What’s the magic formula for a building a good relationship? There is no magic formula which suits all, but my magic formula is to put myself in someone else’s shoes. My wife and I have been dating for 10 years before stepping into our marriage journey. Throughout these 10 years of dating life, we rarely quarrelled because we have learned to be sensitive to each other’s feelings. The lives between dating and marriage are totally different. Marriage requires 33% commitment, 33% responsibility and 34% mutual trust. This magic formula works best for my marriage life. Why is there a 1% more for mutual trust? The reason is because better mutual trust will lead to better commitment and responsibility in a relationship.
Who’s In Charge Of Money?
Surely, before marriage, many men will be worried if they have to commit 80% of their monthly salary to their wives’ bank account. If the fiancé agrees with it, then it will be a commitment. For my wife and myself, we don’t control each other’s finances but we do have a joint account for future uses, such as housing renovation and child’s education. As for expenses, we have our own responsibilities – for example, I monitor the utility bills and my wife monitors our weekly supermarket expenses. This is how we manage our cash flow at home.
Anyone Loves Household Chores?
Household chores can be very tiring especially when you have to do it after work. Usually, if my wife is doing the cooking, I will do the washing after dinner. We will always do a thorough house cleaning on Sundays. If I were to put a percentage for our household chores, I would say 70% for me and 30% for my wife.
Will technology hurt relationships?
My answer will be yes. With so many portable digital devices on our palms today, couples will spend a lot of time scrolling through social media and messaging their friends. While this mode of communication can help bridge the gap between us and loved ones who are physically away from us, it can, unfortunately, cause us to distance people who are physically present with us.
Despite 80% of my time is on the computer and iPhone due to work, I will still try to free myself to be there for my family such as watching television together and saying bedtime stories to my boy. I will also often share with my wife about my work so that she will understand. I believe that technology will not hurt my relationship with my wife if I play a good role as a Dad and husband in the family.
Relationship With My Child
When I had my first child, I was totally lost in life. After many weeks passed, the knowledge of parenting came naturally. Everyone knows that young children are very mischievous and handling them can sometimes be very tricky.
At the age of 4, my boy messes up the whole house every day. He has successfully turned the house upside down! Before bedtime, my wife and I will need to spend 15 minutes to tidy up the mess my boy has created. Weekends are the worst!
When comes to parenting, I play 70% as a Dad and 30% as a friend to my child. As a Dad, it is very important to have house rules to keep my child’s behaviour under control. House rules are not meant for my child to fear me, but to let him know who is in charge at home. Today, he knows that whining and screaming will not work on me. Instead, he would want me to tidy up his toys together with him.
Want To Know More About Building Good Relationships?
If you want to know more about building a good family relationship, you can join an in-depth forum discussion on Thursday, 20 October 2016, 6.30pm via Facebook Live on Prudential Singapore’s Facebook page. Gurmit Singh will be hosting the forum with a special comedy segment, and there will be various relationship experts who will share more on this topic. Prudential will be sharing highlights on relationship satisfaction from its 2016 Prudential Relationship Index, where 5,000 people in Singapore, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam were surveyed. Definitely worth watching!
To find out more, please visit https://www.prudentialrelationshipindex.com/sg/.
