I proposed to my wife again after our marriage hit rock-bottom during Circuit Breaker

Soft truths to keep Singapore from stalling.

Mothership | June 13, 2020, 12:15 PM

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FIRST-PERSON: The Covid-19 outbreak has taken a toll on livelihoods and families. For a 20-something-year-old Singaporean, he shares how financial difficulties from the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to a breakdown of his marriage.

In this piece, he also opens up about how they managed to work through their difficulties after a period of separation.


We were in debt

It started out sometime in February, when my wife and I got into a heated argument.

The argument involved me not being able to support the family due to financial difficulties from debts.

I kept changing jobs and did not contribute to our monthly needs. It was hard for me as I am a self-employed freelancer, the same as my wife. This source of income was frozen during Covid-19.

So to support both of our monthly needs, my wife decided to take on more jobs such as renovation and event project management.

I took up a delivery job and always returned home in a foul mood

As for myself, I took up a delivery job with Lalamove.

Each day, I would earn about S$150-S$200 after working for 12 hours or more, just to pay off our debts.

During this period, my wife always greeted me at the door with a smile and made sure I had food.

However, I always returned home with a sour face from things that happened on the road.

I guess as a delivery guy, most of us are usually in an angsty state, as a result of our experiences with either customers or other road users.

Upon reflection, I realise that I have been taking my wife for granted.

I made the unwise move of messaging my ex, and that led to my wife moving out

One day, in a moment of stupidity, I decided to message my ex for a catch-up, who then forwarded my messages to my wife via Instagram.

That was when things then started going downhill between my wife and I.

When she asked about the incident, I was shocked and did not know how to react. I no longer had any feelings for my ex; I only just wanted to clear things up between us.

My wife was unable to stand it any longer and said that she will move back to her father's place as she needed to be away from me for sometime.

Unable to stand the feeling of my wife's absence, I texted and pestered her on a daily basis to come home.

About a week later, I guilt-tripped her into coming home, to which she did so reluctantly.

Eventually, she returned to her father's place again

Subsequently, she received a new project to manage and became extremely busy, holding meetings on Zoom that went late into the night.

After a few days of such continuous meetings, I had enough as I could not get much sleep. I tossed and turned a couple of times as her meetings always ended late.

I began to feel neglected and started thinking that she was cheating on me with another man.

I became even more annoying and persistent until she said she had enough, whereby she decided to leave and stay at her father's place once again.

She banned me from contacting her

On May 29, I was told by my wife to neither call nor message her on any social media platform until June 5.

She also placed me on a restricted list, preventing me from viewing her Instagram stories. Essentially, I did not know what was going on. It was hard. Really really hard.

This whole situation made me even angrier, and perpetuated further negative thoughts, such as thoughts that she was with another man.

I begged her to come home and give me a chance but she insisted that I give her the space and time that she needed.

She told she did not love me anymore, and added that separation was the best way for us. She also told me to move on because I kept begging and coming to her almost everyday.

I almost gave up on our marriage – I thought there was nothing else that could be done to save our marriage and that I just had to accept the fact that this marriage was not going to work.

In the time that I had been living apart from my wife, I felt the pain of her physical absence and going to sleep without her beside me really took an emotional toll. I cried until I felt numb, and even began thinking about how I was going to cope alone.

However, this period gave me the chance to reflect on our relationship.

It made me realise how much I regret hurting her, and made me even more determined to save our marriage instead of simply giving up.

I tried meeting her at the void deck of her father's place

June 3 arrived, and I texted her brother to ask if she was home. Her brother said she was not. It was about 10pm and I was in Jurong at my mother's.

So I drove over and waited at the void deck. My mind was imagining things. I visualised a stranger sending her home and I was all ready to start a fight if that was really the case. But above all, I only wanted to see her.

At about 11:30pm, I saw her walking back home.

She asked, "What are you doing here?" I replied that I simply wanted to see her because I could not bear it any longer.

To my surprise, she walked up to me, opened her arms wide and offered a hug.

She said she missed me, and had been thinking about us earlier in the day. I guessed the "no contact mode" she requested helped a lot during the situation.

I proposed to her again

I decided that I had to win my wife back.

On June 7, I planned out a surprise that involved me writing notes, sealed in envelopes. Each envelope contained a letter that made up a sentence saying "Bella, will you be my wife again?"

"Bella, will you be my wife again?" She looked at me and saw me holding her wedding ring.

Photo courtesy of contributor

She teared up, and said yes.

She opened her arms wide and gave me what was the warmest hug after so long. She also told me "I love you" – a phrase that meant so much after what we had been through.

I apologised to my wife and told her how much she really meant to me.

She will return home in July

For now, we still are living separately because I want to give her the space and time to fully recover from our dispute.

Being apart has made me realise that we need to candidly talk about the problems we have, for instance, the issue of our financial debts.

We also had to work through how we were going to split our responsibilities as a couple, and lay down some ground rules regarding each other's actions that we can all agree on.

Most importantly, we agreed that we have to help each other out in times of need.

This coming July, she will return home and we will start living together again. This time, I will not squander the second chance that I have been given.

I have realised how important it is to remain open-minded, even during instances where its hard to accept and feel for one another.

It will take a lot of effort and wisdom in balancing out our differences and keeping to the agreements we have made.

For instance, we have agreed on the need to remain calm and understanding in the face of disagreements. This is especially for myself, who tends to become emotionally-charged during arguments.

A marriage that only has words without actions will see recurring problems in the future.

Please do not take your spouse for granted – I share this story in the hopes that it can be an inspiration to other couples out there to be more loving with each other especially during this pandemic.

If you happen to be arguing or fighting with your spouse, just take a second to breathe or stop and walk away from the situation. Give it a rest and reconnect with each other when both of you have cooled down.

To all those who may be having some difficulties: Stay strong, we will get through this.

Top image left photo courtesy of contributor, right photo by Josh Sherrill via Flickr

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