Jealousy of Gender Roles | Loving Him

Is it wrong of me to smirk, just a tad, when I leave for a said amount of time and my husband is alone with the children?

Is it wrong of me to heave a sigh of relief when my children act out when my husband has them?

Is it wrong for me to feel some sort of satisfaction that my husband is stressing over all the minuscule tasks of day-to-day life of raising a family and still trying to have a career?

Is it wrong of me to be just a tad disappointed when family members come out to help him while I'm gone?

I mean ... these are all just hypothetical questions, and I would NEVER have these feelings ...

*insert eye roll*

Listen, my husband is awesome and he never complains about having to do extra house chores or watching his own children when mommy needs a break. I'm not saying he's not competent enough to do this on his own, because he very much is.

And I'm lucky for that.

HOWEVER,

(and yes, there's always a however in these sort of posts)

However, I have been through 7 deployments where he was gone anywhere from 9 months to 4/6 months at a time. One of them we were childless but the rest I had one child to two.

And here's the thing.

I made shit happen. 

Was it stressful? Hell yeah!

Was it a pain in the ass? Hell yeah!

But I made it just fine.

I will insert here that I did have help from time to time from family members but mostly because I would have my Army Reserve duty over the weekends and my mother would come out to help. I also had my father-in-law come out when I had a leadership course that was over two weeks long.

BUT - every other day, it was me and the boys.

And we made it.

So, when I leave for two weeks here and a month there, I get frustrated that he has the help from my mother or his mother.

I get it, it is different now because I work from home so our schedule is different. We need someone to care for out littlest full time and the oldest takes the bus home. Husband doesn't get home until after 5pm so the oldest would be home alone for 2 hours ... which, we can't exactly TRUST him to be alone for that amount of time. So I get that we need the extra help.

I really do. 

Though, the littlest could technically go to daycare full time (an added expense that would be a burden, but doable because I am getting paid more tan normal) and the eldest could be picked up from school by dad or hang out at the after school program in his school ... so see? Things could be done to fully immerse my husband into the hell life I endured (and still do) when he leaves.

Alas, I do want to conclude with this:

I am very lucky to have the man I have asa husband. One who takes on the challenges and appreciates what I do every day. He even mentioned to me over the phone the other day that he doesn't know how I do what I do every day. LOL It meant a lot to me for him to actually see everything from my perspective. It's very easy for the spouse who leaves all the time to not understand how hard it really is back home. They've got other things to worry about; the job, the hazards, the monotony, etc.

I try not to feel jealous of the help he gets, because family members are always willing to come to my aide if I was to need it. Yeah, I want him to suffer through what I do, but I'm so very thankful that I have people in our lives that are able to help at the drop of a pin.

Do any of you feel the same way? How do you combat these feelings?