if future fatumnette turns out to be some gold digging harpy
from the gutters, or even someone like you've described, then it'll
be the biggest mistake of my life ... but it still won't be
something I'd hedge ...
some things in life you jump in with eyes wide open .....
I like to think of marriages as something like having kids .....
you think long and hard about whether you'd managed, whether if
your kid will turn into those terror tykes on MRTs, whether they'll
be smart enough to do well in the PSLE, whether they'll fall into
bad company, whether they'll be able to get into uni, whether it'll
be expensive .... whether the CPF would be enough for the school
fees .... yadda yadda .....
you can't hedge the risks of having a kid ... there are no
"reset" modes for that ... once the BB pops out, the babe's your
responsibility for better or worse, whether the kid turns out to be
the next einstein or forrest gump, whether he's well behaved or a
terror ... you give him or her unconditional love, without
reservations, without holding anything back .....
I think marriage, and love, is exactly the same thing ... it
should be unconditional, without reservations, without holding
anything back ... that is why people don't fall in love, or even in
crush, every day ... because the primal instinct is to cherish and
love and protect and give your all for that person.
if your secret heart says "look, something may go wrong in the
future, she may turn out to be not who I want, or what I had
imagined her to be" .... then I have to say that you've either
jumped in with eyes wide shut, that you haven't known her well
enough, or did not test the person well enough, before you commit,
it'll be your mistake alone ....
or perhaps really, you don't really love her all that much ...
certainly not enough anyways .... if your secret heart is saying
such things to you before the big leap, then I'd suggest holding
back and re-evaluating what the other person really means to you
..... "oh sure, this is the person I'm sharing my life with till
death to us part, to share all the joys and pains, the laughters
and the sorrows, the good times and the bad, the person who I'd
share my inner most fears and hopes with, my most intimate thoughts
and actions, the one who'd succor me in the bad times, the one I'd
go to for comfort and she too in turn .... the one who'll
share all my burdens .... but I just draw the line at sharing my
fortune with, her ? " ..... errrrrmmmm .... okaaaay ... that
doesn't sound quite, right, does it ?
I'd never let anyone whom I've not prepared to share everything
with, into my life ...
if someone were to ask me to sign a pre-nup, I'd simply walk
away, that person is NOT the one ....... for I know, in her
secret heart, she's already thought of her options for leaving me
....
Pre-nups not about not sharing during the marriage, but
protecting what is originally yours in the aftermath of a split, so
that some things don't get liquidated and you still have them, just
as at the start of the marriage.
As for kids, while you don't have much control over how quickly
they develop, you try to manipulate (or mould) them into whatever
you want them to be by teaching them values, enrolling them in
top-notch schools and sending them for whatever enrichment classes,
in the hope that it will influence the result somehow.
It's not the same with marriage. There's no such thing as
knowing enough about a person to commit. And there's no such thing
as trust that is given freely without prerequisites to earn it or
conditions to maintain it.
You'll be surprised how quickly they can change under a
different set of testing circumstances, or different temptations,
when someone else's opinion starts to matter more or when one more
day or compromise is one too many. And more surprises await when
they start taking advice from unsavoury sources to heart.
Why make the process of letting go harder by allowing the things
that you treasure to become her trophies or souvenirs?
