I have written a post some time ago about switching to part-time work and I was asked to write an update! Also, I have given "The Surrendered Wife" a read, as I have seen it recommended here at every corner!

  1. My work has significantly improved in quality

Only working 4 hours instead of 8 has not only improved my focus, but at the end of the day I have no issue with taking an extra 30 minutes to tweak things up just for my own peace of mind. I asked for a raise and when my boss saw my work he gave it to me. Yay!

2, My home is so much more organized and clean

I never run out of clean laundry, never run out of tooth paste or garbage bags because I have the time to look out for everything. Whenever my boyfriend asks, I know where the tools are, where the scissors are, all the cleaning products and so on. I always have matching socks, always have pantyhose, always know where my clothes are. One stress has been eliminated from my life!

  1. I still fail at cooking

I can still only make basic foods and I fail whenever I try to make something fancy. Our local recipes are garbage that I cannot follow and the ones in English have ingredients that I don't know the equivalent of. Thankfully my man is an amazing home cook and has stopped trying to get me to cook the same as him. When he sees that all his shoes are clean and his t-shirts ironed then he doesn't care that I only made fries and squirted some ketchup on them! His cooking is his pride and glory anyway.

  1. Men ARE more generous with us than we are with ourselves

I have tried to restrain myself from buying frivolous things since our budget is lower. Two shades of lipstick caught my eye and I felt quite guilty of buying them (since I don't wear lipstick daily), but he insisted that my beauty is important and I should get them. I also had money saved for an AC unit but he paid it in full. It turns out that Laura Doyle was right and men absolutely love to provide and pamper their loved ones and do not transform into stingy dictators.

  1. This type of arrangement DOES delay marriage

Unfortunately I could have never afforded to live alone (and to be honest it, I would have been afraid to in this area) and I never gave much thought to this years ago. I point blank asked my boyfriend if he would have already married me if it was required to be living together and he said "yes". I had tried a strategy another user has written here, to only talk about marriage ONCE and for good, explicitly stating "I will only say it once". It did not work. Sadly, I had gotten emotionaly about it, but perhaps getting emotional as a woman is not a bad thing. Perhaps men brush off our issues until we cry about it, just like we brush off men's issues until they are angry about it. Who knows. As if the universe wanted to plot against me, he eventually managed to order a beautifuuuull ring from Etsy, yet the tracking for it shows it exiting the Ukraininan border and never entering Romanian customs since ... february. Eh.

  1. Our sex life is booming

I had a dead bedroom issue at some point that got me to question whether I want to be with him for the rest of my life or not. I had made a few changes, followed Laura Doyle's advice and now I get hotter sex than I had back when we started to date! Sometimes we do it while we are supposed to work, between meetings, sometimes three times a day, he wants me even when my hair is gresy and I am wearing my pajams! Never ever had I thought I would reach this point.

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We are so happy and fulfilled together in our home life that we concluded this is the love in the books and poems. Everybody around is saying that lockdowns has destroyed their relationship while we don't care. We are convinced that we have found the secret of happiness, that we will never ever divorce or cheat on each other. In a way, we found that we are winning at life! Thank you, ladies for contributing to our happiness :)