What is the right mix in a marriage?

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What is the right mix in a marriage?

Written by: Gilbert Goh

In our busyness of life, we all failed to spend enough time with our partner often with adverse consequences. A good marriage needs alot of nurturing and this requires time and effort – elements that we are very short on in our fast-paced society. We often place greater emphasis on things that matter to us as an individual rather than as a couple and this is probably one of the main reasons why so many of our relationships fail. Many couples nowadays simply operate as two individuals staying together under one roof! Some even opt to sleep separately from one another for many years.

I have also heard of men going out regularly with their guy friends during weekend for golf and women shopping with their girlfriends. They hardly spent time together as a couple and the relationship naturally goes downhill afterwards.

Moreover, when so much of our limited time at home is spent on raising our young children we often neglect our partners in the process. We only have a few precious hours left after work and most people, especially working mothers, will want to spent that time with their young children. Women tend to have this hormonal-charged maternity instinct to fully focus on their children neglecting their husbands in the process. Unless, husbands and wives can come to an understanding that spending time together as a couple is also important, there will be underlying issues affecting the relationship with devastating adverse effect.

Working Wives

As our modern women nowadays prefer to work rather than stay at home to be full time mothers, how they apportion their time with their husbands and children after work can be crucial for the well being of the family. After a few years of mutual neglect, many families sadly break up in the end.

Husbands also tend to spend too much time at work neglecting their spouses in the process. Many men also simply stop wooing their wives after they have tied the knot as they have finally won their prize and they moved on to other targets to conquer - usually their work. Many wives also felt cheated that their husbands have totally changed from the romantic loving men that they know before marriage.

It is also important, I believe, for couples to try and marry younger so that they can have that precious few years after marriage to build up their foundation as a couple first without ever thinking of starting a family. If you marry later in your late 20s or early 30s, my fear is that you will want to have a kid immediately after walking down the aisle thus wasting a precious opportunity to enjoy each other company as a couple uninterrupted for that first few crucial years.

I am not saying that having children is not ideal for the family but having them when you are still newly married and not fully ready may add more stress to your relationship. Many of us know that having kids can be a stressful phase of the relationship and many young couples unfortunately could not cope with the new entry and quit the marriage mid way.

My wife was pregnant after six months into our marriage and though we are blessed with a beautiful baby daughter, we wish that we could have more time together privately as a couple immediately after marriage. Due to a short courtship of about a year before we got married, we needed the extra space after marriage to cement our relationship but regretfully we didn’t have that luxury. Don’t get me wrong – we enjoyed the new entry into our family but on introspection, I felt that we have missed out on a golden opportunity to have that precious time together as a couple privately.

I hope that couples thinking of marriage will put aside at least two years of their initial marriage to spend the time alone with one another. Couples who have discipline themselves this way have told me that they are more matured and tend to see things together as one union rather than two individuals.

Not only do they feel more connected but they also took time to discover their partner’s likes and dislikes. It was also a wonderful period of building on the relationship after tying the knot than plunging straight to changing diapers and washing milk bottles.

We all know how much we need to adjust to our spouses immediately after marriage. Many couples realise that dating and marriage can be entirely two different phases of a relationship and if not handled properly, it can be very destabilising. It is for this reason that more marriages break up during the first year of a marriage than any other period.

Shot-gun Marriages

I also want to speak to those who married because of a shot-gun relationship. I have heard from a few friends whose marriages broke up recently when they have to marry because of the unplanned pregnancy. Couples who marry because of shot-gun reason need to pay extra effort on build up their relationships.

Some men may feel obligated to marry due to a sense of responsibility and duty. If that obligation does not transform into love for their spouses, the relationship may be in for a rough ride. The same thing happens for wives who marry because they have no choice. If they don’t quickly change their mindset, their relationship will soon hit rocky ground. Of course, there are shot-gun marriages that work well and I am sure that they have put in alot of effort here.

Conclusion

So, plan to spend the first two years of your marriage on your own without kids if possible.

It is good thus to start the courting process as early as possible and not wait till you have matured in your career to start alooking around. When you start to date earlier, you also have more time to select the right spouse rather than quickly settling for one that comes along when you are at age 30!