‘I’m a UK trad spouse joyful to do house responsibilities whereas husband pays the payments’
Grace Olivier, 35, says she isn’t downtrodden and chooses to stick to traditional gender roles
Grace Olivier and husband Mose
A woman who labels herself as the first British ‘tradwife’ says her marriage is like a “business” and slams trolls who say she is “oppressed”. Grace Olivier, 35, has been with her husband Moses, 40, for nearly 14 years and prides herself on being a traditional wife.
They pair, who got married 18 months ago, take on ‘traditional’ roles. Grace is the “nurturer” of the family – cooking, cleaning and looking after their four children. Moses, who works in senior management for a large infrastructure company, financially provides for the family.
Grace said: “I take the money I need to run my side of the household (food shopping etc…). I can take whatever money I want or need for almost anything. Obviously big purchases I would discuss with my husband as we value communication in our marriage.”
The mum posts on TikTok and offers £100 online coaching courses on how to ‘prepare’ for a traditional relationship. Grace says she has “clarity” in her relationship and where she stands as there are clear roles – like a “business”.
Grace, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, said: “Both myself and my husband know exactly where we are in life. We know what to expect from each other. There is clarity because there are roles. Take out the word marriage and think about us as a business.
“If you go into your day job, you know what is expected of you, you know what you need to do and everybody else knows what you are going to be doing so they can rely on you. It is always going to work a lot better when everybody knows what they are doing.
“It is a team effort, and like any team it has a trusted leader and can only work if everyone has clear roles that are best suited to the talents and abilities they are comfortable with. It works so well because we allow ourselves to be masculine and feminine and lean into our roles based on this, so we are going with the natural grain instead of against it.
“In a lot of marriages I know personally there is a lot of resentment. The biggest bugbear is always the small things when everybody is doing a little bit of everything. It wasn’t a conversation that was had. It is who we are as people.
“For us our marriage is very much based around traditional gender roles. It is leaning into what we are supposed to do as men and women. That is an opinion, not what we think everyone should be doing. As I am the woman, the wife and mother of the family, I am the nurturer of the family.
“People online say I am oppressed, downtrodden and I am a fool. Absolutely not. It is a choice. It is my choice.”
Grace and Moses naturally slipped into their roles when they met in September 2012. Grace had a few jobs when she was younger but now choses to focus on her “role in the relationship and household”.
She said: “I do not have to work as it is my husbands role to provide for us and the house, and he takes that very seriously and does it well. However, there is nothing stopping me from working if chose to and even if I did It would still be my husbands responsibility to provide as he does now.
“The only caveat is that it doesn’t interfere with my role in the relationship and household. So practically, having part time jobs/ volunteer work etc shouldn’t be a problem for a traditional woman, depending on the life circumstances at the time.”
For Grace, a typical day includes cooking, cleaning and shopping, while also looking after her children and husband. “I wake up and go and visit family and friends. I have literally been out shopping today, cleaned, tidied and made the house look presentable, and made nice food for the family,” she said.
Grace started a TikTok account in February 2025 – claiming to be the first ‘tradwife’ influencer in the UK. She says her TikTok @mr.mrs.olivier helps her find other women who identify with her lifestyle and “disprove” myths around traditional marriages.
“When I started my TikTok account there was a lot about ‘tradwives’ in America but no one was representing anyone living in a similar way in the UK at all,” she said. “At the time when I made the TikTok, there was nobody else in the UK talking about it or at least identifying with the phrase ‘tradwife’.
“It was just an untouched field at the time. There are an awful lot of women who live the lifestyle that I live, who feel an awful lot of emotions about the way it is perceived. There are a lot of people that live like me but there is no community around it, that is one of the reasons why I started my account, to build a community for myself.
‘Disproving the myths’
“It developed into likeminded people finding their place in the community. I think it is a beautiful thing.”
Now she offers £100 online coaching courses on how to ‘prepare’ for a traditional relationship and what this looks like when dating in the 21st century. But Grace also receives a lot of negative comments about her traditional marriage.
She said: “Sometimes It feels like I am bashing my head on a wall when I read the comments. It makes me feel sad for those who are actually oppressed. Another reason I started my TikTok was to disprove a lot of the myths and opinions around traditional marriage, giving the actual truth. We are just normal people.”
Grace also says she is “very different” from stereotypes that are sometimes associated with American ‘tradwives’. She said: “Big factors that play into their lifestyles are religion and politics. I suppose I am very different in the respect that our entire family are not religious.
“We do not follow any religion and I am personally quite a ‘leftie’ which surprises so many people.”
Grace and her husband have written a book on traditional marriage called A Traditional Relationship in The 21st Century by Mr. & Mrs. O available on Amazon.
