[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/normal-is-relative-how-my-parents-lived-separate-lives\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/normal-is-relative-how-my-parents-lived-separate-lives\/","headline":"Normal is Relative: How My Parents Lived Separate Lives","name":"Normal is Relative: How My Parents Lived Separate Lives","description":"No topic is more talked about than relationships. Society has its views on every type of relationship there is, especially marriage. What\u2019s right. What\u2019s proper. What\u2019s normal. And there\u2019s the rub. In the context of relationships in general, what exactly is \u2018normal\u2019, and why do we allow ourselves to be influenced by someone else\u2019s definition […]","datePublished":"2021-01-17","dateModified":"2022-04-16","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/jac_rodrigo\/#Person","name":"Riley Quinn","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/jac_rodrigo\/","identifier":388,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/199ec9b1fc3d4788235200e5d47f49a0b29864cb2e6ef6d61361a276b100ab63?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/199ec9b1fc3d4788235200e5d47f49a0b29864cb2e6ef6d61361a276b100ab63?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1610934706671_The_new_normal_1_1280X626.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1610934706671_The_new_normal_1_1280X626.jpg","height":626,"width":1280},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/normal-is-relative-how-my-parents-lived-separate-lives\/","commentCount":"3","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/normal-is-relative-how-my-parents-lived-separate-lives\/#Comment1","dateCreated":"2026-05-02 10:26:47","description":"I can\u2019t wait to share this with others.","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"watch live tv online free streaming","url":"https:\/\/materinstvo.ru\/forward?link=https:\/\/www.oneotv.com\/"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/normal-is-relative-how-my-parents-lived-separate-lives\/#Comment2","dateCreated":"2026-04-28 13:01:16","description":"This is going to help so many people.","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"women's cloud tennis shoes","url":"https:\/\/globalshoepalace.com\/product-category\/women\/on-cloud-women-shoes"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/normal-is-relative-how-my-parents-lived-separate-lives\/#Comment3","dateCreated":"2026-04-24 07:07:41","description":"Just what I was looking for.","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"women's salomon shoes sale","url":"https:\/\/globalshoepalace.com\/product-category\/women\/Salomon-Women-Shoes"}}],"about":["Community","Local","Singapore"],"wordCount":986,"articleBody":"No topic is more talked about than relationships. Society has its views on every type of relationship there is, especially marriage. What\u2019s right. What\u2019s proper. What\u2019s normal. And there\u2019s the rub. In the context of relationships in general, what exactly is \u2018normal\u2019, and why do we allow ourselves to be influenced by someone else\u2019s definition of \u2018normal\u2019? Normal is relative, for each and every one of us.Having witnessed my parents\u2019 marriage take on some unimaginable twists and turns, I\u2019ve come to believe that if you let others\u2019 opinions and biases (unconscious or otherwise) influence you, your relationship can\u2019t grow into a \u2018normal\u2019 that works for you and your partner, and more importantly, a \u2018normal\u2019 that allows you to be true to yourself.A different kind of relationshipFrom a young age, I realised that my parents\u2019 relationship functioned very differently from those of my friends\u2019 parents. I remember wondering why this was so, but it didn’t really upset me, probably because I\u2019ve always felt like a bit of an outsider in school and amongst friends. So if I\u2019m on the fringe, it seemed completely logical that my parents would be too.My parents\u2019 romance began like a rom-com. My father first caught a glimpse of my mother on a public bus and from that moment, he just knew she would be his wife. Even if it meant eventually convincing her to leave her fianc\u00e9 (who was a friend of his) for him. From the day they got married, there was an imbalance of give-and-take, with my father doing most of the taking. Generous to a fault, my mother sacrificed her savings to see him through law school, establish his law firm, and even secure the first family home. But perhaps the biggest sacrifice she made was giving too much of herself.For many years, the imbalanced give-and-take was my parents\u2019 normal, along with the embarrassingly loud arguments, the spontaneous disappearances of my mother which usually lasted a few days, and the long silences that eventually broke with my mother asking my father if he’d eaten (fill in time-appropriate meal) yet.Conditioned to a new normalAs with so many things in life, people become conditioned. And so my siblings and I became so conditioned to this sense of normal that we were absolutely dumbfounded when our mother asked for a separation. It shook me to the core. I felt like I didn\u2019t know my mother. Why, after all these years, was this normal now not ok with her? (I was 16 then, happily immature and ignorant, you must understand.)As if to further confuse their children, they continued to live in the same house, share the same friends, yet to them, they “lived separate lives\u2019”. The next life-changing chapter for us as a family centred around Dad migrating to Australia. What was so incredible about this was that he made the decision while on holiday with friends. During this same holiday, he also purchased a house. And returned to Singapore to inform my mother of his decision and her need to migrate with him because he needed her to pay for half of the house. Oh, and as for us kids, we were to stay put, seeing as how we were all (young) adults and needed to build our own lives.Despite having to give up the family home she loved, move to a country she barely knew, co-purchase three houses in Australia in total because Dad was very fickle, she grew into yet another new normal with him. And together, they transformed themselves and their marriage. They entered a different phase of Becoming which stretched well over 20 years. In this time, I observed how my parents grew to become true companions to one another \u2013 loving, loyal, and emotionally open. Thinking back on this, I suppose it dissolved a fair bit of cynicism in me. Perhaps some relationships just go through more phases of normal than others.An evolving relationshipWhen they decided to return to Singapore to live out their “last lap” as they liked to put it, I thought we would all finally ease into a quiet, no-more-surprises sort of normal. But a few years after their return, Mom was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s Disease, and my parents\u2019 marriage went through yet another transformation. Dad grew into a role he was, for most of his life, unfamiliar with \u2013 that of a caregiver. His purpose in life was to make Mom smile every day and to never let her feel like she was going through this stage alone. The last nine days of her life as we went through palliative care with her were the most painful for Dad. But seeing him so remorseful and broken, I knew he had become a person, a husband, and a father whom I now have absolute respect for.I couldn\u2019t begin to delve into just how relative \u2018normal\u2019 is to each of us without sharing the story of my parents\u2019 relationship. Some may have given up reading this story halfway through, concluding that the relationship was toxic and my mother was crazy to stick it out. Whatever your perception of normal is, that \u2013 all those ups and downs and painful challenges \u2013 was what normal was for my parents. But they chose to find a way to work with this normal, without becoming despondent, unloving or bitter. And from there, they continued to finetune what normal meant to them, as a couple and as individuals. I doubt they ever worried about what others thought of their marriage, or maybe they did but ultimately, they didn\u2019t give a damn.Whatever your normal is, I sincerely hope it leads or has led to a healthy relationship and a happy you. Join the conversations on THG’s\u00a0Facebook\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram, and get the latest updates via\u00a0Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Normal is Relative: How My Parents Lived Separate Lives","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/normal-is-relative-how-my-parents-lived-separate-lives\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]