is actually purchased regularly by his wife and not magically replenished. Since the video was posted six days ago, it has received 322,000 views and over 30,000 likes.
"He is [delusional] but he is handsome," Nickie captioned the video.
"[My husband] drinks a tea every day at least once," she said in the video. "We were at the grocery store yesterday. He normally doesn't come with me. I said, 'Oh, we need to get more tea', and he said, 'Yeah, get one of these, the last one I bought was like, five years ago. They last forever.'"
Nickie said she buys him a new box of tea whenever he runs low. Her husband, though, assumed he had been chipping away at the same box for years.
"He was dead serious," she said.
The video prompted shock and laughter in the comments, with some relating deeply.
"My husband dead serious telling me he did dishes 'last time' when it was legit three months ago," @serahmargret wrote.
"This is why my grandmother said to me, 'Don't do anything for a man that you're not willing to do forever without thanks.' She was right," @labyrinthina_ wrote.
"My husband asked me why my teen son's bedroom floor is always dirty, ours is never dirty and we never clean it...what? I clean it almost every day," @alysialoumedina wrote.
Some commenters even offered solutions: "Every day when my husband comes home, I list all the things I've done that day just...so he knows," @kmschultz43 wrote.
@nickiechantale He is delulu but he is handsome
♬ original sound - Nickie
Why Does This Happen?
The reason behind Nickie's husband's "man math", as one user wrote, lies in gender role conditioning.
Audrey Schoen, a licensed marriage and family therapist, previously told Newsweek that in her work, she often sees women feeling like they act as their husband's mothers—though men don't realize this dynamic in the same way. For them, she said, "it's just normal."
Schoen attributes this to social constructs that paint men as breadwinners and women as homemakers.
"From a young age, [girls] take on caregiving roles, while also watching their mothers take responsibility for much of the daily family caregiving," she said. "Similarly, boys are socialized to be cared for as they watch their fathers abdicate these duties to the mother."
As children grow into adults, they replicate this dynamic—and the deep-rooted socialization makes it hard to see.
"For many adult men who grew up this way, the mental and physical load of caretaking seems to become invisible," she said. "Ultimately, women end up taking over or doing it themselves because it's 'easier'...The wife's avoidance keeps the dynamic going by keeping her husband blind to the workload."
Some of the comments on Nickie's video echoed Schoen's assessment, advocating for Nickie to simply tell her husband what she does around the house. Others, though, left it up to the cosmic cycle.
"In my next life I want to be my husband," @thegullos wrote.
Newsweek reached out to @nickiechantale for comment via TikTok.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
