SINGAPORE: Marwan Ahmad struggled for years to find the right woman. Too often they simply were not interested in settling down, he said, but his mission of “finding my soul mate” did not stop him from pushing forward. At a singles dinner two years ago he met 31-year-old Mai Chueng, who had just been promoted to managing director of a small marketing firm in Singapore. For her, the time was just right. Marwan told Bikyamasr.com they hit it off right away, laughing and joking with each other. For the mobile application designer, it was “a match in heaven. She was beautiful, sweet and driven with her job.” The only downside was that he was Muslim and she was Christian. When they decided to get married, Mai was faced with negative responses from her family, who didn't want her to marry a Muslim man, a non-Chinese ethnic man, and someone who was younger than she was. “It was difficult, but eventually they understood it was my life and they had to support me for it,” she told Bikyamasr.com as the two sat smoking shisha at an upscale cafe in the city on Sunday evening. For them, they say multi-ethnic relationships are the strongest because “we already had an understanding that we had to be more open and talk about issues because if we didn't there would be cultural things that could make us angry,” said Marwan. The couple wed late last year in a small ceremony and are ow expecting their first child. For Mai, it means taking a leave of absence from work for a few months, but she is not worried. “I am 33 and still able to do anything anyone else can do so my company understands this and knows they won't lose me,” she said. But in Singapore, there is a growing trend that is seeing more couples tying the knot, but at the same time, more couples are failing, ending in divorce. According to Singapore's Department of Statistics, the number of marriages in 2011 rose to 27,258 compared to 24,363 the previous year. At the same time, the number of divorces in the country rose to 7,604 compared to 7,338. Psychiatrist Mahan Chu told Bikyamasr.com that this shouldn't really give off red flags, as he pointed to a corresponding rise in both marriages and divorces. “What we should try to do is ensure that couples are ready to get married, so as to avoid the high divorce rate we have seen in recent years," he argued. Still, he was quick to point out that even those statistics show that Singapore's divorce rate is lower than other developed countries. “In the United States, we know that half of marriages end in divorce, so here it is positive to know it's lower, but that means we need to examine why and more research is needed on that," he added. Chu said a positive sign was the increasing marriage age for both women and men. The statistics revealed that the median age of first-time grooms rose from 29.7 in 2006 to 30.1 in 2011, while the median age for first-time brides rose from 27.0 to 28.0. The ages of divorcees have increased as well. The median age of male and female divorcees in 2011 were 41.3 and 37.7 respectively, compared to 29.6 and 35.7 in 2006. Last year also saw an increase in inter-ethnic marriages. They represented 20 percent of the total marriages in 2011, compared to 13 percent in 2001. Among those were Marwan and Mai, who plan to add one more to Singapore's population. While finding love might have been a struggle for the young couple, they are optimistic that the future for them, and other “ethnic couples” will be great, open and honest.
