Review: our first year of marriage

I found our first year of marriage was fun and difficult. It’s great that we get to live together, learn about each other and ourselves, plan the future together and do lots of crazy or boring things together. So many things happened in a year, moving to Jakarta, jobs change, etc. Hubby taught me how to ride a motor scooter and next , swimming. Hubby taught himself some new and cool magic tricks. I taught hubby how to have fun ^.^ I’m glad to find that we share similar life principles, that makes it easier to create the bigger map for our tiny family.

The not so fun part?

Financially, we are currently on a super strict budget because we’re still struggling to pay off the apartment.
Mortgage shouldn’t be that hard, no? Actually, we’re paying by installment loans. Soon after the wedding, we found this awesome opportunity to purchase a tiny apartment (40 sq.m) in West Jakarta. Initially we thought with what we have, we might have to resort to living in the suburbs and dedicate about 4 hours everyday for commuting.

They offered us to pay by 25x installments instead of mortgage, so instead of paying to the bank, we’re paying directly to the developer. At first, I thought this is crazy and kinda risky. But then, we thought, hmm.. this payment scheme also frees us from having to pay that stupid 11% interest rate. So, we jumped in anyway. Now I only get about a quarter of what I usually have every month, and I have to carefully slice it for transportation, insurance, groceries, saving and emergency fund ! We still have 16 more payments to go, nooooos ! We’ve been monitoring on the development progress and hopefully, we can move in to our new apartment by the end of this year.

On living together , finding someone willing to put up with me for his whole life is awesome , but that also means I have to be willing to put up with him. That’s the difficult part. Subconsciously, I think we all have a picture in mind on how things should be but the reality doesn’t match that.

One day Hubby told me that actually he wished I would prepare all the clothes for him to wear for work. Because his mom always prepares all his dad’s things in the morning. I never did this! It never even occurred my mind that he would want me to choose what clothes he should wear ! I always thought he knew how to dress himself . And honestly, I think he dresses better than I do, he always knows how to coordinate his attire while I’m the type that wears whatever is available in my wardrobe. I use that excuse to sorta get away from this “task” .

And day to day living is quite a struggle for me. After work, with all the traffic jam and such, I reach home by 7.30 and I have to quickly prepare dinner for both of us. It’s not exactly possible to cook decent Indonesian meals in such a short amount of time, so I have to prepare carefully. After dinner, I prepare for tomorrow’s dinner (cleaning and cutting vegetables, marinading stuffs or whatever), wash the dishes, and by the time it’s all over, it’s already almost 11 pm! Very little time left for TV or reading.

(Update on this matter: I brought up the topic that I really really need help dealing with the kitchen chaos ><, and hubby said that he doesn't mind helping , provided he's given some basic kitchen training. It was a good day ^^.) So honestly, I wished sometimes Hubby would help me up in the kitchen. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a husband that cooks together with you? Or offer to cook sometimes?

Hubby hardly ever stepped into the kitchen in his childhood, kitchen is like an unfamiliar territory for him. So I never had any success asking him to cook with me . I think he prefers to be fixated on his PS2 and Kamen Rider series.

However, he often surprised me too. When I was sick with dengue and what not, I was worrying about the dirty dishes that I haven’t washed yet. To my surprise, Hubby swept and mopped the apartment, he even scrubbed the bathroom and toilet, and he washed the dishes too. He took a day off to take me to the hospital. He accompanied me in the hospital although it was very uncomfortable for him since my hospital ward roommie was screaming in pain all the time.

Hubby also develops this rather cute habit of waking up very early in the morning to turn on the water heater so I can enjoy nice warm shower, then goes back to bed. He also fixes my blanket when I was sleeping. Hubby also endures my crazy singing, although he often complains that I’m ruining lots of good songs, and I made the bad ones sound worse. Hubby’s a good man after all, that’s why I married him ^^.

Then there’s the work-related stresses. Hubby’s job is a lot more stressful now, so there were days when he returned home looking all depressed. When that happened, whatever I did to cheer him up failed miserably and I felt terribly lonely. Thankfully, things are looking up now! No more days of depressions!

Without sugar coating anything, I think marriage is tough for both of us. Marriage has this steep learning curve, and sometimes I doubt if I’m cut out for it. But hey, we’ve made it for a year!
Congratulations !