If there’s one thing I learnt from planning a wedding, it’s that nothing really goes your way.
Or your partner’s way.
At least in an Asian household.
I’ve always believed my parents to be the kind of people that are a lot more open-minded than they seemed. For starters, they’ve allowed my ex to stay over at our place countless times. They engage in social activities, and they use social media a lot more than other people their age. They’re also financially savvy and have retirement mostly planned out.
What my spouse and I didn’t expect was for the endless barrage of ‘must-do’s and ‘by-rights’ when it came to spousal relations and marriage.
Troublesome Beginnings
For starters, this wedding was never what me and my partner wanted.
All we wanted was a 25-pax intimate ceremony, with us proclaiming our love in front of people who truly mattered in our lives and our closest friends.
That turned into a $16,000 wedding lunch banquet held in the presence of every relative that we don’t like, no control over 90% of our guest list, and a huge barrage of logistical arrangements that clashed with absolutely everything we planned.
This makes me really sad – after all, my parents don’t seem like who they used to be before all this talk of marriage.
In the end, they had control over when we got married (they demanded a change in date because of a clash with my cousin’s wedding. Funny thing: my cousin and I really didn’t mind). They had control over the guest list. They had control over all the ceremonial parts of the wedding, and they constantly berate us for not giving them leverage to be accountable to their peers and relatives. What that really means continues to elude me.
And yet after all of that, as much as I could not accept them for who I thought they were any further, I know deep down that they don’t wish for the family to fracture apart.
That’s what tears me apart, actually. After all, not only is it heartbreaking for your parents to show their true colours regarding their controlling tendencies, it’s also painful when you realise that the only way forward is to sever some strings with them.
However, my allegiance is with my partner now, first and foremost. Nothing changes that.
It’s definitely too late to do anything about the wedding. I’m getting married to the love of my life in about six days, and then it’s a lifetime of dealing with such relationships which straddle the spectrum between unbelievably sweet and unbearably sour.
I guess it’s just a way of life from now on. Which brings me to my next point:
Me, Myself and I
What I’ve learnt from all of this is that while there’s absolutely no controlling how people see you, or what they want you to do, or what you have to do …
You still can keep yourself sane by changing the way you react to different situations.
For starters, it’s choosing the battles to fight – in life, there’re some battles that are pyrrhic in nature and might cause more pain when fought. There’re others that slowly snowball into bigger, more entrenched conflicts with no way out. There’ll also be some minor conflicts – little pushes here and there in multiple directions until you can’t help but feel that you’re a huge punching bag.
However, focusing on things you can’t control and battles you can’t win isn’t always wise.
Instead, I’ve learnt to focus on battles that I’ve won.
Regardless of what happens, and regardless of my future relationship with my parents, I’m still glad I was raised by them. After all, it was their stewardship that allowed me to get the education I received, and the character I’ve built over 28 years of life. Having good parents in that regard – I’d count it as a battle won.
I’ve also won the battle of being able to marry my partner without any major objections. In fact, to have found her in the first place was nothing short of a miracle. We met online, and to think that the algorithms and timing of us liking each other’s profile was what brought us together is kinda’ unbelievale actually. She’s the best thing to have ever happened to me, and if that’s not a battle won then I don’t know what is.
It’s not like we don’t have things under our control during the wedding too. We got a florist we like (though truth be told it’s not a necessary expense), we’re getting video and photos that we like, we got special guests to give us best wishes via Cameo, we took silly pictures (and are going to take more silly pictures!) in our favourite games as our characters … these were things we had control over, and boy was it exciting being able to do something for ourselves.
So yes, we did lose control over a lot of things, but at the same time we figured out what we’d really like for our family. Perhaps 20, 30 years down the road, family values might change and we might get into conflicts with our children, but at least we’ll remember how hard we fought for our autonomy too.
Perhaps we’d be better parents by then. I hope so.
Work, Life, Balance
As a quick update, work has been quite terrible. The copywriting industry has been completely upended by ChatGPT, and we’ve been scrambling the past 2 months to break into conventional copywriting to little avail. Honestly I don’t hold much hope that June’s going to be any different, but future Sebastian might be forced to eat those words.
However, that doesn’t mean life is terrible. I’m getting married. What’s terrible about that?! Also, after starting to date again I’ve instead found more reason to continue expanding my hobbies – Magic the Gathering and Gaming have become so much more involved in my life, and I have my partner’s everlasting support to thank for that. Really.
So? Life is not terrible, after all.
Sure, there might be some aspects that I’d rather be rid of. Controlling parents, work woes, sometimes even mana screw from the countless games of Magic over the weekends. But we all go through troubles in life – whether you face them alone, or with someone else, or with family – and we cope with them in ways that are unique to us.
Like me, when writing shitty articles like this.
And then we cry. And then we breathe. And then we talk to our partner, or a person we trust. Or the endless silence of the internet (or WordPress) abyss. Or cope in other ways.
And then we breathe.
And then we be thankful.
And then we take on the next new day that comes.
Because that’s living.
Sebastian chooses to live.
I’m getting MARRIED!