A woman recently shared that she started having second thoughts about her relationship after visiting her boyfriend’s home several times.
According to her, her boyfriend himself was a good person. He was gentle, considerate, and treated her well whenever they went out together.
After several bad past experiences, she initially thought she had finally met someone “normal”. However, things changed after she visited his family home.
Not about being poor, but about lifestyle habits
The woman stressed that she was not looking down on her boyfriend’s family for being poor.
Instead, she said she found it hard to accept some of their daily living habits, especially when it came to food hygiene.
During her first meal at his home, she noticed a strange sour smell coming from the kitchen, similar to food that had been left overnight for too long.
When she ate a piece of chicken, she felt that the taste was not quite right. After the meal, she quietly asked her boyfriend whether the chicken had been kept for a long time.
To her surprise, he casually replied that it was probably bought last month and kept in the freezer.
The woman said she was shocked, especially because the rest of the family ate it as if nothing was wrong.
Fridge always packed with old food
After a few more visits, she noticed that her boyfriend’s mother liked to store a lot of food.
The fridge and freezer were always packed, and the moment the freezer was opened, a strong stench would waft out from it.
Inside, there were many plastic bags filled with fish, chicken, sambal, curry, and other food that she could not tell when they were from.
Once, she saw a box of fried bee hoon that had become hard and changed colour. When she wanted to throw it away, his mother immediately stopped her and said it should not be wasted as it could still be reheated for dinner.
Shocked by the cleaning cloth
What disturbed her the most was an incident in the kitchen.
She saw his mother using a cloth to wipe the table, but the pattern looked very familiar.
At first, she thought she was overthinking it. Then, his mother casually explained that it was an old pair of underwear that was no longer worn, so they used it as a cleaning cloth.
The woman also claimed that the dish cloths were often wet and smelly, the washed bowls still felt oily, and some chopsticks had black marks at the ends.
Boyfriend grew up with these habits
She also noticed that the family liked to keep the lights off at night.
Once, when she woke up in the middle of the night to get water, she suddenly saw her boyfriend’s father standing in the dark kitchen drinking water. She said she was so shocked that she almost screamed.
She added that the family also did not really close the door when using the toilet or showering, which made her uncomfortable whenever she walked past.
Despite all this, she said her boyfriend himself was clean and normal.
However, she later found out that he used to be very underweight, weighing only slightly over 50kg despite being 182cm tall.
She said it was not because he was naturally skinny, but because he had grown up eating that way.
After they started dating, she would cook more proper meals for him. Within less than half a year, he gained weight and looked much healthier.
Love is also about family habits
The woman said she sometimes wonders what would happen if they eventually got married.
She worries that she may have to adapt to the same lifestyle, from the smell of the freezer to the old leftovers and the “cleaning cloth” that she still cannot forget.
She said the experience made her realise that dating is not only about looking at one person.
Sometimes, family habits that seem small at first may become something much bigger when one starts thinking about marriage and spending a lifetime together.
