According to XUAN解忧树洞, a woman has asked netizens to criticise her after a seemingly trivial incident involving a cup of Milo made her question whether she had become someone her boyfriend was afraid of.
The incident happened on what was otherwise a happy day.
That morning, her boyfriend prepared a cup of Milo for her and placed it in a thermal flask. She only took two sips before leaving for work, where she spent the day attending a Raya celebration, eating potluck food and handling work.
By the time she returned home, her boyfriend opened the flask and discovered that the Milo had turned sour.
The woman says she is not particularly wealthy and has always disliked wasting food and drinks. If something was not seriously spoiled, she would usually try to finish it rather than throw it away.
When her boyfriend told her that the Milo had gone sour, she immediately said she could drink it because she did not want it to go to waste.
Her boyfriend initially warned her against it, saying she might end up with diarrhoea.
But she continued to worry about wasting the drink.
Eventually, he handed the thermal flask to her.
She proceeded to finish the entire cup of sour Milo.
Afterwards, she asked him a seemingly simple question: if he already knew the Milo had gone bad, why had he not simply poured it away?
His answer left her stunned.
He said he was afraid that she would scold him.
That was when the incident suddenly became much bigger than a cup of Milo.
The woman told him they should take a break from their relationship.
She explained that she did not want to take a break because of the sour Milo itself. Instead, the incident made her realise something uncomfortable about their relationship.
Her boyfriend had apparently been so afraid of upsetting her that he chose to let her drink something that might make her sick rather than make the decision to throw it away himself.
She had always considered herself a frugal person who simply disliked waste.
But in that moment, she began wondering whether her efforts to be economical had gradually become a source of pressure for the person closest to her.
Had being “frugal” turned into making someone afraid of making the wrong decision?
Had trying to be reasonable become making her partner feel that he could not make a mistake?
Most importantly, why was he more afraid of being scolded than concerned about whether she would become sick?
The woman believes that someone saying, “I’m afraid you’ll scold me,” is rarely the result of just one incident.
She therefore decided that taking a temporary break might give both of them the opportunity to reflect on what had gone wrong.
She stressed that the decision was not necessarily because she had stopped loving him.
In fact, she says it was precisely because she still cared about the relationship that she wanted to understand the problem instead of simply ignoring it.
Perhaps she needs to change the way she communicates.
Perhaps he needs to learn how to express his concerns instead of simply giving in out of fear.
Or perhaps both of them need to relearn what it means to feel safe and comfortable within a relationship.
For now, the sour Milo has left her with a much bigger question:
When love makes someone afraid to even throw away a spoiled drink, who is really in the wrong?
Jovy Jing (ndreagoh@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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