Articles

[Oct 2014 update: “Less is More”.]

As PL and I started realising that we wanted to spend our lives together, I started sending her articles I found on the internet. Articles about relationships, marriage, preparing for marriage, how to know if you have made the right decision. etc.

Here are some of articles I shared which offered useful (as opposed to useless myths offered by Hollywood and TV!) tips or advice.

First, some pre-marital truths about marriages. Married friends please comment! 🙂 Some of the points:

• It’s okay to feel bored.
• It’s okay to want time alone.
• It’s okay not to miss your partner every time you’re away from each other.
• It’s okay to feel annoyed.
• It’s okay to have doubt.
• It’s okay to have uncertainty.
• It’s okay not to think all of your partner’s jokes are funny.

We haven’t got to these points in our relationship and I guess it is good to know that these may be in the future and so I treasure the “honeymoon” phase that we are going through right now.

And more truths about marriages, like, marriage is not fair, and has no rules. Here’s the conclusion of that article:

Marriage is tough. It’s endless, relentless, unfair, and there are no rules or rewards. But here’s how to be tough enough for marriage: Answer to no one, and compare yourself to no one. Live for each other, and never stop. Embrace your spouse with such force that they become an extension of your own self, an extension you can never do without. Marriage is an opportunity to separate yourself from the rest of the world. To redefine happiness between you two, and live life your own way. When you’ve found the right girl or guy, everything that makes it tough to be married will make your marriage even tougher to break. Harden up. This is worth it. Get tough and be strong.

Pl & I are quite secure people, so we never really wondered if our relationship was normal. That said, this article was reassuring. And yes, most days are happy days for us. In fact, so far we have not have any bad days. Maybe we’re still in the “honeymoon” stage. I have found myself snapping at her occasionally, and had regretted it immediately. But she has mostly ignored my snappiness, so she keeps the peace.

I fear that when things “normalise” after a while and we may “fall out of love”. But I trust we are level-headed enough to survive that. But if we don’t we will look back at these articles and remind ourselves that we have something, we chose to have this something, and we are committed to make this something work. It is helpful to be forewarned about the phase or phases after “honeymoon”. We talked about this and we agreed to tell each other if or when either of us feels like we had fallen out of love. But that we would understand that it’s all just hormones and chemicals. 🙂

But here is how we know we are solid.

Cliched Wedding Photos. Why we decided to shoot our own. With help from our friends.

And if we need to design our apartment layout, this website would be helpful one day.

There’s a lot of good advice from HuffPost.

I read a lot about engagement rings, and finally concluded that the rule about 3 months salary was a sales gimmick thought up by the diamond industry. So don’t waste your money. Unless your wife-to-be really really really wants you to go broke to prove your love for her! 🙂

Fortunately, PL was… kind to me, 🙂

PL & I have plans to go motor-camping in Australia or New Zealand, and maybe eventually, Japan, Canada, and the US. This is one blog, that might be useful.