While they look like perfect partners on screen and in real life, local celebrity couple Felicia Chin and Jeffrey Xu have their own share of disagreements and conflicts just like all couples.
Felicia told AsiaOne in an interview recently while promoting her new drama Brighter Days: “A lot of people might feel like we are always in love, and even after 10 years together, we are still lovey dovey.
“We don’t want people to think that every day is like rainbows [for us], because it’s not like that.”
The 41-year-old and Jeffrey, 37, got candid about their marital life in a four-part episode of their talk show Trash Talk uploaded to their Instagram profiles in July.
They married in October 2022 after dating for around seven years.
In the episode, both recounted getting into an argument over the phone about an important undisclosed topic. He said something hurtful and Felicia retaliated by telling Jeffrey — who was working overseas at the time — not to come home the next day and blocked him on WhatsApp temporarily.
After a night of sleeplessness and prayers, Felicia reflected upon herself and decided to message Jeffrey to ask him to wait for her to pick him up at the airport that evening. She also ordered his favourite durians.
Jeffrey also wrote his reflections in his personal journal.
While at the airport, Jeffrey bought a few gifts for her as his apology. When they saw each other, he ran and hugged her.
Jeffrey, who felt very touched by Felicia’s gestures, cried outside the airport and they apologised to each other for being harsh.
On their decision to share their experience, Felicia told AsiaOne: “It’s a learning lesson for us. Hopefully, we can also encourage some younger couples who just got married to not give up, because conflicts are normal.
“It is so uncomfortable to experience, you know, quarrelling and that patching up process. You would rather wish that it didn’t happen, but it does, and it even happened to this seemingly perfect-looking couple on Instagram that you may think are all rosy every day.
“It’s not, and we just want to normalise that and share how we are also learning to resolve conflicts and how to connect with one another better.”
She added that by sharing their stories, they hope to connect with people more authentically and hopefully their followers would find these experiences helpful to them.
“If it helps one couple out there, we are happy.”
As to finding a balance in how much to reveal while maintaining their privacy at the same time, Felicia said it’s a constant discussion between her and Jeremy, and they would edit things out if they feel they had overshared.
“There’s also an openness in knowing that when there is something we are not comfortable with, we could let one another know and tweak along the way. There is also the respect that if either of us is uncomfortable [about certain things], then we wouldn’t talk about it,” she explained.
Jeffrey the protector of their home
In Felicia’s new drama Brighter Days, she plays two characters — the younger version of mother Chong Choy Hong and the adult version of her daughter Fang Ying.
Fang Ying grows up under difficult circumstances where her parents are addicted to gambling, racking up huge debts and turning their flat into a gambling den.
Fang Ying reconnects with her childhood friends Yiwei (Romeo Tan) and Daping (James Seah) decades later while working as a renovation contractor, and Yiwei discovers that the hardships that shaped Fang Ying years ago were his own doing.
Jeffrey plays Yiwei’s long-lost brother Jiewei in the series.
We asked Felicia if there were any times when her past action affected someone but she only learned about it later, and she told us a positive experience she heard from a friend recently.
She recounted: “Jeffrey used to smoke but has since quit. Instead of nagging at him, I used to pray for him (about 10 years ago). I think after some time, he got very touched by it and he quit smoking totally.”
Felicia shared the experience with their friends about four or five years ago and recently heard from a friend that her story had helped the latter’s brother, who also faced the same situation and quit smoking after his wife prayed for him.
“It’s a process that Jeffrey and I went through about 10 years ago, but we didn’t expect this to be of help to someone we have never met before,” she said.
She added she believed it was the love and little gestures of concern shown to Jeffrey then that made him decide to quit smoking completely.
And for protecting his health and wellness, Jeffrey is now her protector.
She said: “I come to appreciate the little gestures that he does without saying too much about. For example, protecting my sanity when I am just so tired, little gestures like doing the laundry and just saying like, ‘You take a rest.’ and not saying no to helping out with the chores.
“I think it’s the little things that add up to make me feel that I am protected. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. For me, I am thankful that in our small family, he’s the protector of our home.”
Brighter Days is now available on demand for free on Mewatch and airs weekdays on Channel 8 at 9pm.
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