On the surface it looks like I’ve got it all together, especially at work, but trust me, I fail at #adulting. No one knows this better than the F Man.
Guess who is the one who:
- Drags me out of bed when I’m like “NO! Five (hundred) more minutes!”
- Reminds me to eat my meals for sustenance
- Tells me that I should sleep earlier (But no, sleep is for the weak!)
- Alerts me that it’s that time of the month… to put aside our monthly savings (“Because it’s not how much you earn, it’s how much you save!”)
- …and prods me to go for our dental appointments
So needless to say, we sometimes squabble about the stupidest things like when I mess up the room and “conveniently” forget to clean it. It’s sheer determination that we’ve made things work for us.
When we first started dating, we would always get into fights about how late I was and how long he had to wait for me.
I’m reportedly as reliable as Singapore’s “famous” MRT.
Other times we’d quarrel about how I would hardly spend quality time with him and am always on my phone.
There’s a long running joke between us, that I hold my iPhone more than I’ll ever hold his hand. Sad… but not necessarily untrue.
This all-too-common “phenomenon” was one of the findings discussed at the Prudential Relationship Index Launch last week.
32% of people say their partners sometimes prefer their mobile phones to being intimate with them.
That’s not at all surprising when I have a problem with controlling phone usage, myself. I’m constantly on my iPhone, checking out updates on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram almost mindlessly on infinite scroll.
Even during the Prudential Relationship Index forum, I fought the urge to use my phone unnecessarily, but I caught myself distracted by Instagram more than once during the forum and ended up reading a string of WhatsApp messages that came in about work as the panelists ironically shared about whether we’re obliged to respond immediately for work and how we should prioritise work life with our personal life.
The brutal reality is, it will only get harder making things work when we eventually get married because according to the Prudential Relationship Index, 24% of married people in Singapore, think seriously about leaving their partners at least once a week.
What struck me was when one of the panelists, Ms Angela Hunter, Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President of Prudential Singapore mentioned, “It’s interesting that we spend so much time, you know, focusing on the effort we put into our jobs to be successful, but we don’t look at our relationships the same way. Most great things in life require effort and commitment.”
We spend so much time, you know, focusing on the effort we put into our jobs to be successful, but we don’t look at our relationships the same way.
It’s true, isn’t it? We often take our partners for granted, choosing to invest in our work rather than personal life even when its relationship with our spouses are where most Singaporeans derive most fulfilment from. The panel also discussed the possibility of creating a ritual as a means of putting in a kind of structure and effort into maintaining the relationship between partners and keeping it strong.
The F Man and I have our strained days and so far we’ve always fought through it. For us, the only way out is through and we often pummel through our arguments with a single-minded desire to make things work even if we have disagreements even in terms of our beliefs, upbringing and expectations of our expected roles in a relationship… and also, who gets the last nom nom. (That would be me.)
At the end of the day though, we meet halfway and it’s always when he brings on his unique brand of cheeky humour and I let loose on my sarcastic eye roll. I guess, this is our ritual.
It isn’t super romantic and definitely not embedded in our weekly activities or dinners at the same ‘ol restaurant, but in our approach to laughing at ourselves when there may not be a resolution to be found. Like when we both laughed at how we managed to screw up our shinkansen experience and got stranded at Gifu instead of arriving at Gero.
I guess then it’s fitting and may not just be a coincidence that the Relationship Index found that laughter is at the heart of strong relationships in Singapore.
Laughter is at the heart of strong relationships in Singapore.
After all guys, if you make a woman laugh, she’s probably gonna forget the argument… until the next time you screw up that is. Good enough.
Found these findings interesting? Discover more from this Prudential Relationship Index video below, website and Facebook page.
#RelationshipReconnect #RelationshipIndex
This post was brought to you by Prudential Singapore.
The post The Brutal Realities of Modern Relationships According to the Prudential Relationship Index and How to Make Things Work appeared first on CARRIE SIM.