Love Letters

Throughout our relationship, Tom and I have written each other a dozen or so love letters (so far). There’s nothing like seeing sweet, heartfelt words from the one you love written out in their own hand.

About a month before we tied the knot, we were finishing up our final premarital counseling session with our “sponsor couple” from church, and they asked us to write letters to each other, which they would mail to us a week before the wedding.

Well, here they are:

 

The quote I referred to in my letter was very loosely paraphrased. Here are Ann Patchett’s actual words:

“Does your husband make you a better person?” Edra asked.

There I was in that sky-blue pool beneath a bright blue sky, my fingers breaking apart the light on the water, and I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Are you smarter, kinder, more generous, more compassionate, a better writer?” she said, running down her list. “Does he make you better?”

“That’s not the question,” I said. “It’s so much more complicated than that.”

“It’s not more complicated than that,” she said. “That’s all there is: Does he make you better and do you make him better?”

These are words to live by, folks. I know I am still new to marriage, but the truth in the above conversation is piercing. Your spouse won’t necessarily give you a mountaintop feeling of inspiration every day, but he or she should continually make you want to try to be the best “you” you can be.

The above passage is from Ann Patchett’s 2014 book This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. You can find a brief and well-written review of it here.