Why I moved out of my parents place

I had a chat with a good friend from my university days today. Amidst the usual greetings, she asked me, “Why did I move out of my parents place when I got married?” and “What’s wrong with staying with them?”. My reply was simply, “the best way to get into a whole lot of problems is to stay with my parents”. After our conversation ended, I thought about what I had said and knew there was a deeper reason for it.

In Matthew 19:4-5, Jesus said:

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

Genesis 2:24, Mark 10:7 and Ephesians 5:31 also mention the exact same thing. God created both male and female and united them in marriage. It is in accordance to what I was taught in the bible that I had based my decision to move out. This is also an important topic that came up between my wife and I even before we were married. During our discussions, it was clearly obvious we needed our own place to stay once we were married. Here are some of the reasons from the top of my head (there are definitely more).

• When we have an disagreement or argument, where are we going to discuss about the issues we’re facing? I certainly DO NOT want my entire family knowing I had an argument with my wife. Also, it would be obvious who they would usually support in a fight which will add to our already trying situation.
• When we’re having ‘one of those days’ when everything seems to go wrong and our moods become stormy, it would definitely make things worse to have to pretend everything is going fabulous in front of family. On our own, we’re able to be who we are and have the freedom to express our feelings to each other.
• Personal time will no longer be personal with family members constantly roaming around with ears peeled for any sounds. From sharing our thoughts and feelings to having more intimate moments and even sex, it would be impossible to be even remotely relaxed or comfortable.
• A marriage is between husband and wife. Not with father, mother, sister or any other relative. Whatever happens between my wife and I should just remain between us unless we ask for advice or help. As a young married couple, we need to learn to stand on our own 2 feet and learn how we behave, each other’s quirks and other things that happen only in marriage.

Just to add, I had moved out from my parents place much earlier (slightly more than a year before getting married) as I had learned and realised I had little experience taking care of myself with most of the chores and housekeeping already being taken care of. To learn to take care of my future wife back then, I had to move out so I could learn to take care of myself. I had to do my own laundry, housekeeping, cleaning the toilets and a stream of other household chores that I had taken for granted while staying with my parents. It was definitely a major experience with many challenges. Thankfully my soon-to-be wife was more than happy to show me how she took care of these things at her home. I will be forever grateful for the lessons she taught me and the experience from that 1 year on my own. Thank you so much my darling wife, Shir Li, for all those lessons. I love you

Coming up next: How I learned to love my wife… and still learning.