Writing a Love Letter

[Mercury]

My girlfriend and I have had an extreamly messy relationship recently. We've both been hurt, and she has exhibited some very self-destructive behavior patterns. There are reasons for her behavior, and it is something I want to help her through. She is leaving in January for three weeks. I think we both need some time to gather our thoughts and I'm very glad to see her taking some time away from certain influences in her life, even though it means she will be away from me as well.

She is going on a hiking trip and won't have a phone or access to one, and the trip organisers limit her to taking only one letter with her- the point of the enterprise is to get people away from their environment and back in touch with their own lives.

I want to send her away with a letter to let her know how strongly I feel about each of us, and why I feel this way. As an objectivist it is important to me to show her that my love has reasons, and is not just some feeling beyond explanation- I'm finidng this difficult, when I put my reasons into words it makes my love sound trivial and this is obviously not what I want to express.

I also want to be able to inspire her to greater self-confidence, I want her to believe that she deserves a good relationship and a loving boyfriend. Again this is something that I'm struggling to find adequite words for.

I know it's difficult for those who do not know me, my girlfriend, or the details of our relationship to comment or help write this letter, but I'd appreciate comments none the less. There are some things that other objectivists will be able to describe even without knowing the situation, such as the nature of love and the objectivist ideal of self-reverence or pride.

Thank you.

[IAmMetaphysical]

There is no way I could help you talk about your relationship without knowing you guys, why don't you post a first draft.

We can go from there. Also, it would help if you shed some light on the problems you guys have been having.

[B. Royce]

Mercury, since a person cannot really love another until he loves himself, and since the purpose of your girlfriend's trip is fuller self-knowledge and/or self-acceptance, why not give her a copy of Chapter eleven of Anthem as your letter? If you are in her thoughts while she is out hiking, fine; if not, so be it, you'll just have to take that chance.

[Mimpy]

Is your girlfriend an Objectivist? If she's not, have you two discussed the meaning of love from an Objectivist point of view? I ask because if she is an Objectivist, then by you telling her all the reasons you love her and why you value those reasons should suffice to get your point across in the letter. If she is not familiar with Objectivist love, however, you would have to explain to her just why your values determine that she is the one you chose to love....and then proceed to tell her what it is exactly that you value about her and your relationship.

[thejohngaltline]

It sounds to me that she needs this time to think firstly of herself, so your goal might be to give her some food for thought, maybe a passage of Rand's (B. Royce's suggestion is a good one, or maybe something from VOS) and include a personal note with it. Tell her simply what you love about yourself, what you love about her (and that the former is why you are able to recognize and celebrate the latter), and what you love about your relationship. I would keep it to a sort of minimum and let her do the rest of the thinking on her own. Fight the feeling that you need to remind her to love you. That will be a rational conclusion she can reach on her own during this trip. Three weeks of hiking sounds like it could be a great chance for logical introspection.

[softwareNerd]

Mercury, You say you're finding it difficult to write down what you think and feel about this relationship. Part of the difficulty might be that you're framing this as a letter to your girlfriend. You might try changing the idea completely and, instead, frame something for yourself. In other words, put things into words for yourself. Or, you could frame it for yourself, but write it in a "Dear Diary" style, pouring your heart out to an imaginary friend. When I say, "pour your heart out", I mean just that: write about this relationship to your imaginary friend, and don't try to give purely intellectual reasons for what you feel; rather, focus on what you feel...simply blurt out stuff (that's the advangate of not writing a letter to a real person). Perhaps you could start by telling your imaginary friend where you first met this girl, what attracted you to her, why you love her, what doubts you have, what you wish could be different, what about her makes you smile, why she's so different from the other girls you know... and so on.

Such a note is not meant to be given to anyone else, but very often when one puts thoughts down on paper, and then re-reads what one has written, the jumble in one's mind starts to take on a form and helps one think about it more clearly. My suggestion would be that you take the three weeks to figure things out for yourself, rather than writing her a letter and having her spend the three weeks wanting to get over with the trek and respond to you. Perhaps, once you figure out things better to your own satisfaction, you'll find it easier to tell her how you feel.

[Spano]

I highly recommend softwareNerd's suggestion: start by writing, in stream of consciousness style, all your thoughts to yourself and get them down on paper. Don't worry at first about the cohesiveness of this, just write as quickly and as much as possible, feeling free to skip around when different tangents strike. Then let this journal entry of sorts sit a couple days and come back to it and read it again, as if from a different person's perspective. In doing so, you'll be able to see any logical inconsistencies or ideas that lack clarity. Finally, proceed to write something more cohesive from this rough material.

I also second thejohngaltline's suggestion that you "Fight the feeling that you need to remind her to love you." Make the letter a statement of your own feelings and reasons for those feelings, not a series of demands or questions directed towards her. As frustrating as it may be, the only person who can figure out what she thinks is her. Your primary concern, of course, should be yourself. It's more important that you understand yourself than that you "convince" her to love you, if it comes down to that.

Hope that helps. Good premises.

[JMeganSnow]

She is going on a hiking trip and won't have a phone or access to one, and the trip organisers limit her to taking only one letter with her- the point of the enterprise is to get people away from their environment and back in touch with their own lives.

Bold mine.

This is slightly aside, here, but I find this statement (especially the bold portion) to be worthy of note. What is accomplished by taking someone away from "influences"? Specifically, what is accomplished by your girlfriend escaping from these influences? How does changing your environment help you?

It's been my personal experience that good and bad influences or environment are only of importance in someone's life if they absorb their personality passively from their environment. The problem, then, isn't that they're stuck in a bad place, but that they are passive. How does taking someone away help them learn to be less passive?

[B. Royce]

Good (rhetorical?) question, Jennifer. The passivity could even INCREASE on such a trip, if the tripper blindly follows someone else's lead. Now, if you went hiking by yourself, or took a trip (alone) to a new city and were totally self-reliant in investigating it, you might better be able to help, and "find", yourself.

[Mercury]

Thanks for the responses.

A lot of your suggestions are things I have been trying to do or address in the letter already, so it's reassuring to know that some of you would take a similar approach.

In the letter I have primarilly addressed my own feelings, motivations and values. As theJohnGaltLine suggested I have avoided attempting to encourage her to love me- if she loved me because I told her to it would hardly be worth while. I have described how I feel about myself, and why it is that I love her.

I have explained why I value this relationship, and I know that many of the reasons I value it are the same as hers, so I hope this speaks loudly to her.

I was flicking through The Virtue of Selfishness last night to help me find words that will boost her appreciation of herself. I gave her a copy of The Fountainhead a few weeks ago. She hasn't had much time to read, but has started.

SoftwareNerd's suggestion of simply allowing thoughts to flow onto the page has certainly been helpful; now I just need to refine what I put down into a more logical and precise statement.

The finished product should now read as a description of how I feel about myself and what my values are, followed by an explanation of why I love her (which doubles as a sort of creedo on why she should love hersef), then of what I value about the relationship between us. I finish with a short paragraph reflecting on a couple of our most romantic experiences together.

It needs a lot of editing, but I think I have something which will in the end express what I desire to express to her fairly exactly.

JMeganSnow: You have really hit the nail on the head, over the past few weeks her behavior has been very much in response to those around her, rather than in pursuit of her own values. I think the hiking trip is exactly what she needs though. Even if it doesn't solve the tendancy to allow others to influence her, it will provide her with some time away from destructive influences and much needed time for personal reflection. And the volume of exercise should help her as well.

[Bold Standard]

Hi, Mercury. Other people's responses are more specific to your situation, but if you want inspiration on the topic of love letters, you might enjoy Edmund Rostand's play, Cyrano de Bergerac. Love letters are a big part of it, and it's a great work of art. Also, there is a movie for which Ayn Rand wrote the screenplay called "Love Letters," but I haven't seen it yet so I don't know if that would be useful or not.

Fight the feeling that you need to remind her to love you. That will be a rational conclusion she can reach on her own during this trip.

I think that's one thing that really makes a great writer. Provide all the information necessary for the audience to draw the conclusion you want--but don't do it for them, let them come to it on their own (or not).

Charlotte, what premise do people hold that tempts them to beg the audience to draw the desired conclusion? At first, it seems like laziness, but then it seems more than that--it's like skipping the joke and going straight for the punchline; or even skipping that and simply saying, "please laugh at me." I know the feeling you're talking about.. The anxiety of wanting a certain reaction--but what motivates a person to want to say, in effect, "react this way" instead of trying to say something that will inspire that reaction? (I hope you can make sense out of that question--I'm relying on the premise that you've probably thought more about this than I have, since you're a great writer and seem to capably avoid that mistake [edit: whereas, I'm not sure I've thought about it even enough to formulate the question I'm trying to ask intelligibly].)

Edited December 26, 2006 by Bold Standard