In chapter 5 (“Pampering and Pitching In”) of my book, I quote an ecstatic wife describing a few of the many benefits of wife worship: “Gone are the days when my husband just plops in front of the TV after work. Now he actually looks for opportunities to do household chores, volunteers to go shopping with me and helps me with carrying the purchases…”
But these husbands do more than accompany their wives to the nearest fashion marketplace and dutifully carry her accumulating parcels. Here is a sampling of devoted hubbies ready, willing or simply required to go the extra mall-mile:
“Take her shopping whenever and wherever she wants to go, carrying her bags for her, open doors for her, and pay the bills!”
“He should be taken shopping with you and allowed to hold your purse while you try on any number of items or test cosmetics for a perfect color or gloss. I have done both any number of times and it really demonstrates to her and everyone else for that matter your complete devotion to her. I have stood in front of a cosmetic counter for at least 30 minutes, holding her purse the whole while.”
“When I'm with her, she relegates me to the dutiful husband, who is expected to carry her bags and quite frankly, just do as I'm told. If she's trying something on in a change room, she'll have me holding her purse, her bags, and I'm not to move from the spot she puts me in. Often she wants me at arms length, in case she needs my opinion, or perhaps to fetch another size. The saleswomen probably figures I'm just henpecked, but the reality is this is all an expression of my utter devotion to my wife.”
In fact, shopping with the wife seems to be a standard component of “dutiful” hubby-ness. To rank husbands on a devoted-and- dutiful scale of 1 through 10, one survey asked: “Would you go shopping with your wife whenever she wished, since she enjoyed it, and stand around while she looked at clothes or shoes for whatever, to please her, despite the fact that you find it boring, and would rather do something else?”
Most wife-led husbands writing about this topic have learned to love these outings. Like these guys:
“I always feel ecstatic when my wife invites me to go shopping with her, Especially when she tries on new clothes. It gives me a chance to be the ‘mirror on the wall’ and tell her she is the best-looking woman in the mall in that new outfit. This is not untruthful because she never picks out ugly clothes and she is a very good looking woman. I’m never be too tired to appreciate her beauty in a new outfit and to tell here so, no matter how late in the evening it might be. I also carry the packages for her, of course.”
“She was shopping for clothes one afternoon while on the trip. Of course I was right there helping holding packages and helping her. She had picked out several blouses to try on. The sales clerk warned her they had to be hand-washed. My wife laughed and said, ‘I don't worry about washing instructions, that is my husband's job.’ The clerk said she wished she had a husband like that. They stood there and talked a few minutes with my wife telling a complete stranger in my presence how I did all the cooking, cleaning, laundry and etc. I have to admit I was proud of myself.”
“Next to me another guy was commenting to me about both of us had some nice-looking ladies to attend to and noted that we both were blessed with ladies who liked to show off when shopping.”
But occasionally you come across a reluctant escort who boasts about going along against all his macho inclinations, and maybe thinks he should get combat pay for his efforts: “Over the next few weeks, I found myself being attentive to my wife almost every night. I even went mall shopping with her on a regular basis; something I really hate.”
Some women are tolerant of guys who walk into stores and park themselves on the first available chair: “My husband especially loves shoe shopping because he knows there will always be a place for him to sit. Why don't more women's fashion stores have boyfriend chairs for the guys?”
For many other women, however, hanging back, looking bored, toe-tapping, watch-checking, heaving weary sighs, all constitute unacceptable behavior, not only in shopping but in any wife-led activity. The ideal would seem to be enthusiastic and helpful participation by hubby in all facets of the shopping experience.
The following quotes illustrate how acceptable or admirable male participation is encouraged by some wives (and how anything less is discouraged and even penalized).
“Jane called out to me, ‘We have forgotten this and that, do you want to go back to the shop?’ When I replied, ‘Not really’ in a less than enthusiastic voice, Jane was quick to add, ‘But you’re going, aren’t you.’ Realising my mistake, I said, ‘Yes, of course,’ and so it was that I had to go back, because Jane had insisted. (From the blog, At All Times)
“If we are out alone shopping and I am less than attentive, she has been known to send me to the car to wait for her and it has been hours that I've waited.”
“The past weekend we were in my wife's hometown. We were out shopping. She kept running into old acquaintances. I was not part of the conversations, not even introduced. I simply stood back, held the bags, and smiled.”
“I follow her around shopping malls carrying her bags, and coffee and coat, while trying to keep up to her and open doors for her while she waits for me while tapping her toes.”
“When we are together at the mall, I give her my undivided attention and I am usually always at her side and prepared to do her bidding. She prefers it this way.”
“Once we were in a shoe store for quite some time, and she finally picked out what she wanted and as we approached the register she said, ‘Pay for these, I'll be in the next store.’ One of my favorites was when we were shopping for a blouse. She was about 20 feet away and I held one up and said, ‘How about this one?’ She responded, ‘No, it's just like the one I own, and if you'd keep up with ironing, we wouldn't need it.’ There must have been about 5 women who heard that!” (From the Whatevershesays blog.)
“In one store I was handed a pair of stockings and several new pairs of panties that Jane wanted to buy. I had to carry these around the shop for sometime as Jane browsed for other items. In one part of the shop, there were three young, smartly dressed and particularly attractive girls all out shopping together. I think that they noticed me following Jane around, carrying her new underwear. Although they didn’t say anything I could see that they thought this was highly amusing.” (From the At All Times blog.)
“My wife went to the underwear dept. and picked out three pair. A clerk was there helping her and said she didn't know if it made any difference or not but those needed to be hand-washed. My wife handed them to me and said ‘All mine have to be hand-washed.’ There was no doubt what she meant.”
“My wife yelled out for me to get a different size while she was in a dressing room. When handed a shoe by a saleslady and asked if she liked it, my wife responded by silently handing me the shoe to put on her foot. I was carrying 6 shopping bags while she was empty handed. And I was then told to find her size in a particular outfit in a matching color.”
“Today, once my nail polish is dry and the kitchen is clean, my husband will bathe me in a milk bath and then he will accompany me and a friend of mine shopping at the mall. Not only will he follow behind us carrying our bags, but his allowance will buy our lunch, though he doesn't know that yet.”
“In a store once, I saw a young college-age woman and her boyfriend shopping for shoes. This young woman was having a conversation on her cell phone and she was discussing, not that I was eavesdropping, some kind of a complicated engineering research project, sounded like something to do with biomedical engineering. As she was heavily involved in her conversation, she'd point to various shoes she wanted to try on and her boyfriend would get them for her in her size, and try them on her feet.” [From the Spousechat archives]
“When we are in public together, such as on a shopping trip, her authority is obvious. I hold the door open for her getting in and out of the car. If we are in a store I follow behind her and push the shopping cart and I carry the packages. She carries the money and always handles the purchase transaction. I dress and groom well for these occasions and am always polite and friendly. This kind of behavior can sometimes have the effect of making other women jealous of my wife. Of course, she loves it when that happens, and I am likely to be rewarded later.”
For one extremely dutiful househusband, just being taken out a shopping expedition with his wife-leader qualifies as a special treat:
“My husband has been a home-bound house-husband for more than a year now, doing the housework, the yard and pool work, while I work 40 hours a week, bringing home the bacon. He gets to go with me to town for shopping on weekends, and sometimes on a weeknight after I get home from work. But the rest of the time he's my sweet little ‘Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-eater.’ I keep him in our ‘pumpkin shell’ and there he stays, very well.”
I’ll close with another quote from Au876 (again posting on Lady Misato’s original Yahoo! husbands’ forum). He describes what just might be the ultimate wife-directed shopping trip:
“Friday night my wife was reading the paper. A local department store was having a big sale on women's clothing (what else is new?). Anyway, she saw several dresses advertised that she liked. She already had plans for Saturday and didn't want to change them. So she said she wanted me to go to the sale, buy each one of the dresses in several different sizes and bring them home for her to try on. I could take back the ones that she didn't like. She also suggested I pick out some scarves and maybe a purse or two that I thought would go with them.
“So I spent most of Saturday afternoon shopping for her clothes. I got the clerk to help me pick out some extra things to go with the dresses. She tried them on Sunday and is keeping two dresses plus several of the other items. I am taking the unwanted items back this afternoon. My wife said this was a great way to shop and she didn't know why she hadn't thought of it sooner.
“I had to agree. She loves to shop but she often does not have the time. She was able to take advantage of the sale and still do what she had planned Saturday. I felt like I had been a real help to her and it was a step forward for me in our relationship.”