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A Letter To My Husband Who I Haven't Yet Met

If I said yes, know that you’re perfect to me.
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I don’t do perfect. I do real.
Mlenny via Getty Images
I don’t do perfect. I do real.

Dear Future Husband,

I've often wondered what you'd be like. I even thought I'd met you before. A couple of times, in fact.

Other times, I've questioned whether marriage is for me at all. Any wonder. I inherited numerous blueprints for how-to-fail-at-marriage from my parents. Divorce DNA.

As my husband, I want you to be the one person who knows intimately the dustiest chapters of my past. And there are many. And love me more because of them. I don't do perfect. I do real. Let authenticity, conversation and hunger for each other be the manifesto for our marriage.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm not a great driver, and I'm a horrible singer. Know that I have insecurities. I'm a kaleidoscope of flaws, as I hope you are too. I get anxious, and bite my nails. All too often. At times, I get lost in my own head.

But please don't ever mistake my desire for independence or intermittent silence as indifference.

Sometimes I'm boisterous and giggly. Confident. I was complete before I met you, as I hope you were too.

But beneath the bravado, my emotional underbelly bruises easily, so be generous with hugs and open of heart.

While grand romantic gestures might become an artefact of our courtship, passion will not. Being best friends won't stop me wanting to tear your clothes off.

Despite grocery shopping and doing laundry, our home will not be one of small talk and monotony. We are the authors of our suburban sonnet, after all.

And what do I think you're like? Well. The weight of expectation is a heavy one, so I'll avoid preconceptions. If I said yes, then, well, know that you're perfect to me.

I read somewhere once that you need to fall in love six times before you get married. Honestly, I'm not sure what the 'magic' number is. I've fallen in love before, more than once. And fallen out of it again. I've met some very special people out of the 7 billion wandering the globe. Yet, despite time and life and multiple broken hearts, some inexplicable nonsensical pull brought us together.

I think too many people stay together because of expectation. Or exhaustion. Or fear of upsetting the status quo.

But I, perhaps because of the divorce skeletons rattling through my head, have always vowed I would never settle for second best.

And I haven't. You are family. Bound not by DNA, you are the family that I chose.

And every day, I will choose you, again.

And again.

Always.

I do.

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