Rich in love #5 – adult time

Okay, here we are to the question of how it actually works and time and priorities and those things. None of this is to imply, by the way, that we have some kind of utopian bliss. We’re just people working things out and making it up as we go along, too.

As someone who was a master dissociator and as a member of a multiple system I am highly aware that time is the scarcest resource for any human being. None of us has enough time for what we want to do in life, and as we get older the hard limits on it start to become scarily apparent. I’m also aware of how easy it is to fall into bad habits of thinking or behaving so that one’s time isn’t aligned at all with one’s values. So I think it is an interesting question, although as Xy pointed out, it wouldn’t be fair to have to justify my time to anyone.

I’ll use the actual questions here now at last. I’m starting with the adult stuff. Between us consenting adults, I think whatever works, works. So this is how it’s worked up ’til having Emily and then in between and then having Noah:

Is our marriage the primary relationship? Who would we choose?

Our primary relationship is always to ourselves. If PersonX is suicidal, raging, or depressed, we can’t be there for anyone else. This ought to be true for everyone multiple or not, but in a multiple system it feels anyway like a more delicate balance (but I only have that experience from which to speak, so.).

I hope all the rambling and taking you through our actual experience demonstrated how we have dealt with those kinds of decisions in the past and how seriously we take our vows and bonds. I don’t see that changing. (It’s made me reflect on it too, which is good when one’s baby-crazed. :))

The question of whether how we use our time reflects that is a serious one though. Because I think it’s absolutely true that it’s possible to get unbalanced and neglect a relationship (of any kind) without meaning to. And quite often people do claim that their marriage or family or whatever is their top priority but manage somehow not to nurture that.

At the same time I laughed at the question of whether Internet time means me neglecting Carl, because out of the two of us it’s been me flipping out at Carl about his time on the computer/riding his bike/down in the basement woodworking/playing World of Warcraft and not the reverse.

He’s a strong introvert. I’m a medium extrovert. Carl’s idea of a blissful weekend involves both of us doing our own thing, together, if that makes any sense. So for him, me sitting at my laptop and him sitting at his, sharing a bowl of grapes, is marital bliss.

For me, not so much all the time. So one reason our compromise has worked for us on a practical level is that I am at home sharing his space, so he gets the warm fuzzies, and yet I am off online chatting and hanging with people, which gives me & the system some warm fuzzies.

One way it hasn’t been working lately is that he’s been working all weekend (or, on occasion, playing World of Warcraft) and then I get twitchy. And I feel it’s really important in that case not to go bug Idaho or J. or other people to make up for it, but to go and ask Carl to work towards more time with us. (And there’s Noah, which is a whole next thing.)

And as to chores and things, I/we do the lion’s share of them. I don’t do anything involving a drill, because I can’t drill straight. But I do the cleaning and cooking and laundry and finances, except if I get overwhelmed, in which case Carl usually steps in. It’s my unpopular belief that chores fit in pretty well with taking care of a single baby, and frankly, given that Carl works outside of the home, right now when Noah can’t participate in chores as a bonding thing, I’d much rather Carl spent time with Noah while I vaccuumed than that we met some ideal of chore-sharing.

In thinking about this post I got really defensive about that bit, the chores. I think this is because of all our growing up chores issues. But in any case during Noah’s nap yesterday I took some pictures of our house (I’d been meaning to anyway) just as it is almost every day, messy spots and all (although where the messy spots are rotate according to our own version of the Flylady system.)

So I’m not so worried about time with respect to our marriage. The real danger for me is that we might share things with Idaho and not with Carl, or vice versa. This is a danger with anyone – a really good friend, sympathetic coworkers, or family can be the same kind of confidante. I think we all know people who bitch about their spouses without ever actually talking to them, or who tell other people what’s really going on and not their partners.

But it’s not about time because people can be together all the time, and still not really talk.

It’s something we watch for a lot. It hasn’t always been balanced – last year when Carl was in Ottawa and we were in Toronto it was hard. I think we’ve overall managed pretty well. But that’s where I get twitchy.

And the corollary: would I be upset if Carl had an online relationship? In other words could I be fair?

I’d be okay with it, if he were open and honest and ensured that we still got some time and that he still talked to us and all those things. I’m sure I’d be nervous and all those things; that’s human. But as long as our relationship is working in and of itself, then I’d be an idiot to deny him all the joys we have experienced.

Next up: parenting & time, because that is where it potentially does get sticky.