{"id":1441,"date":"2016-10-07T12:41:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T16:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2016-10-07T12:41:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T16:41:28","slug":"a-decade-of-married-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/?p=1441","title":{"rendered":"A decade of married love"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been 10 years since\u00a0Tai and I held hands in front of our family and friends, and\u00a0said the words, “I do”. That moment formalized something that I already knew for years – that Tai and I would journey through the rest of life together, hand in hand.\u00a0\"jandt_yorkville\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A decade of married love later, we are still best friends, still kindred spirits, and still deeply in love. We may have added a couple of\u00a0kids, a few pounds around the middle, and a lumbering\u00a0mortgage to the mix, but I still feel the same way with him now as when we first started dating all those years ago in university. I fall in love with him over and over\u00a0again as he keeps demonstrating his character. Tai\u00a0encourages me to challenge myself. He supports my different endeavors and schemes, and props me up when I am down. He laughs at my jokes and makes me laugh.\u00a0He respects all of who I am, even the silly and frivolous sides of me. \u00a0He is an equal partner in parenting our two girls.\u00a0He pays attention.<\/p>\n

In short, Tai\u00a0is a shining example to our two girls of what\u00a0they should expect from any potential suitor in their future. Winning their love should not be easy.\u00a0And to illustrate this point, I share the following\u00a0story from our wedding day.<\/p>\n

\n

It’s a Chinese wedding tradition for the bride’s side of the wedding party to put\u00a0the groom through some various obstacles before he can\u00a0retrieve the bride to marry her. Because the bride is loved too much, her family and friends will not let\u00a0just anyone cart\u00a0her off. He must prove\u00a0his worthiness to be her husband.<\/p>\n

My beloved bridesmaids devised a\u00a0series of challenges. They did not let me in on what their plans were.\u00a0As\u00a0Tai and his groomsmen successfully completed each one, my bridesmaids would let them come closer to finding me. One involved trivia questions about me and my friends. Another\u00a0involved creating and performing a cheerleading stunt along with a cheer. Yet another\u00a0involved bribes of cash payments in\u00a0hong bao (red envelopes). Tai and his groomsmen breezed\u00a0through these with good humour, until the final challenge: eating a package of natt\u014d, or Japanese fermented soy beans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tai had never tried eating natt\u014d before.\u00a0He was quite aware of natt\u014d though, particularly\u00a0since he helped organize an Amazing Race-style fundraising event the year prior. The eating challenge station, that he manned, consisted of this particular item.\u00a0I participated in this race with Team Buns on the Run, and Tai\u00a0was there encouraging me while my teammates and I\u00a0struggled<\/em> to eat the stuff. The taste, texture, and smell all combine to be a truly horrible experience for the uninitiated. But he never did try it himself.<\/p>\n

Until our wedding day.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a><\/p>\n

The entire time while Tai was going through his challenges, I waited\u00a0in the\u00a0bedroom of my parents’ condo, with no idea of what was going on. I could only hear groans and cheers and laughs, and some slightly worrying silence. I stood \u00a0in the room, pacing the floor in my white wedding dress, with equal parts of boredom, excitement and worry.<\/p>\n

Finally there was a big cheer, and Tai burst into the bedroom, a little unsteady on his feet, the wedding party crowding in after him. He gave me a beany kiss, (ugh) and claimed his worthiness to be my husband! My hero vanquished* the natt\u014d beans! Then after a few words, he went off in search of a toothbrush. We spent the rest of the day enjoying\u00a0the merriment of\u00a0our family and friends.<\/p>\n

\n

Tai, I love you more than my words can adequately describe. I’m so excited to face the next decade with you, hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n

~Jen<\/p>\n

*Well, technically he had help from his close friend and groomsman Cort, but details, schmetails.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been 10 years since\u00a0Tai and I held hands in front of our family and friends, and\u00a0said the words, “I do”. That moment formalized something that I already knew for years – that Tai and I would journey through the rest of life together, hand in hand.\u00a0 A decade of married love later, we are … Continue reading A decade of married love<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[43,215,246,385],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrations","category-storytime","tag-anniversary","tag-love","tag-natto","tag-wedding"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/J_T_park-e1475858122229.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}