Prioritizing Relationships

I want to get married someday.  And have a strong, enduring, "successful" marriage is on the highest position on my mental list of accomplishment goals.  I try to make sure that my choices and actions reflect that goal.  While I have not spend too much time actually in serious romantic relationships moving explicitly toward that goal, when I am not in a relationship, there are still things I can do to pursue the eventual accomplishment of that goal.  Learning about people and relationships is always helpful, since I feel naturally deficient in that area, and reading books can be good too.  It also affects larger decisions as well.

There are many reasons that motivated my decision to move away from LA, even though I had a dream job down there.  One of the primary ones was that I recognized that while I had accomplished many other goals in LA, being there wasn't moving me any closer to accomplishing the goal of developing a lasting relationship, for a number of reasons.  One was that my job absorbed my entire life when I was there.  I also felt little in common with most other people in Southern California, even my close friends there, and couldn't (/can't) imagine marrying someone from down there, due to the cultural differences.  I also recognized that I was beginning to take on some of those Southern California traits that I disliked, which isn't who I wanted to become, and also probably wouldn't make me a better husband in the long run.

So I make serious relationships a priority, even when I am not in one, which I think is a good thing, and I am totally at peace with the results of that.  Now when I am actually pursuing a serious relationship, I also prioritize that above pretty much everything else.  And that I have mixed feelings about.  It seems like a good thing on the surface, since that is what I am looking for, but the question is, at what cost.  During all three of my serious relationships, my friendships and level of communication with other people has decreased dramatically.  That is due to my time and energy being directed elsewhere, and while that energy is not being wasted, those "less significant" relationships that I am neglecting have value too.  In order to sustain a serious relationship to create a life long marriage, I am going to need the support and advice of other people in my community.

Other aspects of life fall to the wayside as well, and while they aren't as "important" as developing a significant relationship, life does inherently entail responsibilities that need to be taken care of.  My to-do list is pretty long at the moment, since there are a lot of things I have been putting off.  Now in this case there are a variety of other reasons for that, including my recent move.  But I am familiar with the feeling, because I have experienced it before, at times when those other outside factors weren't available as excuses.

So in the future, when Lord willing, I find myself in another serious relationship, I will need to do a better job of maintaining that balance.  It is necessary to distinguish between things that are "important" (for example relationship development) and things that are "urgent" (like paying bills and other practical needs).  Anyhow, I don't think I did a terrible job with that this time around, considering the state of my house, but there is definitely room for improvement in the future.  Especially since I am hoping that in the future, there won't BE a time to catch up with those things “afterwards.”