Flowers get tossed. Chocolates wind up half-nibbled, passed off to less calorie-conscious friends and co-workers. Lacy lingerie gets shoved to the back of the underwear drawer.
Valentine’s Day presents are often–like the emotions they celebrate–fleeting, temporary treasures. One gift does not fade with time, but evokes passion every time it is reopened. It’s inexpensive, original, sentimental, personal, timeless and at the fingertips of even a penniless shopper. You don’t have to date Don Juan or drop a gazillion hints between now and Saturday to be the lucky recipient this year. To ensure mid-February fervor, tell your lover to grab a pen and jot this down.
Dear Sweetheart, I just wanted you to know that . . .
While your mate is writing that down, put the remote someplace remote and tell your sweetie to keep going because the gift is right there in his hand. Irrespective of the message, the fact that he has taken time, ink and paper to write it makes the love letter a perfect Valentine’s Day present.
“In this e-mail-me-that, fax-me-this-impersonal world, the act of putting pen to paper takes on a whole new meaning,” says Connie Stuetzer, a family therapist in Chicago who has seen the power of the pen revive relationships. “When the love between two people becomes tangible, it’s easier to hold on to.”
“At the surface, love letters just make us feel really good because they are a list of compliments that your lover has taken time to notice,” says Sandra Whitefield, a therapist. “But underneath, they promote a sense of safety in the relationship and solidify the connection between two people in a concrete way.”
Giving and receiving compliments provides an endorphin rush, Whitefield says, explaining why she takes couples through a technique called “flooding.” Using the technique, designed by Harville Hendrix, founder of International Imago Relationship Therapy and a regular on the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” one partner showers the other with detailed descriptions about the other’s better qualities. The deluge can come on paper or verbally, says Whitefield, a big fan of love letters on a personal and professional level.
“I still have the letter my husband wrote me 23 years ago,” she says. “Our marriage is living proof of the power (of love letters). I read it, packed my things and moved to another city to marry the author.”
Echoing Sarah Ban Breathnach’s advice in the wildly popular “Simple Abundance Gratitude Journal,” writers of relationship books urge couples to keep a daily log of why they’re thankful to be married. In “The Couple’s Comfort Book,” author Jennifer Louden devotes a section to an interactive marriage journal, an ongoing love letter that couples pass back and forth.
“We just forget to tell the person we love the most the simplest of things,” says Henriette Klauser, author of “Put Your Heart on Paper: Staying Connected in a Loose-Ends World.” “Writing it down gets you into a very healthy and romantic habit.”
Writing it down is exactly what generations have done, from homesick college boys to scared soldiers to long-lost lovers who put it all down on napkins and matchbooks and in notes and letters.
When they weren’t spouting off about Roman politics, conquering the world, composing symphonies or beheading their wives, history’s movers and shakers were struggling to find the right words to express their feelings.
Ruling an empire kept Napoleon Bonaparte away from his wife, Josephine, subjecting him to the kind of loneliness today’s business traveler fully understands when cuddling up to a stiff hotel pillow.
“I openly admit I hate everyone who is near you,” Napoleon wrote to his beloved in 1796.
Looking for a inspiration a little closer to home? Try the first couple you ever met: Mom and Dad.
“I couldn’t wait to start writing to my husband after I read the letters my mom had kept from my dad,” says Jennifer Meysenburg, a Chicago newlywed, who vows the letters her husband, Abraham, writes will never know the inside of a trash can. “I’m so glad she kept them. . . . It gave me a whole new way of thinking of them as a couple.”
Love letters don’t have to be filled with sappy, syrupy sentiments to stick around. Even a Post-it note can speak volumes, says Klauser, whose book is filled with anecdotal evidence of the importance of writing to loved ones. “My photographer had kept this Post-it note stuck up on his window for months,” she said. “His wife barely had room to say Happy Anniversary and leave a lipstick kiss, but he still held on to it.”
Simplicity is often the love letter’s greatest asset, which is good news if your literary devices have gotten a little rusty since you last extended a metaphor.
“My boyfriend would go on and on about random, boring things,” Lisa Spengler, 24, says about the letters she has kept around much longer than their author. “But then there’d be that one sentence that said something only he could say about me, like how he loved my handwriting, and that would be worth all the updates about his classes.”
“A letter does not blush,” wrote Cicero, Roman statesman and philosopher. Nor does it fidget, wring its hands, stammer or say something inappropriate. For authors of love letters, the ability to erase and edit their words is a key advantage to pronouncing one’s undying love without immediate feedback.
“Getting the words out of your head and into something real provides a certain power,” Stuetzer says. “You get a better sense of your emotions, and so does the recipient.”
Even the strong, silent types empty the ink pen when they tap into their emotions in a letter. Absence, it seems, makes the heart grow bolder too.
“I couldn’t believe my husband would even write something so romantic,” says Bari Wood, whose husband, Hal, wrote a speech for their wedding reception last January. “I’m the vocal one in the couple, but his words that day were unforgettable.”
Recipients aren’t the only ones surprised by the heart’s proximity to the hand. During a seminar required of couples marrying in a Catholic church, Mark Kurland was feeling less than inspired when the priest asked everyone to write a letter to their future spouse. Having spent the entire day with about 300 nervous strangers, Kurland says soul searching seemed impossible at first.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do for the next 10 minutes, but I didn’t think it would involve gushing,” he says. “But as soon as I started writing, I felt like there was so much I hadn’t ever told Lori. I knew how much she meant to me, and I guess I had assumed she knew it too.”
Lori knows now, and so do guests from their November wedding. The priest sent the two of them back to the notebook and then read parts of the letter during the ceremony. Unlike the corn-cob holders and toaster ovens newlyweds accept graciously, these wordy wedding gifts are treasured for years. In addition to keeping old shoe boxes and dried-up flowers company, saved love letters capture stages of your life that a photograph doesn’t reveal.
“You only see the surface in a picture, but love letters are all about what was going on deep down,” Stuetzer says. “Wouldn’t you rather see yourself throught the eyes of someone blinded by love than the objective lens of a camera?”
