Simbi* (31) always imagined marriage as a fairytale where every lady meets her Prince Charming. However, her first relationship gave her a harsh reality check, and years later, she found herself marrying a man fifteen years her senior.
In this week’s Marriage Diaries, she talks about redefining romance, navigating in-law dynamics, the moment she nearly broke off her relationship over family tension, and why she still believes love is enough.
This is her marriage diary.
I grew up waiting for a Prince Charming who looked like a movie character
Long before I got married, love existed for me inside storybooks. As a child, I devoured Ladybird fairytales, dreaming of enchanted castles, destiny encounters and princesses who always found their Prince Charming. I even gave myself the nickname Cinderella in primary school because that’s how fully immersed I was in romance worlds I hadn’t lived.
By secondary school, Disney magic evolved into romcom novels. I’d spend hours reading and imagining myself as a character in the pages of the book. In university, Bollywood and K-dramas joined the mix. I lived inside those stories so much that my parents occasionally wondered if I spared any attention for my academics. Every emotion I imagined, every fantasy I considered “true love,” came from the make-believe world.
Reality didn’t hit until my first boyfriend. He was my first kiss, my first cinema date, my first everything. For a while, the relationship looked exactly like the movies I loved. And then it fell apart. He changed in ways I still struggle to describe. There was unnecessary drama, confusion upon confusion until things fell apart. Even when the relationship was clearly dying, I didn’t want to leave because I believed he was “the one.” It took my friends dragging me, emotionally and verbally, for me to finally walk away. It was the first crack in my fairytale lens.
Falling in love with an older man was the first real surprise of my adult life
If anyone had told me I’d marry someone fifteen years older, I wouldn’t have believed it. In all the romantic stories I absorbed, the couples were always age mates or close in age. Older men were never part of the script.
Then, in university, I gained weight. Suddenly, older men paid me more attention, sometimes in uncomfortable ways. I heard male coursemates say things like I was “heavy duty” and not for young boys. Married men approached me at parties, and I hated it. So I shut out all older men.
My husband was the first one I gave a chance. He was 40 when we met, dealing with delays in his life and two failed engagements. I only noticed him because he didn’t look his age. That made me listen, then pay attention, then fall. The age gap that once scared me became something I barely noticed.
If anyone had told me then that he’d become my partner, I would have laughed. But loving him changed my idea of romance in a way I didn’t see coming.
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One comment from my husband’s family made me feel like running
I still remember the day I wondered whether marriage to my husband was truly something I could handle. It started with what should’ve been an innocent family visit. His mum and two sisters were around. It was spontaneous, and I hadn’t planned it, so I arrived empty-handed.
They teased me about it, not maliciously, but my husband wasn’t having it. He reacted sharply, and it quickly escalated into a back-and-forth between him and his family. I excused myself, but internally, I panicked.
For two weeks, I avoided him. I kept replaying the scene in my mind: three women much older than me, and me stuck in the middle of drama I didn’t create. I couldn’t imagine a lifetime where I’d be in conflict with people I barely knew but was expected to respect deeply.
When we finally spoke, I told him I wanted to end things. I didn’t want him constantly defending me against his family. I didn’t want to be the reason he clashed with the women who raised him.
It took a lot of reassurance from him and my mum to convince me not to run. Looking back four years later, I’m grateful I stayed.
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No one prepares you for navigating a family that’s not yours
Before marriage, my mum practically trained me for my new family. She taught me how to show respect to older women, how to observe, when to talk, when to stay quiet, and even made me set reminders to call my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law. But nothing beats real life experience.
A few months after we got married, my mother-in-law visited for two weeks. She was warm and pleasant, but insisted on cooking and dishing up the meals during her stay. At first, I took it personally, as if she was subtly telling me I wasn’t doing something right. My mum told me to join her in the kitchen instead of reading too much into it. That changed everything.
Then there were the unannounced visits from my sisters-in-law — smiling, bearing gifts, completely unaware that sometimes I felt like the odd one out. They’d settle into the living room, chatting and laughing with my husband in that familiar way people do when they’ve known each other forever.
For the first two years, I constantly felt like I was trying to prove myself. Now, I’ve completely settled into things. I understand their intentions better, and I’m more confident in my place in the family. Marriage teaches you diplomacy in ways school never can.
We had to learn how to meet in the middle when it came to respect and expression
The biggest recurring conflict in my marriage has been about how I relate to my husband in public or around his relatives. He doesn’t like pet names, touching his beard playfully, or hitting him jokingly when others are around. He finds it disrespectful and prefers that kind of affection to stay private.
We argued a lot about it because I didn’t want a marriage where I felt like I needed to switch versions of myself depending on the setting. After our first child, he even suggested we stop calling each other by name but I rejected that immediately.
Sometimes he leans into the age difference and tries to remind me he’s older and wiser. I always push back. I respect my husband deeply, but I don’t want a dynamic that feels like I’m reporting to a boss. Over time, I’ve learned to recognise when it’s cultural conditioning talking. He’s from a different generation, and occasionally it shows.
We’re still figuring it out, but we always return to honest conversations instead of letting resentment grow.
Motherhood changed the version of myself I thought I’d carry into marriage
I’ve lost and gained different parts of myself over the past four years. The biggest shift came with motherhood. I would’ve loved a little more time before having kids, but my husband was eager to be a dad because he was already 40 when we married.
We had our first child a year in, and that transition shook me. Even with all the support I had from my family, my in-laws, and him, nothing prepares you for the emotional weight of motherhood. Some nights, I woke up crying for no reason I could articulate.
But I also grew. I learned how to relate with older people, handle different personalities, and move confidently in rooms filled with my husband’s older friends. Most of them assume I’m older than I am, thanks to my stature. I always like to say that marriage stretched me, but it didn’t break me.
I believe love is enough
Maybe it’s the hopeless romantic in me, but I genuinely believe love can sustain a marriage. I know people say communication, patience and understanding matter, but I think real love fuels those things.
I’ve dated men who made me feel like they were doing me a favour by being with me. Today, I’m married to a man who genuinely loves me — a man who made all the pain, confusion and insecurity of my younger relationships feel like distant memories.
If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be: don’t fixate on age, and don’t let heartbreak distort your worth. Love, when it’s genuine, makes the rest of the work possible.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.
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