The best collection of love letter prompts on the web. 42 love letter prompts to be exact.
I mentioned in my last post Four Ways To Emotionally Connect With Your Spouse While You’re Apart that Rich is currently in Brazil and we are apart for the month. While we’re away for extended periods of time like this, Rich came up with the great idea to write each other love letters.
Since we find ourselves writing quite a few of these, we ran out of love letter prompts fairly quickly and were unsatisfied with the love letter ideas we found online (C’mon Google- I thought we were beyond this. Can’t you solve ALL my problems yet??).
So, we figured we’d help old Google out and throw some of our tried and true love letter prompts out into the interwebs. Rich is the creative writer type and I’m the nostalgic sap type, so you’ll find a little of both in the prompts.
Last year after we did this for two months our marriage was stronger than ever! Even after being apart that long. In fact, when we came back to the humdrum of everyday life and busy schedules, we were both feeling a bit empty in comparison to the daily soul-bearing we had grown accustomed to while we were apart.
On one such day, I thought, “Man, I miss the love letters!” Then thought, “Wait a minute, I still have email don’t I?” So I up and wrote Rich a love letter while he was at work. I know! My life is oozing spontaneity. And it was a great way to remind each other that we like each other.
So, if you find yourself away from your spouse for a while, or you just need to vamp up your love tanks, I HIGHLY recommend emailing each other love letters. Or if you want to print them out and give the love letters to your partner as a gift, I’ve made a handy-dandy free printable for you with space to answer each prompt available at the bottom of this post.
These prompts make the perfect anniversary, birthday, Valentine’s Day or Christmas presents. Seriously, imagine their face after reading letters answering these questions.
And don’t worry, I’ll spare you the barf bag you would need from reading examples of our sap-infested, soul-bearing love letters. Though, I am tempted . . .
42 tried and true love letter prompts:
- Type out your earliest memories of each other.
- Go back and re-send some of your earliest emails and texts or transcribe early notes and letters.
- Word association. This one was our favorite. Open a book- the nearest one to you will work. Flip it open at random, close your eyes and point to a word on the page. Write down the word and a random memory or thought you have with or about your spouse associated with that word.**** (example at the bottom of this post) Pick another one if it’s a lame word like “and, but, the, it, in, etc”
- If you had to make a marital bucket list what would be on it?
- Provide a detailed description of how your spouse has made you a better person.
- Write about a song that reminds you of your spouse when you hear it. Type out the lyrics.
- Write about all the things you miss about having your spouse with you. Or if you’re together- what you have missed the most when you have been apart.
- Describe various dream dates – a dream romantic date, fun date, expensive date, etc. (Rich did one where he described a dream laugh-so-hard-we-cry date with a few of our favorite comedians. We played board games with Amy Poehler and Kristin Wiig, went for some mini golf with Melissa McCarthy and Demitri Martin, dinner date with Mike Birbiglia and Tina Fey- we had ourselves a fantastic time with our imaginary best friends).
- Write out your love story- blog post style (then consider emailing it to me so I can post it).
- Ok, you know that part in Sleepless in Seattle when Tom Hanks is describing his dead wife to the radio host and he laughs and describes the way she used to peel an orange in all one piece? If you were describing your spouse to a radio host (they can be alive in this scenario) like that, what would be that weird, quirky thing about them you’d describe?
- Write out a quote from a book that reminds you of your spouse (Rich and I conveniently both read A Fault In Our Stars during this trip, so this was easy 😉
- Explain why you love your spouse now and why you loved them at the beginning of your relationship. Any differences? Similarities?
- Describe little moments in the day when you missed them/thought of them/were grateful for them that day.
- Play two truths and a lie.
- List a few times in your life you wish you would have had your spouse with you.
- Describe what you’ll be doing (ideally) in two years, five years, ten years, twenty years.
- Talk about your favorite scripture or inspirational quote that makes you think of your spouse.
- Pitch a movie about your love story complete with tag line and description. Rich pitched “An Engagement With China” “Boot. Scooter. Boogie.” And “Snow Way!”
- Write an acrostic poem for your names.
- You have a time machine. Which points in your spouse’s life would you go back and visit- just as an observer? I was flattered reading some of the random moments of my early life I’ve described to Rich that he actually remembered 🙂
- Talk about a favorite trip you took together.
- Write about times or things in your relationship/marriage that were disappointing or awful and then how you got over them or learned from them. I actually found this one to be very strengthening.
- Plan out real future date nights.
- Reminisce about the first time you said, “I love you.”
25. Write about how your spouse has changed you since you’ve met them. Be specific.
26. Talk about traits you think you’ve inherited from your parents and what traits your spouse has inherited from theirs. Their answers may surprise you 😉
27. Write poems to each other. (note: Rich could have been a poet. Seriously. And I never knew until love letters . . .)
28. Record all first impressions of each other you can remember.
29. Top 10 lists (Rich did top 10 reasons Celeste is awesome at Valentine’s day). Other Top 10 lists could include: Top 10 favorite memories together, Top 10 moments I loved you most, Top 10 events I’m looking forward to spending with you this year.
30. Post and talk about your favorite pictures of each other.
31. Google newly wed questions and answer them for both you and your spouse. Have your spouse do the same. Compare answers.
32. Write out your favorite things about your kids. Or, if you don’t have kids, what characteristics of your spouse you’d hope your hypothetical children would have.
33. Write about the funniest memory you have together. Or that might be too hard to pick just one, so write about some times when you deep-belly laughed together.
34. Tell your spouse something you honestly don’t think they know about you.
35. Since you’ve been married, has your spouse challenged any preconceptions you had about life?
36. If you had to commit a crime together, what would it be? Aliases encouraged.
37. What about your spouse do you feel you know the least about? What about yourself do you think your spouse knows the least about?
38. If you could go back and give yourself advice about marriage when you were dating, what would you say? What have you learned?
39. Transform your story into a Disney-esque fairy tale. Start with once upon a time . . .
40. What are the physical aspects of your spouse you find most attractive?
41. What do you think they’re greatest strengths and talents are?
42. Share a childhood memory you’ve never shared with them before.
**** Ok, I know I promised I wouldn’t subject you to our love letters, but I just wanted to include two word association examples since they were our fave. The first is from Rich, the second from me.
- “SLOW” When we started running . . . stop. Let me start over. When YOU started running, I know it made you self conscious sometimes (and maybe frustrated) that I went from zero to being able to run much faster than you were. And that when you were able to run without stopping, you were slow, or at least slower than you wanted to be. But babe, I love, love that you made that goal and stayed with it. Slow and steady (you) really did win that race over fast and unreliable (me), because you stuck with it and did it. – Rich
- “DAD” Hmm. A lot of places this one could go – your dad, my dad. I think I’ll choose you becoming a dad. One of my favorite memories of you becoming a dad was when we were in the hospital with Ellia- like a day after I had her and she was being a little fussy (remember when we thought fussy meant a little newborn whimper?) Anyway, I guess I was in the shower or getting ready or something, but I came out to you rocking her and singing “Who Knows How Long I’ve Loved You” by The Beatles. It was so sweet! And then when we brought her home you used to sing to her a lot- even when she wasn’t fussy. I knew you’d be such a great dad even from the first few weeks of our first child’s birth. -Celeste
Are you now SO pumped to fill your partner with love? Let’s do it.
If you’d like for these prompts to magically appear in your email inbox all ready to fill out, then you’re in luck! Just put your email in that box down there and it will happen!
The printable looks like this (first page):
Want more reminders and helpful tips on how to love your spouse more fully?
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I love this post, Celeste! What great ideas! Love letter are the best. 🙂 And that little story about Rich singing to newborn Ellia is so sweet. Made me a little emotional. 🙂
Thanks Shelly!! I’m sure you could be super creative in how to put these to good use for some gift or book 😉
Aww wow, what a lovely post. With loving effort and thought like these distance is only temporary, love is forever.
Jackie- http://www.stylemepetite.com/
So many great ideas! I wish more people wrote love letters these days.
I love this! I tend to just grow more miserable by the day when separated from my sweetie. This is a good reminder to keep things exciting. =)
Once I went to work and left a guy a love note to cheer up. He liked this impromptu and he answered. We have been married for 7 years and periodically write such letters to each other. This brings a new breath to the relationship and helps to remember that despite all the circumstances, we continue to be 19-year-old lovers. It is a pity that now love letters in paper form remained mainly in pictures and emoji https: //emojis.wiki/love-letter/
These are great ideas, and it is the best resource I have found on how to get started writing a love letter. Thanks!