So you married a writer, and in my experience, that means you married a thinker and a feeler. I’ve yet to meet a writer that doesn’t try to read between the lines, that doesn’t think things over and over and over again, that doesn’t feel the people and circumstances around them – near or far – quite deeply.
So you married a writer, someone good with words. Someone who likes to put pencil to paper or fingers to keyboard and compose a message from the heart or the imagination. If you married a writer, you may have received letters, emails, or lengthy text messages detailing thoughts, feelings, events, or experiences of said writer.
Let me tell you, these lengthy, wordy messages are a craft of love, a pouring out of the soul, an opening up of oneself to another. These messages are communication from the writer to you – their spouse, their lover, their best friend, their partner.
Don’t take the words for granted, just try to understand what they are saying. And if you ever find yourself complaining that you don’t like the way they write so much, or wait to share their thoughts until they can write them, you might find yourself hearing less and less from them, about them… until one day, they feel as if they are becoming a stranger to you, not fully known, not fully loved.
You don’t have to love to write, or even like it, to love a writer and read the words they send you. You don’t have to write to your writer, really, it’s okay. You can call or wait for the quiet evening hours to fully share your thoughts, we like to listen when you talk. But sometimes words don’t make it as easily from our heads to our mouths as they do from our heads to our pens. Don’t make a writer bottle up what they need to say, simply because you don’t prefer to read. Let them communicate their way. They’ll make space to listen to your words if they come easier in speaking for you.
Marriage can be like a dance between people who do things different ways, if you both learn to give and receive in ways that are not exactly your preference, for the good of each other. It won’t always be your way, and it won’t always be your spouse’s way, it’s a little bit of both and as the years progress, you’ll look back on your hodge podge and see beauty in what once felt like a mess.
Until next time,
Regina Walker 