Rhea and I are celebrating our one year wedding anniversary today! 🥳

Which also means I have officially joined the club of marriage-advice-giving 💁🏻‍♂️

Now, I still got a full workday ahead so I'm gonna be chugging along, moving things forward before the pre-Christmas weekend.

That said, a full day of work doesn’t mean I won't make time to pause for some gratitude and take a quick look back at the year we've had together.

As an overview, here are my 8 lessons from a year of being married:

1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew (most of the time)
2. Clean up the little messes at home
3. Do more for your partner within the household whenever you can
4. Live life together with a financial buffer
5. Live in the smallest possible place that you both are comfortable with
6. Fight your fights
7. Have a together-schedule you both respect
8. Have at least one meal a day together

1. Don't bite off more than you can chew (most of the time)

We already have two girls, Daisy and Twinkie - but for about three months this year, we also had two boys, Mac and Flurry.

We adopted the boys because we thought it would be cool to have two pairs of cat siblings living together.

While the idea was great, sadly, the girls just did not accept the boys and neither of us had the bandwidth to make the integration work.

To make matters worse, we got assigned a cat foster from hell who swore to make our lives miserables for returning the boys.

In hindsight, we let our excitement take over and we probably never should have gotten the boys in the first place.

Obviously, there's a time and place to just taking the leap with these sort of things, and while the adoption did not work out, we're both glad we gave it our best shot. Though, we're definitely a lot more mindful about making future commitments like that in the future 😅

The boys have since found their forever home, and while they won't grow up with our girls, they have two human kid siblings who I'm sure are a great match for them.

2. Clean up the little messes at home

This one’s simple: pick up the dirty laundry on the floor, wipe down the wet sink, and put things back where they belong. It’s the little things that add up to a peaceful home.

When your living space is a mess, your mind will feel like it's a mess too.

So, help each other out because living together means contributing to each other’s physical and mental peace.

3. Do more for your partner within the household whenever you can

I’ve heard too many horror stories of arguments over who’s doing what and here's what I feel has been the most stress-free way to approach this:

To start, have pre-assigned chores/responsibilities. Both of you need to be clear on your roles with maintaining the household.

Next, while it's important to have assigned responsibilities, whenever you can, go the extra mile for your partner. Help them out even if it's not your job to help out.

It creates a culture of giving, and will stop you from falling into the trap of keeping score of who's doing what, which will only breed resentment.

4. Live life together with a financial buffer

Having 10% of your monthly fixed costs as extra buffer should be enough to feel like you're not drowning and having to wait for next month's pay to come in.

For example, if your household needs $5000 as fixed costs, aim to have an additional $500 as a financial buffer for the unpredictable things.

If you live prudently, that extra bit of money can be a respectable bit of savings for rougher times when you'll need it.

5. Live in the smallest possible place that you both are comfortable with

Rhea and I joke a lot that we live in a square - and it's because we really do!

Our home is a cozy duplex loft with no rooms. For some of you, that could a nightmare but honestly, it feels fine for us.

Not having rooms means we have to negotiate our personal space, boundaries and be mindful of each other's preferences. Staying in a small place also means we're not shelling out huge amounts of rent. There will be a point where we'll upsize in the future, but knowing that we can be completely fine in a cozy home speaks of the strength in our relationship which I'm super proud of :)

6. Fight your fights

Our small house works well for this because since we've got no where to storm off and hide when we get angry, we pretty much have to fight our fights asap and get things over with quickly.

This is great because things don't dragged out and we solve our shit almost always immediately.

Obviously, it's not as nice-sounding as I make it to be. Not having any real physical separation can be tough when things get heated, but it's forced us to just handle our emotions better and learn to communicate our needs in an almost-perfect way.

I guess we kinda have to do this because we live in a small home but I wouldn't have it any other way.

7. Have a together-schedule you both respect

Honestly, there's no hard and fast rule for this. For us, we have set dinner time every day, and set days of the week where we go out for dates.

Some couples might think this is too rigid but having things planned out in advance does make our time spent together something we look forward to.

The other upside to this is that the rest of our time together at home is flexible which helps a lot considering we live in a small place. I think a respected together-schedule helps couples connect while allowing the right amount of individual space too.

8. Have at least one meal a day together

And I mean a proper meal, where you both talk, catch-up, and reconnect.

Busy periods mean sometimes either or both of us get caught up with work for most of the day, but we make it a point to have dinners every single day together uninterrupted.

For me, getting to ramble about my day with Rhea is a great way to disconnect and put work aside. It also helps me not get burnt out, which tends to happen whenever I get too caught up with work.

So there you have it—8 lessons from a rookie marriage advisor.

Reddit RoundUp will be coming up tomorrow, along with this week's Cooldown. Until then!

Nicholas Ng