How Do You Prioritize?
My wife needs me. My kids need me. My partners need me. My long-distance partners deserve time. And there's only 16 waking hours in the day?
I'm at home. There's a list of things needs done: helping my sister with her kids and a messed up hose bib; laundry; cleaning; preparing for my son's birthday; getting a dinner going from the pork shoulder we bought that's gonna go bad if we don't cook it now; and probably a bunch of stuff I can't remember, but I said I'd do.
These are responsibilities. Things I have to do because I help maintain this household, because I'm a parent, or because I promised my wife I'd do them.
Which makes it hard, when CT says she's sprained her shoulder and needs to go to Urgent Care. My natural instinct is to tell her I'll drive her, not let her go alone, be there for moral support. But I can't.
This feels...shitty.
Luckily, his isn't an emergency. CT doesn't need me to come drive her, and she's capable of handling this on her own.
But the whole thing has me feeling bad. Not just because I can't be there for her like I'd prefer, but also because this is definitely going to be a recurring theme: how do I balance my time between my wife and kids and home, my two local girlfriends, and my several long-distance relationships?
I don't have a good answer. I generally prioritize my wife and kids, try to spend one or two days a week with my local girls (either alone or at play parties), and make sure I have regular calls and conversations with my long-distance partners.
This has worked, so far. I miss out on some things my girls are doing to spend that time with my primary partner and my kids and that's cool, it's my choice and I stand by it. And on the one or two occasions where it has been a serious issue, my wife's been understanding about my needing to duck out.
But it won't always be this easy.
One of my wife's concerns is that she's no longer the only romantic love in my life. She's my primary partner, and I hope I never make her feel like she's not the light of my life, but it is true. She isn't the only light in my heart, and my people pleasing tendencies mean I wish I could satisfy every single need of all of my partners, all of the time.
I feel like all I can do is continue to make thoughtful choices about how to spent my time, and believe the people in my life when they tell me what they need.