Having A Friend 24/7
It may sound immature, but I always thought being in a marriage means you will always have a friend, in good or bad. I know, I know... being in your early 20s, your life still revolves around your closest friends and it's not wrong. But everyone's got their own lives, priorities, and other things, hence they can't attend to your needs 24/7. But I believe husband and wife indirectly have that obligation towards one another. Compromises might be needed at times, but I'm sure most of the time, you'll have always have a friend there for you.
Be Real with Financials
When you are still young and single, you'll most likely splurge on yourself - fancy dining, designer items, travels, etc. But when you're married and (especially) if you move out from your parents house, that's when financial reality hits. You now have to pay your own rent, utility bills, groceries, etc. I was already pretty frugal and good with savings and financial management before I got married, but I was forced to be even smarter in managing our household financials once I was married. And once we have a mortgage, financial management becomes even trickier as we were just scrambling trying to find savings here and there. This has also opened our eyes that we need more than just savings account, we had to invest. Sometimes I feel like we haven't done our best in building our savings and investment. But when I had a look in our investment and progress saver account, we're actually doing quite well (I'm just too hard on myself most of the time).
"Halal" Relationship
Pacaran? The Indonesian term of "being in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship". For me, it's nothing than just a waste of time, money, and energy with the wrong person. Good on you if you married your long-time "pacar". Unfortunately, it just didn't work for me. I remember thinking, "it must be really stupid if I ended up with someone whom I barely know for more than 6 months". True that. I said "yes" to my husband whom I had known for less than 4 months. And because we've only known each other for less than 4 months, we've decided to extend our "honeymoon phase" after we got married, which eventually lasted for more than 3 years LOL. By being married, I can actually enjoy the relationship we have and feel secure about it. I know I'm going to the movies, dining out, trying new things, and traveling with the right person and not wasting my energy. Sometimes we do have our fight and arguments, but which family doesn't?
Achieving Things Together
I think this is what I love most about our marriage. We get to do stuff together and achieve things together. I love our last trip together to Melbourne. No kids yet, so we get to enjoy the trip like all normal guys-gals relationship. And the best thing about it is that we're halal! So our parents need not to worry about us going on a trip together (duh!). Also, in the past 4 years, we were able to achieve the unthinkables (at least for us): a job (for me), hajj trip, and finally "renting" our own home. It may look like that we "got lucky" to have those opportunities (I'm not saying that we're not lucky), but all of those did come with hard work, sacrifices, faith, and lots of tears. With each ups and downs, husband and I learned that we will always be dependant on each other. And when we're able to achieve things by working together and supporting each other, that's when we know that we're a great team.
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Not all people may agree with me because everyone's circumstances are different. But I'm just sharing my personal experience and chipping in my two cents :). I know quite plenty of people who got married even younger than me, and their relationship is still going strong.
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