“I’ve known my fiancé for about two years now. My friend introduced us to each other, but I didn’t really trust him back then. After about eight months of seeing each other, I told him that if he was serious about our relationship and taking it to the next level, he needed to see my parents.

I wasn’t really expecting him to do it; I was just testing the waters. When you’re of a certain age, you just want to know that there’s a certainty and consistency with your relationship. He assured me that he wasn’t playing around and eventually spoke to his parents to get my hand in marriage.

Yeah, I’ve always seen myself getting married to someone I love and living happily ever after, although I know there’s no such thing as a “happily ever after”. There will be challenges along the way, and I learnt this from my past relationships and seeing the things that I saw in my household.

My parents didn’t have a beautiful marriage, but somehow they managed to stick it out and stay together until the day my father died. My father passed on earlier this year, and he was someone whom I had always looked up to. When I was younger, I always told myself that I was going to marry someone like him.

My fiancé doesn’t have all the characteristics that he had, but he does have good qualities. He’s a responsible person who can really put up with all of my mood swings; he’s not hot-headed at all. Also, looking at how he treats his parents and his family, I think he is compatible and suitable for me.” Tuty, 26