A Letter of Love
I write this in humble appreciation for the mystery of marriage and relationship together. My wife and I have been married for 23 years and have been together for over 30 years.
What is interesting about marriage is how you are writing a story of your togetherness, how two are one. Yet at the same time continuing to write your individual story.
As real as each of us standing before a book and authoring each page, is the ongoing story of us. On the spine, we as a couple are the authors. Then the other books, each with our own names on them. Writing the story of our unique lives as individuals.
In our time together and in this marriage, we have both changed in subtle and significant ways. Perhaps the most significant moment came when you were 33 and we discovered that you were bi-polar. It marks the person you were before you went into the hospital and the person afterward.
So for a brief moment, I’ll remember you in the early days.
I remember how boldly yourself you were. Daring, creative, expressive, fun, vibrant, playful, beautiful. You were so much those things that our dear daughters would hardly recognize you from how you appear now.
I remember how I would have come to one word – alive – to associate with you. I remember your spirit. How fearless your spirit was. Equal parts carefree and generous and naïve. In your boldness, you could bring laughter, joy, and a smile. This would happen when you were in the moment.
You were truly a force of nature, rare and beautiful as a spirit of God’s creation. I’m good, perhaps gifted at understanding people’s spirits. It comes naturally to me so this acknowledgment does not come casually. You are very rare and particularly unique, like a one in a billion pattern on a lovely face of a stone. My memory of you is full of goodness. I have not forgotten who you were, how you were. I have not forgotten the happiness, the fun, the laughter.
I have not forgotten the light that you brought. For as a person of a more serious nature I tend to seek people who are funny, light and free. I can get to serious and deep all on my own. I appreciate others who can walk me to humor and lightness. You did that for me often and I thank you deeply for that. I thank you and am blessed to have experienced this.
So now comes the turn.
There was the bi-polar event where you went into the hospital. Cycling from manic to depressive in remarkable speed and succession. In being there, I witnessed a person in a way that is truly intimate. Intimate in ways that are profoundly revealing. Intimate in that all context of our relationship and life together up to that point was vanished. The only real thread was our presence together and my voice. That you did not know who I was, but you knew the sound of my voice that was all that remained of us, our history together.
I saw the highs of joyousness, wonder, amazement, appreciation and unbounded freedom. All of this for creation. Interestingly for creation and not people. It seemed that people could only get in the way when you were in this state.
On the flipside there was the darkness. Deep levels of suspicion, judgment, self-doubt, selfishness, piousness and isolation. It was as if you were being opened up before me to see the highest expressions of your light and the deepest throes of your darkness. To see this, to witness this in another person is intimate. Very intimate. Indeed sacred.
On the other side of this event you emerged as a person who was and is different. The funny thing is, all of this has always been there, a part of you. A part of us. But it came as a defining part of the story and at least up to now, divides time into the before and after of that event.
The presence of your bi-polar nature has impacted our relationship profoundly. Part of me is there to support you, know you, help you and through it all love you. This is compassionate love. Being with you has taught me how to love another person compassionately.
The other part of me is the human part. The part that longs for simple, uncomplicated togetherness, for I am loving a person who some days can be depressed and other days be manic.
What this means in the bedroom can be dynamic as well. I don’t like the depressed lover. Blunt, numb and overly physical. At times I have felt used or better put, unfulfilled. It is a cold feeling. The manic lover is more fun. Alive, playful, very sensitive. In an odd way, while it is very fun, there is also the feeling of it being something other. Like you made love to a stranger. The best is the one in the middle.
Dear readers, you may think you want someone wild at times in the bedroom, but take it from me, the lovemaking that comes from honest, sincere, familiar, intimate knowing of each other, that unadorned lovemaking without affect, is the most satisfying and spiritual.
I have always felt that sensual is to the spiritual and physical is to the sexual. My dear wife has been in a depressed state for a while now and so our lovemaking has been physical.
Yet the other night, we had a long and beautiful dance of the spiritual and sensual. My hands both gentle and strong all over her body. Our kisses playful, daring, deep, loving and long. Our mouths and tongues finding each other’s skin. Those warm, wet, hot, hard, soft and private places. The places where we say I love you in a language without words.
How I love your soft skin, your movement to my touch, the shape and feel of your breasts, the erotic hardness of your nipples, the sensuality of your hips, the exhilarating feel of your lips – both. The music was lovely, my dear wife. All I want to say is thank you. It was a beautiful night together.
I miss you. I still love you. I still believe someday that you’ll be free again and we will love together without the pull of positive and negative that seems to take you and us with it.
My dear God, regardless of what happens thank you for creating her and giving me this time.
My dear wife, you are beautiful. I’m still here and ever so grateful when the clouds part and we can play in the beautiful light of the sun.
It has been a struggle and I’ve felt alone, but this is what devotion means. Just remember I am here and waiting to make beautiful music together.
This is really vulnerable and really beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing.
Hi John, my heart aches for both of you. In NO WAY can I even try to say I know what the two of you are experiencing, but I understand in some way the feeling of ‘losing’ a lover.
Our 19 year old daughter was killed in a car accident just more than two months ago and this has changed our entire lives. 5 Days after her death my mother passed away and 33 days after my mom;’s passing, my father died as well.
Everything that was beautiful now hurts. We buried our daughter the day before Mother’s Day. You can imagine what that Mother’s Day was like. My wife cries through most days and the devastation just does not stop. BUT GOD! Yes! HE says that His grace is sufficient and we believe that. We hang onto HIM with everything we have.
The wonderful new for you and me (and for our wives) is that we all wait for a better future. Life here is so very short, but the glory that awaits us is so great that we will run this race until the finish. Your letter made me think of the Movie, “Notebook.” It speaks of a love that is so Godly and giving. I pray that the Lord will bless you both and that the times of ‘normality’ will be great and often and that your love will bring healing to your precious wife.
I think we all should read 1 Cor 13 again and replace the word “Love” with our own name…. John is patient, John is kind, John is …… And ask us if we are then living up to this Scripture.
Give Mrs Brunner a hug from me!
I cannot even imagine how heartbreaking it would be to lose so many loved ones in such a short amount of time! I admire you both for staying close to each other through it all instead of drifting apart. Praise God. May God continue to bless what He has created and sustains!
The Rose, I’m so sorry that you have lost these wonderful people in such a short time. I can relate as I lost my daughter in a car accident nearly 4 years ago, and she didn’t live to see her 25th birthday! :'( But as Blondie once said, God does sustain us during trying times.
And John it’s terrible that this is going on, but God will look after you as He has me and our family. I can see you love her, and that’s wonderful and vital too. Always pray, and it might not even hurt to talk to her, and she how she’s feeling about things. God Bless you both, and may He always guide you
So beautiful and moving. God will bless the faithful obedience of you both, I am certain. I am so encouraged that, with God, marriages can stay strong and sweet even within heartache! I admire you both! Thank you for sharing!
Dear John Brunner from the Smittens:
You very much defined what marriage is all about. There is a strong force . . . some place in the hearts and souls and love of two people bonded in Christian marriage, physically, emotionally, and spiritually that transcends diseases and tragedies. It is impossible to stop feeling tenderly and emotionally about our spouses just because they might have elderly dementia, chronic illness, drug addiction, etc. We were deeply inspired by the love that you have for your wife and how you described it so eloquently.
I am a single woman still waiting on God's choice for my future husband, and a long-time reader of Marriage Heat. This site gave me hope as a single, and taught me a great deal about healthy, godly marital perspective. Your story today did the same, and more.
I was profoundly touched by your adoration for your wife. You don't see bipolar as who she has become; you see and hang onto her at her core, and love her fully, come what may.
After reading a husband's heart in the face of such challenges, for the first time I was confronted with how my Asperger's Syndrome could impact my future spouse (who today I still haven't met). Your words could one day describe his heart: his periods of loneliness in our future marriage, his patient longing for us to play together again when the sun returns. My heart now aches with love, grief, and empathy for him! In tears, I got down on my knees. I beseeched our loving Father in Heaven to fortify my future husband for what's coming: my emotional walls under stress, my emotional overloads, my times when I can't read his emotions and don't perceive his emotional needs in the moment. Autism does not define my happy, amazing life. Autism doesn't poison the enormous well of love I have to give. Yet, Autism will affect my future husband's life when he marries me.
I know I will never be all that he deserves. Yet, I pray that all the lack will be filled in Christ, and one day, fully restored whole in Him.
May God fortify his and my love for each other today and in the days ahead, in sunshine and rain. May we keep choosing each other and forsaking all others, because Jesus brought us together and because He first chose us. May His love be where we find fulfillment and purpose. And may He be the enduring wellspring of our love. I pray the same for you. Thank you so much for sharing your story back in 2015.
Blessed today by this outpouring of the deepest love I think I've ever "witnessed" short of God's for us. In fact, it echoes and emulates it! Thank you, SweetMockingbird, for bringing it to my attention through your comment today.