Dear fiancé,
If there's something I'm afraid of right now, it would be commitments.
Remember how I used to be so enthusiastic about settling down, getting a house of my own, making babies, planning my beautiful dream wedding, a 1 day event that I would want to remember for the rest of my life (provided the marriage is worth the bucks spent).
But over a span of 9 months that I'm engaged, not a single thing changed. I have went from being positive about basically everything to someone who won't even spare a second thought about anything.
Seeing couples get engaged after us, and that same couples already taking several steps ahead of us in terms of wedding preparations, really tick me off. Because honestly, 9 months after being engaged, we haven't planned a single thing, nor scout for any deco/catering vendors, photography services and the likes.
We were supposed to be tying the knot earliest next year, latest in February 2015. We were SUPPOSED to. The engagement has been extended and the wedding is set to be on November 2015. I am against it, but who am I anyway, people won't listen to me anyway, or why I am against it.
But because we must always TRY to understand other people's plight, so we must ALWAYS accommodate to other people's needs.
Right.
Like as if my parent's aren't getting older. Look, my dad is 64. a RETIREE. I have some medical condition. And I have some unresolved family issues that I want to break away from BADLY and as soon as I possibly can. But people won't understand that. This year's Hari Raya, my grandaunt cried when she learnt that I was already engaged, she cried saying if she can ever live to see me get married. WHICH BREAKS MY HEART I cried too. I have never really shed my tears in front of people I'm not comfortable with, but I did.
Maybe I'm still lucky my father is still in the pink of health even with his existing high blood pressure and knee pain, and that he hasn't developed any kind of sickness from all the lazing around watching TV all day. What if something happens to him and he doesn't live to see me get married and have his own grandchildren? It's bad enough that his only son passed away much too soon and all he have now is me, the adopted daughter who he relies on.
9 months on since the engagement, and it feels like the world's on my shoulder. With nothing planned, with nothing that I had imagined in my mind being accomplished, I am now left with nothing but regrets.
I regretted I took the risk and agreed on the engagement proposal. Why did I say risk? I risked my time and effort in investing for someone to change. Because someone was insisting that the engagement is going to bring some good, the responsibility that arises from being engaged will pressure him to do better in life, will give him the drive to work harder.
But 3 months into the engagement, all that I felt was misery, disappointments, hurt, deceit.
It had come to a point where I just suddenly break down into tears at home and screamed, like a patient in IMH, that I wanted to break off the engagement. And that is when, my parents learnt of the truth. The cold, hard truth.
I am not one who shares problems openly with my parents, especially relationship problems. Because somehow, parents will often think that they are much more experienced and will know what's best for their children. If I let them know of my problems, they'll judge, especially my father, and they'll start to think negatively of my partner, something that I wish to avoid. Besides, if my parents learn of the bad traits of my partner, it isn't going to be something good because if my fate is to get married with that same flawed person, my partner will have to live the whole of his life with the negative stigma and being constantly judged.
I know I'm not perfect, that I'm flawed in my own ways. I know I didn't handle my relationship problems well in the initial phase of dating; blasting and flaring away on facebook and all that crap. But if you had treated me better, then I wouldn't have find any reasons to complain about. And now, after 3+ years, you expect me to read your facial expressions like a book, something that I seriously can't master.
3 years on, all the wishes and dreams I had carved in my head, disappeared into thin air.
I am now afraid of commitment. Afraid of committing my time, effort and money just to see it go to waste. Wasted by people who claimed to appreciate all that I've done but no traces of them reciprocating what I did for them. No, I'm not asking for anything in return, I'm just asking for you to realize where you stand and the responsibilities you should be taking.
I seriously am wondering how women who earns 3x more than their husbands survive through the marriage. Is it through give & take, mutual understanding or sharing the burden together? Even though I earn much more than him, I do expect him to be the one footing all the bills, and I'll just chip in on the menial expenditures.
At the rate that this post is going, probably you may think "what a money minded bitch this is". Which is partly true, yes, I admit that I'm all in for the money because it's not easy living in shitty Singapore. I might as well don't get married if marriage will only burden me and strip me off my comfortable life. And I'm only saying COMFORTABLE life, not a life full of luxuries. I don't ask for a Prada or a Chanel for my birthday, and I don't expect to be chauffeured around in cars, I'm pretty much a simple young lady who gets her way around in her own bike with a brandless slingbag bought off qoo10.sg .
What good is a marriage if a large part of my role is to be overtaking the duties that a husband is supposed to shoulder?
What good is a marriage if a wife isn't being treated the way she needs to be treated? Let's not talk about being a wife yet, as of now, no words could express how disappointed I am to not getting the treatment that a women is supposed to get.
With the engagement hitting turbulence when not a single thing has been planned for the wedding, I shudder to even think about the problems that may arise if we really got so far and tied the knot. Because after marriage, the problems doesn't stop there. Perhaps it's a good thing we didn't manage to secure a ballot number for the HDB Build-to-order exercise early this year, otherwise I'm sure as heck I will be taking more risk and shoulder more responsibilities than I already am right now.
What if we had a house, and what if God grants me with a child 9 months after the wedding?
Who will foot the bills?
Who will pay for the renovation loans?
Who will foot the hospitalization bills?
Who will pay for groceries?
Who will be the one paying for most of the stuffs?
It's bad enough that I'm saving my side of the wedding on my own, and HE is able to split the cost of the wedding with his sister and the fiancé. So don't I deserve that extra attention and recognition since I'm a one man show when it comes to the expenses even though I earn ~3 times more than him?
Not sure if I should take more risk and wait till November twenty-fucking-fifteen and see if he has gotten his funds READY. because my wish is to get married and have kids by the time I turn 25, but in November 2015, I turn 26 and well, what's the point of hoping?
Someone refuse to understand of the condition I'm having. It's okay, I'm done being concern over other people and having other's interests at heart. I'm done sourcing out various means of improving oneself, because if you had cared, if you had the brains to think, you'd change right from the start you fell.
You know the saying "once bitten, twice shy"? I'm stupid enough to let myself be bitten countless of times yet still telling myself something positive will come out from this struggle. But I let myself struggle much to long and it's affecting me, the people around me. I should have turned into who I am the first few times shit happen, so that someone realizes the diamond that he's going to lose if he still decides to laze around and continue being useless to his ownself and he people around him.
I felt like I've been taken advantage of more than ever, and that I deserve much better treatment than what I'm getting now.
It's disappointing enough that someone whom you thought you loved and loved you back treat you this way. That someone feels that it's okay to be living off someone else's hard earned money. That it's okay to not take the initiative to improve and help shred the weight of the burden on someone else's shoulder.
It's easy to say that you appreciate my efforts, but right now I really appreciate if you could have proven that my efforts is indeed instilling a sense of change in yourself.
Oh wait, there's no more chances for you now. I might be gone even before you know it.
Yours Truly,
The fiancée whom you never knew.
