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True romance is less hearts and rainbows and more like a taste of home.
The No. 1 requested item in a care package?
A letter.
It sounds simple but a letter is priceless to service members during a deployment or even training. I have never talked to a service member or veteran who didn’t think fondly of the letters they received. There is just something about a snail-mail, handwritten love letter. It is a physical reminder that you took time to sit down and write to your spouse. It is something tangible: your spouse can hold it, tuck it away in a pocket and revisit your words at any time.
I have written hundreds, maybe even thousands of letters. Sometimes I feel like I can write 50 pages and pour my heart out and other times I pull a blank. So here is some advice for when you are feeling less inspired and trying to craft that perfect love letter.
Write what you really feel and think about. Your spouse loves and misses you, they want to feel connected to you and nothing else will strengthen your marriage more than being yourself. As Marietta Hardwick said, “Just be you, it is what he is in love with in the first place.”
You should always be genuine and yourself but there are lots of times you may say “that is exactly how I feel.” It’s OK to send song lyrics, quotes and even comics that remind you of your spouse.
Mail call is an important time of the day for most service members.
Military spouse Katelyn Louer says, “I always tried to make the letters colorful and cheerful,” and Nydia Vázquez-López suggests to “add pictures, poems, snippets from your daily life…it doesn’t always have to be a letter.”
Other spouses utilize the old trick of spraying their letters with perfume. Carolyn Morrow says, “It made him feel like he was next to me again.”
One idea comes from Tracy Lynn Jones Ryver: “Find a theme and start a story.” Write back and forth, each of you taking turns adding parts to the story.
Kathiey Witten and her spouse have a shared journal in which they have chronicled their life together, even continuing the tradition when her husband is home. She says, ” It’s a journal of our lives together. Doesn’t matter how much you write….or what you write…just write….!”
2 Comments
When my husband was deployed I used to write him love letters and spray my and his favorite perfume on it. I also stamped my lips with red lipstick all over the letter. Sealing the envelope with a big red kiss.
My hubbilicous and I are going to make a “book” with our letters, we numbered them to make sure we get them in order, and we are going to give them to our daughter when she is older so she can see what all we’ve been through and how much love we have in our family! (We ar taking the “sexy” letters out of course…there are something she doesn’t need to know
) I think that will be a wonderful heirloom.
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[...] I also found some ideas for writing letters to military spouses/significant others HERE. [...]