Communication Is the Key

Communication is always the key in every relationship.

Before I married Singaporean, I was confident of this relationship. Not only because I've ever been here for exchange program but also I always have a good communication and few argument with my hubby. However, things are not that straightforward. Everything changed when the issues we face getting more complicated. Staying for a short term and experience the culture here doesn't mean I can fully enjoy the time with local family which I realized there is a huge gap of core value in family between my hubby and me. 

In the very first stage of our marriage, I always feel unhappy. Due to lack of original family support and poor social network in Singapore, I feel lonely and unhappy which caused the worse communication between my husband and me. The worse is we quarreled again and again until both of us realized the conflicts are from the gap between our core value of family and lifestyle due to our different background. I tend to be an egotist. I spend time mostly on myself and my friends. I seldom spend time on my family. On contrary, my hubby is very homely. He treats family activities as a re-charge which prepare him to face challenges in his daily life. The quarrel usually happens when I reject to follow their lifestyle which is usually a family gathering or birthday party.

Finally we realized communication is the key. Open minded and compromising are the solution.
We quarrel, communicate and end up no solution in every conflict. Nobody can dramatically change their value and lifestyle immediately, neither than us. So we decided to compromise a bit for each other. I try to do more activities to delight myself from unhappiness, such as having friend gatherings and cook my favorite food but leave weekend for family gatherings. My hubby, not asking me to follow their lifestyle, he promise to have good food in restaurant every weekend.

Life is not as rosy as it seems. No one can have a good relationship without making effort. 
After we doing so, both of us are more opened to share our feeling and perspective. We finally believe the challenges in marriage are not as easy as it seems in the relationship. Never give up in marriage. If you want to have a good relationship, try to communicate openly, compromise within your limitation and let each other know where the gap come from. Next time we would like to try having class of couple communication which should be helpful.