JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Hearing a husband and wife describe the same situation fascinates me. And what better example than to hear a pair discuss marriage advice they had received? Enoch and Tania Choi on Saturday night enjoyed dinner with some of his partners from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

During the meal another physician at the table encouraged and strengthened my friends with his experience and advice. Enoch wrote:

He shared candidly the rules of maintaining a marriage thru toddlerhood (a time even more stressful to marriage than internship/residency):
- a spouse must share regular sexual intimacy with their spouse. even if you just lay there, that’s the most important need for the man
- the spouse that works more out of the home, must
- 1) come home and give the more-at-home spouse 2 hours off when they get home
- 2) limit time off to 2 hours to do their hobbies, and do parental duties in the rest of the time after work: wash all dishes, clothes, buy all groceries and do all needed shopping
- 3) continue this thru the time that the youngest is 4.5 years old because that’s when the more-at-home spouse will emerge out of the stupor of fatigue from caring for the kids, to have the energy to express their love again
- 4) examples of how to make this happen: bring kids to costco, keep them strapped in their car seat; bring to park, make sure you look up every 30 seconds; it was really clear that he’d done these things himself. pretty amazing.
- 5) the penalty for not following this advice is DIVORCE. pretty scary.

I was impressed that toddlerhood is considered more of a challenge to a marriage than internship and residency! I also appreciated the idea that it takes four years or more for the at-home-spouse to have more energy. Right now my children are 2.5, 4.5 and 6.75. I don’t think I’m being unfair to say that our youngest requires more work than her older two sisters, simply because she is a two year old. She needs help with her hygiene, clothes and food while her siblings are self-sufficient. At one point, I had 3 children under 5 years. That was a stressful time for us, with many changes in our lives, some of them unrelated to our children. Looking back I wish I knew then what I know now. On rough days I reassure myself that in a couple more years taking care of the kids will be easier, at least physically. Funny thing is, I’m not sure I realized how much effort it was, until the kids became independent; now taking care of one toddler seems like more work than it was to take care of three wee ones!

I like the idea of giving the at-home spouse 2 hours of hobby time a day! What a luxury! This wouldn’t work for our family schedule since we are a bit more nocturnal and Ted stops working at dinner time. If I took my two hours of hobby time then, we wouldn’t enjoy our time together as a family. As it is right now I have hobby time after the girls go to bed and on weekend afternoons.

The idea of doing parental duties and household chores in the time after work may be a good one for some families but probably wouldn’t work for ours either. Here on the island, many stores close by 5 to 7 at night so it would be difficult to run errands later in the day. I have to take the children with me to do some chores. Otherwise they wouldn’t get done. Plus it may be more efficient to run errands during the morning, when fewer people are shopping. I choose to do laundry, cleaning and dishes as much as possible during my time with the children while Ted works. The kids help me with the chores and I also free up time for later at night to spend with Ted.

Notice that the experienced physician did not suggest using money to solve problems. He didn’t say to hire a nanny or a babysitter or a house cleaner or concierge. I appreciate that he suggested how the parents could change the situation themselves. After all, money can make work easier but money can’t make a marriage work.

One further comment: without discussing explicit details, I’m not sure I agree with the advice on intimacy. For example, Tania also posted notes from a recent marriage conference where it was said Our husband’s need for sex is an emotional need.. Is it satisfying a husband’s emotional need if his wife doesn’t seem interested in him? I believe men want to be wanted, just as women do. My advice would be that intimacy of all kinds flows best when partners feel strong emotionally, physically and spiritually. Giving each other time away from the kids and duties, finding time alone and time together for refreshment, may help. Desire, like love, can be a choice, and may be made in the mind (at least for some women).

A paragraph later in Enoch’s post may provide more context for the advice given:

This is not what i expected tonight. It was like getting pleasantly walloped - but from a coworker I could trust, who actually did all of this, but suffered from not getting the physical intimacy from the more-at-home spouse that he needed.

I hope Enoch doesn’t feel too walloped but from their respective blog posts it seems that they would both agree it was an excellent evening of blessing. Tania certainly sounds encouraged. Thanks to Enoch and Tania for sharing.

Tania - at her new blog home - has been writing posts that are both raw and reasoned, filled with stress and struggles but also joy and thanksgiving. In The truth about Chinese she allows us to see through her eyes and through three cultures. [excerpt]

As i rehash the memories of learning Chinese i remember:
– saying i had to go the bathroom during my 1 hour Chinese tutoring and staying as long as i can on the john.
– being really tearful and ashamed that even though i was tutored 1 lesson ahead of anyone in the class, i still couldn’t get perfect score on my spelling.
– all my Chinese friends jabbering and chatting away and feeling really left out
– being “ashamed” of my English and always having to play it down, or choose my weaker language Mandarin in order to be accepted in the group
– feeling like i came from a family that was completely different from the conservative, stoic, non-verbal, non-confrontative families of my friends
– having no one to share my crushes on Hollywood hunks because everyone else was into Chinese movie stars
– Being really awkward with the guys from our brother school ( we were an all girls school ) because i didn’t have the language and cultural social cues to interact with them

Chinese is such a politically confused language in Singapore. On one hand, the government wants you to learn it because it is is ethnically responsible. Yet everyone knows the working language in Singapore is English and if you want to succeed that was the language of choice. Yet English was a language that was associated with colonisalism, westernization and elitism. So since the working class was mostly mandarin speaking, i worked hard to speak it so as to be accepted by my peers.

So it was a very painful process. And i am still confused about it.

Whether confused or clear, Tania’s openness and honesty as well as her desire for change and understanding of situations are treasures. I like to read her posts because I know she’s being real, not hiding or holding back. These qualities that make her writing endearing will be important factors in helping her marriage to Enoch continue through toddlerhood and beyond, I imagine ;-).

Bonus link: Debra on marriage after the children move out [excerpt]:

I felt giddy. Tom and I are alone again playing house, yet with many pluses we lacked all those years ago.

We now have a history. We’ve learned to live peacefully together (well, most days).
We are reaping good things from our 26 years of Life Lessons learned.
We have cool stuff. We don’t need to save-up for more furniture and things.
We can play our old-fogey music as loudly as we wish (respecting the neighbors, of course).
I get to make my own Dream Room upstairs out of one of Naomi’s former rooms.
I get my kitchen all to myself (too many cooks in the kitchen…and all that good stuff.)

And on and on…….

[thanks to experienced wife and mom Ilona for helping me discover Debra!]