We met when we were 17, 18 years old and attending the same junior college. At the time, sparks never flew because he was the Ah Beng in school and I was the student councillor, the kwai kia (good girl) kind.
Six years later, we met again when my JC classmate was dating his brother and she brought us together again. She brought me along to his birthday dinner where I met the entire gang: father, mother and all. After that day, he started calling me and chatting on the phone.
We went out on our first date at Changi Village. He was very sweet and bought me four roses because I was born on a leap year. He meant to bring me to Charlie’s Corner but it happened to be closed that day, and we ended up eating mee goreng at the next door hawker centre. Haha, he always gets teased for being a cheapskate.
As I was still in university then, we tried to meet only on weekends so that he wouldn’t distract me from studying. We hung out at each other’s homes and spent a lot of time going to the beach and chilling out.
He didn’t propose. I did. Actually, he was already planning the proposal—he had the ring bought and ready in his wardrobe. But I had to spoil the entire surprise by crying and threatening to break up if he didn’t want to marry me. He had no choice but to take out the ring and went,” Nah! you spoilt your own proposal”. I went, “Oops”. So he showed me the ring and took it out and placed it on my finger, and knelt down awkwardly.
We registered our marriage on 23 August 1997 and we were asked to appear in a a documentary for the Registry of Marriages. I’m not sure if it’s still at ROM—it might be archived somewhere. I think the documentary was called “Before You Say I Do”. Groan. After the ROM ceremony, we had a simple reception at the Alkaff Mansion.
In January 1998, we held the church wedding and the wedding banquet. Goodwood Park Hotel had erected a marquee for the Chinese New Year that month, and when we saw the marquee we decided we wanted our wedding banquet to be held there and not in the usual boring ballroom. So we kind of rushed to get it all done!
Both of us love children and we never really planned on having them at a specific time. My dad always told me not to plan but let it come naturally. So when we went for our honeymoon at the end of 1998, I guess that was when Megan was created. We were one of the youngest couples in our group of friends to have a baby. The rest were still partying and not yet settled down. Now we are glad that we had kids early because they are so independent and mature now—though we never expected a Number Three to come along at a later stage of our lives.
My husband has always been a wonderful father and he is always be there for his girls despite his frequent travels and work commitments. He has never, ever missed one of their birthdays, nor mine. So I feel blessed to have his support and love.
We have 3 lovely girls: Megan, 23, Macy, 19 and Mia, 11. I always tell them that it was I who proposed and forced their father to marry me.
NOTHING SHALL DIVIDE US
“In 2003 we moved to Hong Kong. He got a new post and I had to resign to take care of my two girls who were then just 3 years old and 4 months old. Without strong family support, I became a stay-at-home mum to my two girls.
“In 2005, my husband got into an accident. He broke his back and was bedridden. The girls were young and I was very stressed. He was playing football with some colleagues, fell and further aggravated his slip disc. I had to send him to the hospital as he could feel sharp pain shooting down his leg. From then on, he was in the hospital for almost four months. We went through three or four doctors, all of whom had differing views. Some said he needed an operation, others said he just need physiotherapy. We tried all methods but he was in so much pain until one miraculous day, this amazing professor was introduced by one of the doctors who wasn’t able to cure him. The professor took one look at my husband’s condition and said,” Let’s put this man out of misery.”
It was a rather complicated surgery which involved an incision from the front as his back muscles were heavily scarred from a previous back surgery. At that point, I was very worried that the surgery would not succeed and he would end up being wheelchair-bound.
I prayed and fasted for him every day till the day of surgery. I had to call my mum to fly in to help me.
He took about two months to heal and of course, our main concern at that point was finances. He had been out of work for nearly four months, so we were prepared to move back to Singapore without a job. However, his work place was very gracious and supportive and kept his job and even paid a big chunk of the hospital bill. By God’s grace he fully recovered and we could come home to Singapore in 2006.
We are always and forever grateful to God and to the wonderful doctor who operated on him. Now he is in good health and has been participating in Ironman races because God has given him a new back and new life.
For all that God had done for us, we decided to renew our vows to give thanks in 2007.
We held a simple dinner for just a few really close friends and our family, at Keppel Club’s Berlayer Terrace. My brother, who is a pastor, officiated the wedding anniversary service. Our talented friends sang and played the piano, and my husband wrote me a very cheem poem. Megan and Macy were just 8 and 4 then— Mia wasn’t planned yet.
“Instead of our original wedding vows, which were more like photocopied words provided by the church—haha—we wrote our own vows. We renewed our vows to remind ourselves that when God put two together, nothing shall divide us. What we went through in Hong Kong was tough and we wanted to remind ourselves that it was God and love that saw us through.
MAKING MARRIAGE WORK
We have attended many marriage prep courses—first as a couple and a few more as facilitators. Marriage is not easy, and such courses may seem lame to some, but they really impart a lot of techniques to help couples resolve conflict and learn to compromise. We felt that the courses helped us a lot with creating open communication with each other. To achieve “give and take” is not easy, but the techniques we learnt have made it more bearable.
Romance is important to us. One of the courses we went for was called ‘Growing Kids God’s Way’. We make it a point that our children see us spending time with each other, and not letting them interrupt us. We call it Couch Time. It gives them visuals of their parents showing love and spending time alone with each other.
Now that the kids are older, my husband and I go out for meals, attend courses together and we sometimes exercise together—and he even manages not to kill me, haha!
We often tell our children how difficult it is to put two people together for the long haul who have diverse backgrounds and different parenting styles. But my husband and I lead by example and show them that even if we have conflict, when we disagree over parenting choices, we stand together united, and the ultimate goal we both have is still to do the best that we can do for our family.
This year being our 25th anniversary, we don’t plan to renew our vows again, but we are very hopeful for a wine and food tour in Italy this September!
