The first 5 years of our marriage

Salam

The early years of marriage can be rocky terrain, but they also provide the chance to build a strong foundation for marriage in the years ahead. The long-term success of a marriage depends heavily on how well spouses make the adjustment during the first five years.

Hubby and I have reached the first phase of our marriage i.e. our 5 years wedding anniversaries on last Thursday (22/08/2008 - 22/08/2013). 

We didn't plan any sort of celebration as we were both busy with tight schedule but we decided to have a dine out at Sushi King to reminisce the good old day of our 4 years stay in Japan. In fact, our previous wedding anniversaries were celebrated in Japan. *refer :  1st wedding annivesary at RoboSquare, Celebrating 2nd Wedding Anniversary on a Cruise Ship, 3rd Wedding Anniversary Celebration and (WW 33) : 4th Anniversary Gift*. 

+- dine out at Sushi King , cake from Cuppacake B'licious & Baskin Robbin -+

We didn't even prepare any gift to exchange for our 5th wedding anniversaries but I'm pretty sure both of us feels really thankful to reach our first 5 years of our marriage and to be able to face the most challenging 5 years of living together despite all the differences in us.

Here are some of the most 5 memorable challenges that we faced in our first 5 years of marriage :-

(1) My mom passed away 2 months before my wedding date

The first challenge that we faced as a couple begin with my emotional condition when my mom passed away on 24th June 2008 while we were supposed to get married on 22nd August 2008. At first I don't want to proceed my wedding on the planned date, I wanted to postponed the wedding but my close family persuaded me to proceed as this is what my late mom want to see if she is still alive. In fact, she has settle done with 95% of the wedding preparation as if she knew that she'll be leaving us. *refer :  Setahun sudah berlalu, Memoirs of Ma : LHR airport,Memoirs of Ma: Quotes of my family, Friday the 13th dan Mother's Day??

Alhamdulillah the wedding went on as planned although I was not in my best condition at that time. A part of me was still grieving about the loss of my mom and there's also a part of me that was delighted to be able to finally get married to my dream guy.

(2) Living far away with hubby after a month of marriage

We had to live a Long Distance Relationship life after only a month of our marriage when hubby went to Kyushu, Japan for his PhD and I had to stay in Malaysia as I was in the earliest stage of pregnancy. We survived the 2 months living away with each other by having video conference every single night.  Even when he's sleeping, he still needs to make sure that the web cam is connected so that I'd be able to see him in that tiny laptop screen. (-_-'') *refer: S.E.P.I, ~Pregnancy and me (part 3) : 3rd month~

(3) Living in a single apartment room

I had to live secretly in hubby's single dormitory room for almost 4 months before we moved to a couple's apartment later.  Despite having only single bed, we managed to sleep comfortably on it (together with my expanding pregnant belly). In this small room, we learn how to live together as a married couple for the first time, at a land far far away from our family. It teaches us to live life accordingly and accept the things that happens around us positively in order to stay happy. *refer : Sayounara Dormitory ITO

 

(4) Learn to live under a tight-budget life

In our first year of marriage, hubby is a PhD student that rely solely on JICA's scholarship which didn't includes extra allocation for family allowance. When I decided to pursue my PhD, we shared hubby's scholarship and we also do extra work (baito) as research assistant to make end meets. There were times when we had to borrow some amount of money with our friends if the scholarship and our baito-salary were delayed; in order for us to be able to pay Abg SN's nursery fee. *refer : Mommy & Baby SN goes to school

We strive hard and applied all sort of scholarships offered and finally we succeed to get the UTH.M's scholarship that also offers family allowance. But the journey of getting the scholarship and the memories of sleeping at McDonald after the interview session will be the greatest memory for us. This had taught us on how to survive when unexpected things occurs and appreciate it as an important experience in life.*refer : Of interview thingy

(5) Survive the demanding life as PhD couples in a foreign country

PhD studies itself is not an easy job, and to make thing worst is that both of us were a PhD student at an interval of about a year gap. We had to focus on our study and at the same time we had to take care of our first son in a foreign country where we wont be able to get help from our family members. 

We learned how to manage our time as a student and as a parent, we learned how to be able to study and at the same time giving our child the attention that he needed in his early years in life and we also had to live another LDR life when hubby finish his PhD first. But Alhamdulillah, in the end we both succeeded to get our PhD and also we were blessed with our 2nd son while I was about to finish my PhD. *refer: , Back for good - Malaysia, This I promise you, Graduation ceremony in Japan, Alhamdulillah..it's over :)

Phewww, looking back at the time when I had to carry Abg SN on the train everyday with me and when I had to travel with train+bicycle when I'm pregnant with SN jr ....I never thought that I'd be able to survive it without hubby's help. And for that I'm thankful to have him as my husband. *refer : Mommy & Baby SN goes to school, Pagi yang GELAP ~entry separa emo~,2 budak chomeyl di tinggal oleh si lelaki kesayangan, New routine as a Newspaper delivery man, Train rider, 

"Dear hubby, for our 5th wedding anniversaries, I don't ask for any gift. All I ask from you is to be able to live happily with you Side by side - Year by year for the rest of our live. Insya Allah...Ameen".

“Our anniversary is a time to look back at the good times and a time to look ahead to live our dreams together.”

Psssttt : ada kawan2 yang cakap masa kahwin dulu I lagi tembam dari sekarang hohoho.

~ Thanks for reading this (^-*) ~