There’s a Growing Trend of Men on TikTok That Hate Their Wives

A familiar old joke about husbands hating their wives has found a new home on TikTok, where commentary YouTuber Casey Simpson says the punch line is increasingly blending into something less funny: men openly speaking about their partners with contempt, resentment and sometimes outright hostility.

In a recent video, Simpson traced the trend from old “ball and chain” marriage jokes to viral TikToks showing boyfriends mocking girlfriends, husbands complaining about wives, and couples who appear to treat each other with more irritation than affection. He argued that the problem is not playful teasing by itself, but the point where contempt becomes the normal language of a relationship.

“There’s a lot of people who post how much their marriages suck on TikTok,” Simpson said, repeatedly asking a simple question throughout the video: if someone genuinely dislikes their spouse that much, why are they still together?

Simpson Says Contempt Is The Bigger Warning Sign

Simpson centered much of his argument on relationship researcher John Gottman, whom he described as being able to predict divorce with striking accuracy after observing couples.

The behavior Simpson highlighted was contempt.

He gave examples such as eye-rolling, dismissing a partner’s stories, mocking their interests and speaking to them with a level of disrespect that would rarely be directed at a stranger.

That framing carried into a viral TikTok he played showing a boyfriend repeatedly snapping at his girlfriend over ordinary things.

In the clip, the man complains about going to Target, mocks her spending, insults her weight, becomes angry when she laughs at another man’s joke and even complains about how much water she is drinking.

“She ruined my whole life,” the man says at one point. “I hate her.”

Simpson’s response was that almost everyone becomes annoyed with people they love, but successful relationships require learning to treat those quirks as harmless or even endearing rather than turning them into reasons for humiliation.

“I never want to be in a relationship with someone who would treat me with more disrespect than they would treat a stranger,” he said.

That is a useful dividing line. Couples can joke, argue and irritate each other without contempt becoming the emotional foundation of the relationship.

Women Are Noticing The Pattern Too

Several TikTok clips in Simpson’s video came from women describing moments when they realized their boyfriend or husband seemed to genuinely dislike them.

One woman said men can become “so comfortable being mean” very quickly, while another said her husband mocked her after she proudly told him she had made $8 from a new online effort.

According to her account, he laughed and told her to let him know when she made $8,000.

She responded by saying she would stop sharing things with him and wanted her followers to help prove him wrong.

Simpson criticized both sides of that dynamic. He said the husband was wrong to belittle something his wife was proud of, but he also argued that building an online campaign around proving your spouse wrong means the marriage has already shifted into competition.

“You should never be in competition with your spouse,” he said.

Another woman in the video described hearing married men constantly complain that their wives make them attend events or interfere with their plans.

By contrast, she said she genuinely preferred spending time with her own wife because she found her funny and enjoyable to be around.

The obviousness of that idea is part of what makes the trend strange. Liking the person you marry should not feel like an unusually high standard.

The “Ball And Chain” Joke Never Really Went Away

Simpson argued that older generations helped normalize the idea that marriage inevitably becomes miserable.

He showed a clip of a man buying flowers for his wife and being told by an older stranger that he must be “in trouble.”

When the man replied that he simply loved his wife, the stranger supposedly answered that he must still be young.

Simpson saw the exchange as a perfect example of how some unhappy spouses project their own experiences onto everyone else.

“People who are miserable can’t imagine that someone else could be happy,” he said.

The old “ball and chain” image works the same way. It turns the person someone voluntarily married into an obstacle to freedom, while framing resentment as a normal stage of adulthood.

That attitude is not limited to boomers, though. Simpson was clear that younger men and women are reproducing the same behavior online, only now it is packaged through relationship memes, dating commentary and viral clips instead of old sitcom jokes.

The modern manosphere can intensify that hostility by encouraging men to view relationships as power struggles, with women cast as manipulative, demanding or inherently adversarial. Not every marriage joke comes from that worldview, but the overlap becomes obvious when contempt is treated as proof that men are simply “seeing women clearly.”

TikTok Is Also Turning Relationships Into Ranking Games

A large portion of Simpson’s video focused on a viral question asking men to rank their wife, mother and daughter.

Some men put their daughter first, others their mother, and several placed their wife last.

Simpson strongly disagreed with that approach.

He argued that a spouse should generally come first because that is the person someone deliberately chooses as a life partner, and because the quality of the marriage helps shape the environment children grow up in.

One man in a clip gave the order as wife, daughter, then mother, explaining that his daughter should see him treating his wife well.

Simpson considered that a strong answer.

He also pushed back on the phrase “happy wife, happy life,” saying it can imply that a husband’s job is simply to placate an irrational woman rather than communicate honestly.

Instead, he played advice from a long-married man who said couples should remember they love each other during arguments, treat facts carefully and avoid viewing disagreements as competitions.

Those principles are less catchy than TikTok slogans, but they are also far healthier than treating marriage as a contest over who matters most.

Some Stories Go Beyond Jokes Into Neglect

Several examples Simpson highlighted were harder to dismiss as simple teasing.

One woman described a husband who routinely walked far ahead of her, even on vacation, despite repeated requests to slow down. She said he once bought her shoes supposedly designed to help her walk faster.

Simpson interpreted that not as a practical gift but as a passive-aggressive attempt to humiliate her.

Another story involved a woman whose husband allegedly failed to water the hydrangeas she cared deeply about while she was away for 10 days, leaving the plants dead.

A different woman recalled calling her then-husband after a frightening car accident, only to be told, “What do you want me to do about it? I’m at work.”

These anecdotes all involve different circumstances, but Simpson’s point was that contempt often shows up in small moments before it becomes obvious in large ones.

The problem is not that a spouse must enthusiastically share every hobby or solve every problem. It is the repeated message that what matters to the other person does not matter to you.

Why Stay With Someone You Clearly Dislike?

One of the most revealing TikToks featured a man describing his wife’s adult children as “two of the most worthless human beings” he had ever met.

He complained that he worked while his wife did not, that the adult children cost him roughly $1,000 a month, and that one daughter and her children had damaged the couple’s fifth wheel.

Simpson acknowledged that some of the man’s financial complaints sounded understandable, but again returned to the same question: why marry into a situation you already resent so deeply?

That is where many of these videos become less about bad spouses and more about bad choices followed by public bitterness.

People sometimes enter relationships because they are lonely, because someone happens to be nearby, or because the relationship feels easier than being alone. Years later, those same people may discover they never actually liked each other very much.

The internet then gives them an audience for that resentment.

Loving Your Spouse Should Not Be Embarrassing

Simpson ended on a much simpler idea: people should actually admire the person they marry.

He played clips of husbands and wives who spoke warmly about each other, including one man who rejected the “ball and chain” label and said his wife lifted him up rather than weighing him down.

Those moments stood out largely because so much online relationship content is built around humiliation, competition and disappointment.

There is nothing wrong with joking about marriage, and playful banter can be part of a healthy relationship when both people understand and enjoy it.

But contempt is different.

When someone constantly mocks their spouse’s body, interests, family, spending, personality or intelligence, the joke begins to look less like humor and more like an excuse to say something cruel without taking responsibility for it.

Simpson’s broader criticism is persuasive on that point. If a person routinely talks about their husband or wife as though they are an enemy, inconvenience or burden, the issue may not be marriage itself.

It may simply be that they married someone they do not like, and TikTok has given them a place to turn that resentment into content.