Til Death Do Us Part. We Hope. (Part 1)

OK, Rockstar.

So Mummy and Daddy were on our way to forever and ever, til death do us part – without having spent that much time to get to know each other. The only thing we really knew was we were both “good guys in the market.”

But even in those simulation trading games that are a bit like psyche evaluations, Mummy is someone who cuts loss too early to make big gains (or big losses), whereas Daddy doesn’t quit soon enough. Not from being insanely gung-ho, more from the fact most obstacles and risks were, to him, Small Stuff he didn’t sweat because of what he had already been thru.

Your father never stops working – on one of our first 2-week compliance leave periods, we were sitting in beautiful East Coast Park, Singapore, and Daddy got so depressed (to avoid Leeson-type episodes we must physically not step into the  bank’s dealing room for about 10 days a year and your father needed to work) he had to lie down on a park bench.

So Mummy yelled at him to freaking wake. Up.  (Your father would have done the same for me. You see, we used to be pretty hard on each other when we both worked – we don’t allow pity parties (even now) and would hang up on each other during market hours.)

Here’s more about our last 7 years together:

Sleeping on it:

Your father liked to climb into bed and go to sleep in the middle of our fights. Seriously. He would actually be asleep. Mummy knows because she kicked him once, just to be sure.

You told Mummy this morning you like girls because they are pretty. Just make sure they are pretty inside too. Because looks never last and 20 years later you will find yourself stuck with someone who isn’t even pretty anymore – but is still used to getting what they want all the time.

Also, remember not to fall asleep during fights because it makes girls very angry. Mummy has since decided to only pick fights on email at work or while Daddy is driving.

Seriously though, your parents both learned to time when we raise serious discussions. Our mutual drive to succeed (including at raising this family) increasingly helps us to keep mum about potentially explosive issues until we identify the best possible time to discuss them. The difference in productivity / results of the discussion, simply from holding back til the right time, never ceases to amaze us. For Mummy, sometimes it’s as simple as not trying to talk to your father when he’s outdoors on a hot summer day – because he gets unbelievably grouchy when he’s hot.

Cheating:

Mummy has told your father he is only allowed to cheat on her with Cindy Crawford or a man. Because if he scores Cindy, there is nothing Mummy can do but wish him well. If he scores a man, ditto.

More importantly, your father would be really stupid to cheat on Mummy (because he is given so much trust and freedom he wouldn’t want to risk losing it), and she did not marry a stupid man. This mantra Mummy believes to be partly self-fulfilling. If a woman truly believes in herself, no one dares cheat on her. And on the off-chance he does, why would any woman want to spend her best years with a stupid man? There are risks involved in having his children since stupidity can be hereditary.

Oh, but Mummy once told the one ex-boyfriend whom she thought might have a cheating gene that if he didn’t have the courtesy to request an open relationship and she caught him, she would deny him the courtesy of knowing she had caught him – and would simply carry on her own open relationship. We are friends today. He told Mummy it had never, ever occurred to him that sauce for the goose could be sauce for the gander. And the thought of ever being cheated on was so terrifying to him that he would never try it with Mummy. (Still, Mummy doesn’t think this is the right motivation to not cheat.)

Mummy is not sure she could have actually gone thru with an open relationship if she ever caught her ex cheating, but she wanted him to think so – just long enough for her to get to know him and be sure she wanted to dump him. She however did so with utmost respect. Later on, it was this ex whom Mummy leaned on for the strength to end a future relationship she was in, before she met your father

The Topless Girl:

Late one night Mummy was woken by a call from Daddy on business trip in Taiwan.

“There is a topless girl in front of me.” His clients had taken him to a topless bar.

“And?”

“I feel guilty.”

“What do you expect me to do about it? I told you never to wake me. Deal with it!” Mummy was mad at being woken because she was studying for her professional exams and needed her sleep. She hung up, then tried hard to get back to sleep. She needed to wake up the next day to study.

Your father says he had been hiding in the toilet when he called Mummy. He went back to the table, faked a phone call from another client and left. Mummy believes him. When the same group of clients came to Singapore, your father introduced her to them. It’s strange, Mummy knew they had wives and children and Daddy had told her they entertained with girls as a fact of life and business in Taiwan (something affirmed by some of her male Taiwanese ex-colleagues), but they would barely touch Mummy’s hand to shake it that afternoon. And when she mentioned Topless Girl Night, they looked really freaked. Daddy was never invited back. This did not hurt his business relations with them.

Mummy’s rule about girlie entertainment is, if Daddy really, really cannot avoid it, he should make sure he goes to a very posh place so he doesn’t bring any bugs home. Mummy’s theory is, if a guy wants to cheat, there is no amount of physical shackling that can keep him from finding a way to do so. Better to work on his heart – make him not want to cheat. (And yes, that means keeping him happy too.) Then you don’t have to worry about when his clients order a topless girl for him.

So, don’t date a cheater and be cool – make your partner value his/her relationship with you so much they never want to risk losing it.Then you look so good letting him stay out late to do anything he wants while all his other friends are on curfew.

Your parents further discussed that if one of us should God forbid croak first, the other would have our blessings to be with someone else. This is because we each truly want the other to be happy. Mummy hopes you will remember this and not give any step parents hell if it ever comes to that.

Mummy will write more soon…

Love.