Odette’s Wifely Steps

As part of our 7th wedding anniversary, and in a way, this blog’s 7th anniversary as well, I’ve invited some of my friends to write about their own wifely steps. This is the fourthin a series of guest posts. Let’s check out Odette’s wifely steps.

I am thrilled to be invited by Toni to share my own “Wifely Steps” in celebration of her 7th Wedding Anniversary. I am truly delighted for this privilege, but I have to admit that I wondered for weeks what am I going to write about. I worried my life is too simple to be interesting at all to other people. But then again, this is exactly how I want my life to be – simple, no frills, no pretenses and special effects. If there’s anything superfluous in my life, then it’s love. I love truly and deeply and madly as though my life depends on it. And love, in all manners and forms is worth telling after all.

We are a multicultural couple, my husband is Dutch, and I am Filipino. We’ve known each other for nine years before we got married, and almost three years now into our marriage, I’m still learning new things about him. The beauty of marriage is that we have a whole lifetime to do just that. But don’t postpone, make everyday an opportunity to discover and learn something new about each other and then make those discoveries as ways to express your love.

There are so many self-help books written on how to have a happy marriage, but the thing is, every relationship is unique and no book can fully guarantee the happiness you are looking for. You have to find it yourself, you have to work on it yourself, because only you can truly write your own marriage manual. Be prepared though, that the manual you’re writing is in draft form, written in pencil. Along the way you’d need to erase some stuffs, add in a star or an exclamation, an underline there, an encircled word here or more bullet points there. Don’t forget to look for answers for those question marks, and save some pages too for that inspiring quote, the best advice you learned, a favorite family recipe and the vow you made on your wedding day. My wifely steps manual is handmade and a work in progress, and in all its crude glory, may it somehow inspire you with loving ideas to add on your own.

So here we go:

I – Know your man. Yes, the basics such as his favorites, his likes, his dislikes.
♥ Learn to cook his favorite dish. You can’t cook? Nothing is impossible, I was a disaster in the kitchen before I got married.
♥ Learn his native language (or dialect, if any), and teach him your own. It will draw you closer to each other, will make communication with the in-laws better, and will make for a very interesting subject everyday.
♥ Learn of his favorite things. Make mental notes of his little quirks and fancies when going shopping, and snag a good sale when you can. It’s nice to have something set aside for a special occasion as buying presents can be a bit daunting at times.

II – Infuse a little creativity in your marriage.
♥ Celebrate traditions and make new ones. Kj and I celebrate both Dutch and Filipino traditions. I make him little surprises for his birthday which he absolutely looks forward to every year. We still write cards for each other. He brings me flowers out of the blue.
♥ Make routine activities. We have dinner specials at home – Sunday is Dutch, Monday is Oriental, and Friday is Pizza/Junk Night because it’s my rest day and Kj is in charge. I make him a lunch box everyday with a random lunch note written in crooked Dutch. He takes care of the drinks in the house.
♥ Do things together. Every night, we drop what we’re doing and spend time together on the couch. Kj manages our entertainment program and being Dutch, he keeps a strict schedule of it. It makes me laugh just the way he seriously takes his job. We still play a board game on a Sunday afternoon, we shop for groceries together, and he’s made me love bicycling.

III – Be happy.
♥ Love your life, love your role. There will be things and circumstances you can’t change, but you can always change the way you look at it. Your happiness does not depend on the things you have or don’t have, but on the positivity of your attitude. Love yourself and find beauty in your imperfections. Only then can we be capable of truly loving and caring for another person. A happy wife makes a happy marriage makes a happy household.
♥ Count your blessings. I am still without a job here but I’ve stopped gloating about that. I have a wonderful husband who works very hard for us. We’re healthy, we’re happy, and while we don’t have everything we wanted, we have everything we ever needed.
♥ Indulge in a hobby. Find your passion, what makes you happy and fulfilled as an individual. I crafted, wrote snail mails, learned to knit, opened an online shop, studied Dutch. There’s more I want to do, and it keeps me excited for the future.
♥ Do a good deed. Volunteer, donate blood, do something for the benefit of others without expecting something in return. Helping others is good for our heart, it is an elixir to the soul.

Perhaps the best compliment I’ve ever received came from my mother-in-law. She was visiting us from Holland and one night while the three of us were watching the telly, she told us just out of the blue – “you two still look like you’re just married”. I am thrilled!

Happy Anniversary Toni and Dennis, may you always feel “just married”!

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Odette is petite, thirty-one and loves her Nikon, flea markets, chocolate cakes and everything vintage. She’s a blogger, a crafter, a volunteer and on top of that, loving wife to Kj, and doting mum to Aap her stuffed monkey. They make their home sweet home in Dublin.

Hi! I'm Toni Tiu, and I've been blogging at at Wifely Steps since 2003. This started as a blog to help newly weds adjust to married life. It has evolved into a home and parenting blog. I write about things close to my heart -- good eats, good reads, family, marriage, and the little things that make everyday happy.