Bravo 'Newlyweds' Toi and Rouvaun defend traditional marriage roles: 'My husband wears the pants'
theGRIO REPORT - Bravo 'Newlyweds' cast member Toi Troutman-Walker and Rouvaun Walker open up about allowing cameras to capture their first year of marriage....
Rouvaun Walker and Toi Troutman-Walker made the bold move of allowing cameras to capture their first year of marriage, and viewers are able to see it all on season 2 of Bravo’s Newlyweds: The First Year.
The show follows four couples for better or for worst. From challenging in-laws to fertility struggles and merging complicated lives together, the show gives viewers a glimpse at all of the trials and tribulations that can arise as a newlywed.
Rouvaun, a mortgage banker, and Toi, who owns a hair extension line, found each other and fell in love via the internet.
They first connected through the website AOL BlackVoices in 1996 and some 15 years later found each other through Facebook and rekindled a flame that led to matrimony.
In an interview with theGrio, Toi said she’s somewhat reluctant to let the world in on her first year of marriage.
“I don’t want to say anything to piss my mom off,” she confessed. “I know she’s going to be telling all of her friends to watch. I wanted to be myself for people to see who I really am, but there is always that fear of showing a little bit too much information.”
Rouvaun says he fears some of his former and current colleagues are getting too much intel on his personal life.
“I have employees and ex-bosses that don’t know that side of my personal life. I think going into it I was thinking ‘What we were the President and the First Lady? Answer the questions like Barack would and answer the questions like Michelle would.’ You can’t really do that on reality TV. If I had any political aspirations, I think I ruined that. You only live once. I think we represent older couples and everyone pretty well.”
Rouvaun and Toi have a similar mindset when it comes to gender roles within their marriage. Rouvaun “wears the pants,” and Toi is comfortable and confident as a “submissive wife” who cleaves to her husband.
“My husband wears the pants — like every single pair of them — and I’m fine with that,” Toi said. “I’m a modern woman, but I would totally cook and clean and serve my husband; there’s no problem at all. I don’t find any weakness in that at all.”
The newlyweds feel that having cameras in their home over the past year came with a set of challenges, but they have a stronger marriage today because of the experience.
“Life brings about challenges, and it just throws you a curve ball,” Rouvaun said. “Its about how you manage that together. How do you cope with those challenges and stresses and how do you support each other and how do you assist that other person or each other through those stressful times? Those are some of things that you have to deal with in the first year as life presents itself.”
Newlyweds: The First Year premieres Tonight at 10/9c on Bravo.
Follow theGrio.com’s Entertainment Editor Chris Witherspoon on Twitter @WitherspoonC.
