A tougher time for couples.

Dual-career couple, frequent and prolonged separation due to work, arguments over different extra-curricular interests, resentful over money issues and young kids to bring up.... Sound familiar? Just to name a few common obstacle modern couple are facing now a day.

I used to dwell on the personal "sacrifices" I was making as a husband and a father, until i realised this: You have to give up some things in order to build something bigger, better and more lasting than you could ever achieve on your own. This is esp real in building a family.

One thing for sure: Marriage isn't for wimps. There's something about marriage that, by definition, requires two people to give up "mine" and "yours" in order to create an "ours". And that's not an easy take consider this generation of focusing too much on individual achievement and self-interest.

Singapore has become a first world country from the 3rd. Our country are more successful than ever and so are our fellow men, and i am glad we are. But the down side is that sometimes we're so focus on achievement, that from childhood, we are encouraged to compere fiercely for success, recognition and material rewards, only to suddenly find these principles ill-suited to marriage. Perhaps that's why it's not uncommon these days to find couples who keep their financial resource secret, who fall out over divergent career demands, or who find it too hard to compromise their career and personal interests to have children.

I am humble to say that in my three years of marriage and one beautiful daughter, I am still finding out how tough it really is for a die-hard self-achiever to change a "me" perspective into an "us". Fortunately i have had enough fun when i was young and i do not hold any resume to become a career man, lol.....
I am just happy to be a loving husband and a caring dad, and what ever i do and sacrifices for my family, i will always do it with the strength of my loving daughter and a supportive and understanding wife.


Note for my wife: The world is going thru a rough time after many FI collapsed . Singapore are not spare from it either, many of us are starting to experience the recession coming thru, I am some how effected by a slowing demand of retail goods and my trips of handphone delivery are fewer than ever and it will affect my pay check somehow... I hope we can brave this tough time together and withstand all the obstical we may face concerning money. I believe we can go thru this together .


Above image are mainly for leisure and entertaining purpose. Both character are impressive fictional and do not represent any one of us.

Respecting your wife?

Well, this is esp in respond to Pottyhubby for his request of whether i should write a 2nd chapter about husband respecting the wife. I would say absolutely. But instead of using the word 'respect', i prefer to rephrase it to 'loving and serving your wife.
Allow me to illustrate :

If anyone had read carefully and noticed my last paragraph in my last entry, i'd stated and urged that a husband should remember the book from that he should love his wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. Why did the bible used the word 'love' instead of 'respecting' your wife?

In chapter 5:22 the apostle Paul told wives to summit to their husband, the fact that this teaching in our modern days is not popular is understood. According to the bible, the man is the spiritual head of the family, and his wife should acknowledge his leadership. Not the other way round. But real spiritual leadership involves service.

Like a good honest government, although have their power and authority, are responsible for the welfare and needs for his fellowmen and to serve them the best they can, hence the word 'civil servant'. Just as Christ served the disciples, even to the point of washing their feet, so the husband is to serve his wife. As for me, despite wanting respect from my wife as the head of the house, I will humbly massage her, made desert and served her and will also share the house chord.

Let me emphasise that, although the wives is to summit to the husbands and the husbands love and serve his wives, to a certain extend, the husband can sometime respect the wife too. But this respect is of a different kind, instead of respecting my wife like a head of the house or equivalent, i respect her in other form. like when i knew that she multi-tasted coking for me and looking after Gracia at the same time, I respect her. like when i know that she never gave up breast feeding to my daughter even though having a hard time on latching her in the beginning, I respect her. So the respect for her and the respect she should have for me is different.

My final conclusion is that :
A loving husband should never take advantage of his role in the house and abuse his authority, and the wives should respect the husbands and will not undermine his leadership. Either approach causes disunity and friction in marriage.

Anyway, Pottyhubby is a good and loving husband, I always take him as an example, he's a role model husband to me. Thank for reminding me to stress and emphasize on loving and respect the wife too, else someone who read my last entry and don't know me will think i am a 大男入.

Respect Your Husband

This topic is not targeting at anyone, not personally for my wife, not for any of my friend either. It can be for anyone whom she think it may concern. It may also be for Gracia when she grow up to be other people's wife. It can also be in respond to our Singapore government for urging their citizen to get married and have babies soon after. Anyway, it's just my two cents worth of comments.


It used to be said that love is blind and without condition, I guess it's not anymore in this generation. Women nowsaday are more knowledgeable. They read more, travel more, and many of them even earn more than their male counterpart. They are more capable than any of the generation before them. In fact in Berlusconi and Spain more than half of their cabinet minister are women.

I do not discriminate women, in fact i feel that women in our century have contributed much to the society and without them, our economy will not be as prosper as what it is now. But here comes a question, as how do those pool of women balance their ability they acquire into relationship and at work. Like i had said, love is not blind anymore, because women nowsaday read more, exposed more and know more and thus they judge more and will not choose anything below par, not even for the sake of just love anymore.

Women today may not need guys to earn alot because they themselves is capable of bringing bread onto their table, perhaps even more than that. But bread aside, they now require guys to be good in other area such as being a good, caring and responsible father whom will not only play with their children but also shower them, change their diaper, feed, teach, nurture them and the likes. Not limited in this area of fatherhood, it's best that if he can perform as well as being an excellent son-in-law, a caring husband and a capable employee at his work place. A new age husband who doesn't read will have no advantage over those who can't read at all.
Many of my lower educated friends who doesn't upgrade or read to keep themselves updates on general issues find it hard to please a local women. Most of them end up marrying foreign lady, mostly from third world country such as Vietnam, Thailand or rural China.

If i were to be a local women, who went to school and got a decent certificate. Travel as much, read, earn and know alot. I would probably do the same and will not compromise choosing someone much below my standard and have difficulty communicating with me. While it's not wrong to ask for someone whom is intellectually capable of exchanging ideas, dreams and aspiration with you. Have you yourself forgotten how to put down all your knowledge, all your status, skills and power you attained and just be a loving and caring women or wife.

My advise to a happy marriage is that, while it is absolutely normal for a intelligent, clever and smart lady to ask for the same if not more for a partner. Don't forget you're still a women and the man you're going to love deserve respect from you. If you want a truly fine husband, respect him at the level at which you want him to reach. A man will usually not rise above the level at which his wife respects him.” This is a general principle, not a hard and fast rule because God does not put accountability or responsibility for a man’s character on his wife.
Nevertheless, strong evidence indicates a woman holds great power to make or break a man. In his book His Needs, Her Needs, Willard Harley amends the saying “Behind every great man is a great woman” to “Behind every great man is an admiring wife.”

So my two cents worth of advise is that, choose the best you can and want for a husband. But never bring in your power, knowledge and your superiority into the relationship and forget about respecting your him as the head of the family.


Here is a guide on :
10 Steps Towards Respecting Your Husband

Remember, God is working on you and your husband. You can both learn from your failures as well as your successes. Give God the freedom to teach your husband through failure. In the same way, give God the freedom to teach you to trust Him through your husband’s failure.

And finally for all the husband - Remember Ephesians 5:33 = Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."