Doing things for your absent spouse should not make you feel used or resentful.

Doing things for your absent spouse in order to exact an action or reaction from them is manipulation.

Take the time to get in touch with why you are doing what you are doing. If you can live with it it truly doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

~ swl

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear. {Henry Wadsworth Longfellow}