It’s not always easy being a supportive wife (or so I’d like to think). Moreover, it’s not easy being a supportive wife to a husband whose job is so demanding like many other jobs out there.
Z, my hubby, works in healthcare. Ok, let’s be blunt – he’s a surgery resident. He’s the guy that has MD after his name and probably doing the majority of surgeries under supervision by his attendings. The residents also take all the overnight pages. They also enter bajillion patient notes. When the said surgery resident returns home after working a 12-15 hour shift, the last thing in his mind is helping me with dinner or spending quality time with me. Well, the latter he really does try in which consists of watching TV shows and him falling asleep next to me.
Anyway, this is not a resentful post. In fact, I have gone through the phase before already. Nowadays, I am all about supporting my man. Being supportive means doing all the housework – cooking, feeding, cleaning, doing laundry – take care of the dogs, manage bills, file taxes (ugh), arrange travels, and occasionally do yard work if I feel like it. Speaking of yard work, we finally decided to outsource it to a high school kid. I also forgot to include my full-time job, which is another story. The thing is…we don’t even have a baby yet. So yes, I’ll admit that my life is still so much easier than others who have kids thrown into the equation.
Recently, Z got really sick and still is. St. Louis has been dealing with an extremely nasty flu this year – doctor appointment, here we go. Z was gone all last week due to a conference he was presenting at, and while that’s wonderful, people forget that the ‘making him look presentable’ part was all done by me. And yes, I am one of those weird ones that iron clothes at home. He returns from the conference with the said nasty flu – fever spiking, congested voice, sweating – you name it, he currently has them. So, here comes the supportive wife taking care of him.
I forgot to mention that he leaves again this Friday for a bachelor’s party. He is the best man, so he should go really. Again, this is not. a. resentful. post. I knew all of these travels were happening, and I’m totally fine with that. But that also means I am furiously washing all the clothes he took for the conference so they can be packed again for the next trip…by Thursday night. Also, my hubby is not home yet. He’s been gone since 6(?)am.Prepped dinner is just sitting on the counter waiting to be cooked. Maybe I’ll just go ahead and start cooking now.
See, I’m just tired y’all – tired of being the supportive wife. And the worst part is that the one time the hubby has the energy to cook dinner for us, I still go to the kitchen to see if he needs any help. Because most likely he’ll ask where the salt is…or pepper.
I still live a happy life, no doubt about it. But, I sometimes long for a day when I come home to a cooked dinner, a clean kitchen afterward, laundry that’s all done, and a clean house in general. Even when January or August rolls around (I work in university admissions), and my work life becomes almost hell, I know that I would still be the one stepping up to the game in the house for our lives to function. Because, in the end, my professional workload will never exceed his, and I won’t be working 15 hours a day. I guess another solution is to outsource everything – hire a cleaning person, hire a chef, get groceries delivered, hire a nanny when we have a baby – we are not that wealthy, though. Life wouldn’t be all that interesting if you literally outsource everything for convenience, don’t you think?
Also, this is not a platform to judge my hubby. Unless you work in healthcare, and a resident nonetheless, you really have no right to judge him for his lack of help in the house. Perhaps if you are on your feet 15 hours with no water or food because life/death situations don’t wait for you, then maybe you can judge.
Time to start cooking.
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