“I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” - Rita Rudner

“Lately, the only thing I am passionate about is you,” said Tom to Lynette in Desperate Housewives. Ya, saya tonton lagi episod tersebut buat kali ketiga mungkin semalam. Whilst the statement kedengaran manis menggoda jiwa, I think that that is awfully unhealthy. Let me explain why.

I regard marriage as a sharing of goals, aspirations, dreams and lives of two individuals. Kita semua ada ciri-ciri individual kita sendiri and I think that maintaining your individuality is extremely important.

I mean, for a marriage to really work, I think you have got to give some time and space to yourself. And your partner needs his/hers as well. Sure, I really, really enjoy my husband’s company dan hobi utama saya adalah bersembang and do stuffs with him.

But I do need masa untuk diri sendiri; to read, to spend time with my friends, to watch my favourite shows, you know, the time to do what I like, things that makes me, me. And I understand his needs for that as well.

Dan perlulah ada personality dan ‘hidup’ masing-masing. Untuk bahagia, bukannya perlu turn into your significant other. Untuk bahagia, I rasalah, kita perlu embrace individuality kita, appreciate individuality dia and share and compromise in between. So he likes action movie and I’m into lovey-dovey kind; the right thing to do is to compromise. New Moon this week and Ninja Assassin will be next (I don’t mind anyway, have you seen the new and improved Rain? Wow) Ngeh. You know the drill lah.

Kalau kita hidup mati jiwa raga hanya untuk pasangan kita, bukankah kita akan jadi individu membosankan dan dependant tak tentu pasal macam parasit? Menempel setiap masa. Tak ada personaliti tersendiri. Mahu perhatian 24 jam. Merimaskanlah. I know I’d be rimas.

At the end of the day, I believe that you should never ever give up your individuality and all the little things that makes you special, sebab apart from the fact that you should always be true to who you are, sebenarnya who you are itulah yang buat dia jatuh cinta in the first place. Bukankah?

He’s cool, calm and perfectly collected.
And I’m cemerkap, bubbly and neurotic. Ngeh ngeh.

Pierre William Trudel in his article, ‘Marriage - Are You the Individual You Want to Be?’ wrote that after being married for 38 years, what he is most proud of is how he and his wife were both able to maintain their individuality and this is how they do it:

(1) Respect your need for time and space alone;
(2) Maintain goals that belong to you alone. Keep your interest alive, they are part of the reason the two of you are together;
(3) Share responsibilities. This do not mean to delegate but to share. There is no reason to have a boss at home when you have one at work;
(4) Decide most things together and listen to all your points of view. Really listen. Remember when you loved to hear the other talk when you first met? Never let go of those feelings.

Jadi, marilah kita menjadi passionate terhadap pasangan kita dan yang paling utama, terhadap diri kita sendiri! And while we're at that, let’s remember to always, always be true to who we are.