Yesterday marked I and Iris’ 4th wedding anniversary. Time really flies very fast and
it has been 4 years of growing as a couple, whether in understanding our
individual roles, responsibilities and functions as a husband and wife, or in
working on our relationship to keep it growing and glowing. Certainly as a
couple, Iris and I are perhaps only at the beginning phase of our marriage, and
hopefully by the grace of God we will continue to grow in love and in the Lord
with each passing year.
Any newlyweds face
challenges upon their fresh embarkment into marriage. Iris and I were no
different. Our challenges perhaps were more daunting and uphill given the
circumstances we were thrown into. We had to be accustomed to living in a
3-room HDB apartment with my parents while awaiting for our Build-To-Order
(BTO) flat at Buangkok. That in itself, was more challenging for my wife than
for me.
You see, Iris’ first
challenge was to get used to living with me. That was what every newlyweds,
husbands or wives, had to adapt to. This included sleeping with someone beside
you every night, bearing with the other person’s habits and otherwise different
living patterns. Other than that, things that were once mine-only had to be
shared—your private space, your private life, wardrobe, bathrooms, and of course,
your comfy bed.
To add to that, my
wife had to get accustomed to living in a smaller, more constricted living
space in my 3-room HDB flat. A home that was once a 105 sqm living quarters was
suddenly shrunk to a 64 sqm living space. Furthermore, the space was already
cramped with household and personal items belonging to my parents. Spaces for
privacy and the room creativity were definitely limited to almost nil.
For any spouse,
living with your parents-in-law will always be a challenge. I supposed staying
under the same roof with my parents would not come easy for Iris as well. Dad
has his own temper and uncommon habits, and together with his refusal to
communicate and to wear a friendly face within the home, it spelt a difficult
time for all of us to live with him, something that even Mum acknowledged.
Disappointments and
uneasiness filled the home during the initial few years of our marriage. There
were also moments of broken promises (by an elder of the family), ignorance and
foolishness (when we were attacked by bed bugs in the home), and unreasonable
expectations by others outside of the immediate household. It was a trying
time, to be honest.
Meanwhile, Iris and I
also decided to make a bold move—we’ve decided to move out of Bartley in March
2013 to Covenant Evangelical Free Church at Woodlands, and this means I had to
leave my role in facilities management in the church to take on property
management at a small property and facilities management company. It was a time
of transition, but this transition proved to be wisely-taken as it has helped
Iris and I to find a more comfortable spiritual home with a warm spiritual
community.
As the years went by,
things were beginning to look positive for us when the letter for our parent’s
BTO flat in Sembawang was delivered to us. Their BTO flat at Montreal came a few
months earlier than ours and we were looking forward to demolishing this
uneasiness of living together with my parents in the same flat. Arrangements
were not easily made though, and we had to coordinate the moving out and
shifting into a new flat just after the Chinese New Year in 2014 on behalf of
the immovable father figure.
Our third year
together also saw us receiving the long-awaited letter from HDB to collect the
keys to our first BTO home in Buangkok in March 2015. By then, Iris and I were
the only occupants in our Ang Mo Kio flat, but we were hit by new HDB rules for
resale of flats, which required us to either sell our flat with the freshly
validated valuation report of our flat, or risk selling our flat at a
negotiated price which could mean a much lower Cash-Over-Valuation (COV) amount.
In the end, by God’s grace, we’ve managed to sell off our flat at around
S$350,000 with a small amount of COV added to our account.
While our collection
of BTO keys was primarily on a happy note, we had reluctantly allowed HDB to
‘empty’ our CPF accounts to offset the purchase price of our BTO flat. Of
course, Iris felt the pinch harder as her hard-earned CPF contributions were used
to offset our new home loan, whereas I used the returned CPF monies from the
sale of our Ang Mo Kio flat to redeem our HDB loan at a later stage. With the
cash proceeds from the sale of our flat, we repaid my dad and sis for the
initial renovation loan for the AMK flat, my mum for her CPF share of the
repayment towards the AMK flat.
So much for the
financial aspects, we did not had a happy time either when it came to
renovations. We had chosen to give my ex-national service friend an opportunity
to do up our house after being impressed by the fine work and quality finish.
However, he miscalculated on his work schedule, had trouble managing his
sub-contractors and we could only move in about 2 months later, despite paying
up almost in full upfront.
The move from an old
estate to a new one was certainly a mixed one. Our previous Ang Mo Kio flat was
blessed with much facilities, ranging from coffeeshops (4 of them including a
food centre all within a 1km distance!), to basic shopping amenities, a barber
and a clinic (at the block just opposite us), and not forgetting the Bishan-Ang
Mo Kio park and Ang Mo Kio swimming complex just a stone’s throw away! Also,
the petrol kiosk is at the entrance of our surface car park and the AMK Hub is
just a 10-minutes walk.
However, our Buangkok
flat has its own advantages as well. The North-East Line (NEL) MRT station is
just a 3-minutes walk from our block and definitely our current flat at 92 sqm
is much more spacious and liveable in comparison to an old layout at 64 sqm.
Even though we are 2-3km away from the Tampines Expressway (TPE), the Central
Expressway (CTE) is also slightly farther though it is far more reachable when
we were at our Ang Mo Kio flat. Of course, you possibly cannot have the best of
both worlds within your reach, and nonetheless Iris and I were thankful for God’s
provision of our first home.
God has been good to us for the past 4 years. Though we had our quarrels and fights as a couple, we are still learning to be patient, understanding, and thoughtful to each other. We may not be perfect in our roles as a couple, but hopefully and prayerfully, through prayer and attentive to the voice of God, we can learn to be better partners that brings out the best in us through encouragements and love.
