Dear Future Husband,

I’m not only praying for your appearance into my life, but I’m praying for you in general. I’m praying that you’re excelling in school or work right now or whatever you happen to be doing at this time in your life. I’m praying that you remain faithful to your beliefs. I’m praying that you aren’t perfect; I want you to make me a better person through teaching me patience, trust, and faith. I hope you’re having the time of your life right now, but I also hope you’re praying for me, too.

First and foremost, I need you to know that I make mistakes. I’ll get angry at you for trivial instances, and I’ll more than likely yell at you; but I’ll regret all of it later. I’ll forget to take your clothes out of the washer and you’ll have to wear them wet to work, but we’ll get to a point where we can laugh about it. I’ll get stressed and lash out on you, but know that I don’t mean to be harsh with you. I get jealous easily and it might seem like I’m questioning your loyalty, but in reality I need reassurance. I’m doubtful of myself and I’m insecure, however, I don’t expect you to be the reason behind my confidence; hold me when I’m upset and uplift me, but I’ll be OK. I’m moody and sometimes I’ll ignore you for reasons even I don’t know, but I’ll never get tired of you.

Once we’re together, no one else matters. I don’t have a wondering eye; I have eyes only for you. If you treat me good I’ll always treat you better. I have high expectations for you and myself. I don’t expect you to ever be okay with anything that I wouldn’t be okay with, but I need you to communicate with me. It’s important that you know that I’ll be your best friend, too. I’ll be there when you’re worrying about a job promotion, and I’ll be there when you receive it, too; I’ll be your greatest support system. But when things go wrong I expect our relationship to stay grounded and not go wrong with them.

An artist named Ruelle sings a song called “I Get to Love You” and I think that describes how I’ll feel about our relationship; I’ll see it as a privilege to love and be loved by you. The first lines in the song read, “One look at you; my whole life falls in line. I prayed for you; before I called you mine. I can’t believe it’s true, sometimes.” I know that God will have chosen you particularly to spend the rest of my life with, and I’ll never question God’s plan for my life. I believe everyone has a soulmate and once you find that person you shouldn’t ever let them go. Fighting for what you love is how successful relationships work. I don’t ever expect it to be easy, but I expect it to be worth the fight. I know that you won’t feel like loving me everyday, and that’s okay. When you only feel like giving 10 percent, I’ll give you 90 percent, and we’ll still have our 100 percent at the end of the day.

Relationships aren’t always fair. Sometimes one person will have to try harder than the other, but that doesn’t mean you throw in the towel and give up; it means you choose love. Love is both a feeling and a choice; initially you feel constant love, but there comes a point where that isn’t always enough and you have to make a decision to keep fighting. People change through time and experiences, so you choose to love the changed version of each other; you don’t dwell on the past and how it felt. You move on and you love better for it.

“My teacher asked us, ‘Is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?’ We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort. She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice. Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work everyday with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage the ‘feeling of love’ had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation. The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with. The divorced ones said they chose to walk away. Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days. I no longer fear the day someone who I swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.” - Unknown