I wrote this back in 2018 when I was thinking of how I would be as a partner for a new wife.
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Both my parents had “issues” and it was hard to find myself amongst all the dysfunction of our family. Being a father and husband was exciting but laced with many failures and mishaps and I struggled to find myself in the struggles.
Today I am a different person, after divorce, having done some growing up of a different sort – a more mature way, been my own parent and with the grace and help of God come out of it with different feelings of what marriage, love and happiness are.

This time around I would marry and let her be her as she is and let her develop at her own pace, in her own way, so that the result would be who she was born to be and not what I or society wanted her to be.

I would listen without saying anything, just being a comfort because I know how it feels to have no one to talk to and no one who wants to understand. I want to just hold her close and listen. Anything she said is safe with me. Anything she says out loud is good for her to hear and for me to hear so that I can understand her life path, what she has been through, where she is coming from, and how much
unconditional love she really needs.

I would let her make her own mistakes, just not dangerous ones, so that she will learn from her own life, failings, mistakes and learn with the trials and errors of her own personal journey.
We may be attached in love but she still has her path, her lessons, trials and journey separate from mine, and in that she will need the room to grow naturally in her own strength and character.

I would be the ever-encourager. Lift her up when she is down. Holding her when she cries without seeking a reason for the tears, just knowing that she is going through something and needs to be held, to know that someone loves her unconditionally and that I am near, here and always available for her anytime night and day.

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Back in 2018, I was trying to imagine how to be a healer and husband, friend, encourager, healer, and a person who was available, and would also bring out the best in her in her own time.

A lot of my feelings about love and companionship came from what i never got or experienced, but I know exists, so i write it down not for me, but to let other people consider or reconsider their relationships with their spouse, and that the experience of love is to also improve each other and each to bloom and grow in each others arms, ever thankful for the other’s affect in their own lives.

All my writings about romance and love are to encourage loving healing honest relationships based on honesty and compassion and bringing out the best in one another.

All the best from
James M Sandbrook.