Friday’s Food for Thought…”Love” letter edition

A few days before his 26-year-old son, Michael, got married, future-President Ronald Reagan sent him a letter of advice on love and marriage. This was in 1971.

It’s a pretty great letter, full of wisdom, so I wanted to share it with you guys. I’d love to know what you think, so you know the drill – got something to say? Leave a comment! I’ll talk back, I promise!

Enjoy:

Michael Reagan
Manhattan Beach, California
June 1971

Dear Mike:

Enclosed is the item I mentioned (with which goes a torn up IOU). I could stop here but I won’t.

You’ve heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by all the “unhappy marrieds” and cynics. Now, in case no one has suggested it, there is another viewpoint. You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide to make it.

Some men feel their masculinity can only be proven if they play out in their own life all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, without her ever finding lipstick on the collar or catching a man in the flimsy excuse of where he was till three A.M., a wife does know, and with that knowing, some of the magic of this relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who kicked the whole thing away themselves than there can ever be wives deserving of blame. There is an old law of physics that you can only get out of a thing as much as you put in it. The man who puts into the marriage only half of what he owns will get that out. Sure, there will be moments when you will see someone or think back to an earlier time and you will be challenged to see if you can still make the grade, but let me tell you how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn’t take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music. If you truly love a girl, you shouldn’t ever want her to feel, when she sees you greet a secretary or a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she was someone who caused you to be late coming home, nor should you want any other woman to be able to meet your wife and know she was smiling behind her eyes as she looked at her, the woman you love, remembering this was the woman you rejected even momentarily for her favors. 

Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.

Love,
Dad

P.S. You’ll never get in trouble if you say “I love you” at least once a day.

 

 

I found this letter at 
http://www.lettersofnote.com
.

Time flies…

Lately I’ve been feeling that the past year has totally and completely flown by.

Yes, I know that’s something “adults” say. And that the more I say it, the more I sound like my parents, or my grandparents.

But when I think back to last year at this time, when I was newly graduated and planning a wedding. Now we’ve made it almost a year! Holy cow!

There’s so much we haven’t done yet, so much we haven’t learned or seen.

Still, at the same, I can’t help thinking that the months seem to be slowing down and dragging on a little. I keep thinking, “Oh no! We forgot to pay the rent!” But we didn’t forget, it’s just still May…so we don’t have to pay again until June…

And I also think, “Oh my goodness, this week has gone fast! It’s already Friday! There’s still so much I need to do…like laundry!”

Why does my brain have such a hard time adjusting to the weird schedule we’ve fallen into? Why does it feel like time is both flying by and standing still? Why can’t I figure out how to better manage my time at home with Hubs? IT’s like we get sucked into this newlywed time warp and the few hours after dinner and before bed are gone before they begin, thus, no housework gets done.

And then on my day “off,” I’m scrambling to do dishes, uncover all the table surfaces in our tiny apartment that are buried under mail and coats and cloths and newspapers and…shoes? Oh, Hubs!

So, I’m off to have a productive day. What about you? Big plans? Small plans? No plans? Do you feel like life is dragging on or flying by?

Also, please leave a comment or suggestion on yesterday’s post about how to make better, faster week night meals. We can’t have sandwiches all the time. We need some ideas on what’s fast to make and good to take! (In the car that is.) Or what’s SO fast we can eat before we leave!