When I Was Young

From My Paper, My Lifestyle
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

ON AGE GAP BETWEEN SPOUSES

ANA OW

I’M A big believer in the philosophy of age being just a number.

And, now, I’m learning exactly how true that is.

At age 32, I find myself blessed with the love of a 20-year-old man. He made his heartfelt vows to me in June before 70 people at our small wedding celebration.

There’s more: come November, we are going to be first-time parents after having dated for just a year.

We first met in dance class when I was a teacher at a local dance studio. Then 16 going on 17, he obviously wasn’t suitable dating material for me.

But when he turned 19 and we began to socialise both on and off the dance floor, it became apparent that we were connecting on a deeper level.

He listened, providing comfort and warmth in a way I hadn’t felt before. He doesn’t play the mind games of an older man. Nor does he have the ego of one. Even though I felt a little like Mrs Robinson, he almost made me feel as though I was in my teens again.

And we were sure of marriage shortly after our relationship began.

We made plans to marry in a typically modern fashion: when I ran out of closet space after living with him for eight months.

We were all set to start saving up for a wedding bash and a nest to call our own. And then came the baby, throwing a sweet spanner in the works and speeding up the process.

Now, my husband is confined in camp and will have just ended his basic military training (BMT) by the time I deliver in November.

While it has never occurred to me that it would be an issue to commit to someone 12 years younger while carrying my first-born, there were those who were angered by my choices.

My father maintained a stoic yet somewhat shocked demeanour. He has calmed down somewhat since we got married and has even become quite supportive. My aunt, his younger sister, however, demanded that I re-think my actions.

Then there are other auntie-types who gossip and dwell on the situation, unable to accept that people more than a decade apart could find love and acceptance with one another.

Our reality does not escape me. He’s doing BMT in Tekong now and I’m alone, whereas my other mummy-to-be friends have their husbands (who are all closer to their age) ferrying them around to their ultrasound check-ups.

There’s also a certain pressure on me as I become the sole breadwinner in the equation. And as he progresses into National Service, I find myself missing him.

He gets five minutes every night on the phone with me now that he’s at field camp. I know that he feels frustrated and helpless, trying to squeeze in every ounce of love and support into one short conversation.

And though there are those who say that he’s too young to be taken seriously as a husband or a father-to-be, he takes so naturally to his new role.

While his friends can hardly see their future beyond Friday night clubbing, he delights in
trips to Ikea, plans for homeownership and obsesses over which household appliances would be the best buy.

I have no doubt that he’ll make the best of fathers.

He talks to the baby in my belly often, reading him fairytales on the weekends when he books out from camp and nagging me to remember to “play the Mozart music at bedtime” to develop his son’s spatial-reasoning abilities.

Naysayers can criticise us, but the one I take the most comfort from these days is my unborn child, whose lack of life experience makes him not naïve but, in my mind, the master of living without fear of rejection and failure.

In any case, the way he kicks in my belly sure feels that way.

myp@sph.com.sg