Rediscovering Love by Letter (2024)

Key points

• Writing your thoughts down during a conflict can help you clarify them.
• Taking time to write how you feel, what you want or hope, helps you and your partner understand each other.
• A letter can cover not just conflict but what you value about your partner and the relationship.
• With a written record of feelings, both positive and negative, you can chart your growth as a couple.

Glen and Jenna were a couple on the brink after two decades together. They came into my office in tears, raging, interrupting, and blaming each other for their shared misery. They couldn’t talk without their negative feelings escalating.

After two tumultuous sessions, I suggested that they try writing what they wanted to say to each other – their pain in the present, their hopes for the future – and reflecting on these, maybe even showing each other their lists of feelings.

But Glen took things one step further, writing a heartfelt letter to Jenna that made all the difference in resolving their conflict. “His letter made me understand not only his point of view now, but also what Glen values about me and about our relationship,” Jenna said. “I realized that our relationship is worth all the effort we can put into it.”

Glen was not a polished writer but he put his heart into his letter to Jenna and it inspired her to write him a similar letter, sparking a new connection between them.

Why can this approach to resolving conflict work?

• You can give careful thought to your words: Writing in solitude, you have a chance to think clearly about what you want to say and find the right words with no time pressure rather than trying to communicate on the spot when emotions on both sides may be in conflict and it’s hard to truly hear each other. This also gives you a chance to edit yourself. While the first draft of your letter, written in the heat of conflict, may be a vitriolic screed, you can vent on paper, then tear it up and start over, finding a more balanced, productive way to express your feelings.
• You can read over your own or your partner’s thoughts and reflect: When trying to communicate in real time, it’s all too easy to misunderstand or get sidetracked or deflected from what you really want to say. Writing a letter to your love gives you valuable cooling-down time and a chance to say what you want without interruption and also to review your letter or his/hers with time to catch subtle points that might elude you in conversation.
• You can capture in writing the whole scope of your relationship as you pinpoint the current problem. While your focus may be strongly on resolving your differences in the present, a letter gives you a chance to touch on why this all matters and what you value about your partner and your life together. You can reflect, perhaps, on the fun, the private humor and in-jokes, the loving connection you have shared. All of this combines to make your relationship unique and may remind your partner of the value of working things out.
• You can hold the thoughts written in a letter over time. Your letter or letters can stay with you for further reading, reflection, and discussion. They can remind you of your struggles and your triumphs as a couple. Glen and Jenna, for example, say that they want to keep the letters they have vowed to write each other once a month in a binder for easy reference. “It’s important to us,” Jenna told me at their last session. “So we can see where we’ve been and how far we’ve come from our crisis to falling in love all over again.”