A rose, by any other name

Coco has been calling William 'Mr Lim' in jest.

He's been asking me to talk to her about it. Honestly, I don't know how to.

I dread to touch on the issue of fatherhood with Coco.

When we first discussed about marriage, William mentioned about changing Coco's surname to his. But I wasn't sure about that. Or more precisely, I wasn't sure about our marriage.

Recently, I've started to realise that what I'm unsure about is our marriage, still. Sometimes, I wonder if it can last. I wonder how long it'll last. I would never want to see the day that I have to get all troubled over Coco's surname should our marriage doesn't last.

The form teacher emailed me and addressed me as 'Mrs Lim'. It's a dilemma for me if I should inform the teacher that she got it wrong. It would also implicate Coco. I don't want the teacher to start wondering why her surname is not the same as William's, although she ought to have done so earlier on, by the virtue of the "All About Me" form received.

The way William manages the finances scares me. And I realised he wasn't honest with me about where the money goes, time after time. It makes me feel that I shouldn't be honest with him about my finances either, then. And it discourages me from wanting to help him pay off the credit card bills, simply because the money borrowed from friends or his relative doesn't go into off-setting the bills, and I only get to find out much later, during one of his explosions.

I've always believed that a couple ought to be quite transparent about how they manage their finances, without a party taking advantage of the other. Without this simple trust even in the most basic of things in the institution of marriage, how is a marriage going to last? William has made me feel that what my mother and other women tell me is true: that women need to have their own private savings, without their husbands' knowledge. I've always believed that my husband is going to be different. It's kinda disappointing that it doesn't turn out this way.