Career or Marriage, which is more important?
Take a good look at myself, I was engaged at quite a young age - being head over heel with my ex, thinking that marriage is more important than any other things and that we can manage ourselves and our family after getting married.
Answer: WRONG.
First of all, getting married is not cheap. Well it's supposed to be, but if you add in all the culture influences it becomes extremely expensive.
When my ex first agreed to engagement - footnote: there was never a proposal, so basically it was just an agreement - he was put in a spot with regards to the duit hantaran. Me being me, I know that my parents will put a hefty price tag on my head. Not because I'm highly educated or good in cooking, sewing, all the other house chores, but because of some other private family only stuff and that I'm their last child and being a daughter, it's definitely not gonna be cheap.
And it's not that I don't try, I did, lotsa time to negotiate with my parents to reduce the amount to something more realistic, but my parents can never seem to bulge. Even after much persuasion to reduce it to at least SGD 8,000.00, in the end, during the merisik, they agreed on SGD 10,000.00.
Thinking about it now, I think that that was one of the most pressurizing factors that eventually affected our relationship. The fact that he was in much deeper shit hole cause apart from the duit hantaran, he still have to save up for the dowry, the wedding gifts, the majlis itself.
Both our family has high expectations from us since he's the eldest and I'm the youngest so even wanting to have one combined majlis instead of two was a big hu-ha.
Next, put wedding preparation aside, we still have to think about our future house. BTO, renovation, furnitures. I also wanted to own a family car before getting married so that I can at least settle like 1/3 of the cost before having additional cost to maintain.
Not to forget that we were fairly young at that time, and partying was also a must at that point of time. Even though eventually I started to wake up.. It was too late cause we were used to our carefree life and I became a workaholic instead trying to make ends meet so that our dream wedding can come through..
I disregard the importance of time management and our bonding sessions, putting work as the priority and it just fell apart..
Now that I'm older, and definitely wiser even if it's by a bit, I feel that I was so stupid for everything that has happened but I'm also thankful that I went thru it cause people definitely learn from our mistakes.
Present time - 2014, focusing on my career, and travelling around the world, exploring myself further, I think that is what matters most to me right now. If you're not ready for all the challenges, don't get married. And if you don't have a stable income, think it thru over and over again because in Singapore, there's no such thing as managing what you have if you don't have enough. It becomes a painful struggle. If you're weak, you'll never be able to make it out. Problems will eat you alive. Marriage can come later, when you're both stable and ready.
Just my two cents opinion.
