Post Break-Up Communication: Is It Okay to Write a Letter?
 

What are peoples opinions on sending a girl a letter to tell her how you feel about the whole situation after you screwed up.

it's a letter, doesn't have as much humanity, feeling, and responsiveness as real life face to face interaction.

If you're the type that gets toungue-tied in emotional situations, write the letter. Then deliver it in person and sit with her while she reads it. Tell her you're sorry that you fucked up. Then sit there and take whatever she feels like dishing out.

Your relationship will either be over, or stronger than ever. And you will have been a man about it.

yeah if you have to do a letter, do it in person so you can answer immediate concerns, or, you know, deal with her telling you to gtfo, but at least you give it a shot.

Letters are absolutely great if you're living in the 1960s and your girlfriend is over 500 miles away. Confidence cannot be found in a Hallmark card. I'd seriously suggest speaking in person.

Face-to-face is the only way. A letter is vintage, and I guess it's more personal than email, text message, or Facebook (I know people who have been dumped through all 3.)

grumpy has a pretty good solution if you don't want to risk saying the wrong thing.

I'm going to have to detract a bit from what some have been saying and suggest that a letter will work in the right context.

Do not underestimate the power and elegance of written communication, especially if it's handwritten. What one says in writing varies greatly with what one says in conversation. They are two modes of communication that should not be considered an alternative or substitute for each other.

The art of writing letters is all but dead. But it is an art that is powerful nonetheless. Writing itself is. There's a reason why millions of people still write poetry even though I could count on one hand the number of people in the world who actually make a living on it. (A slight exaggeration, but not by much.)

Compared to what we say in person, what we write is a result of private contemplation. To take the time to write a letter is to take your time to reflect on the situation at hand and to go through the effort (which is often excruciating) of putting your thoughts down on paper. One can easily go deeper into the matter this way, whereas conversations don't usually lend the time for such thinking and requires more back and forth. We also tend to put up more barriers and defenses in conversations, leaving us with things left unsaid--things that might have meant something fundamentally important to the relationship. There are things that are better left unsaid, but, conversely, there are things that need to be unearthed from our deepest thoughts. Writing helps us do this.

Writing also leaves us another benefit: a written record of our intimate and carefully considered thoughts. Baraka_Gurl and I have a few of these, and to go back to them always reinvigorates how I feel about the relationship. It brings to the surface things that I might have been taking for granted. Things that were easily forgotten if they were brought up in conversation. Things that would have never been said in person.

When written with great consideration, letters are heartfelt and eternally powerful. But I will stress again, they are not a replacement for what sounds like an essential conversation. Letters have functions that are impossible in conversation, but a constructive discussion has functions impossible to the written word.

But they don't need to be entirely distinct from each other. A letter is a good introduction to your deepest thoughts and feelings, especially if it provides an invitation to talk about them in person. A letter should never be used purely to avoid the intimacy of direct communication. I will say it again: It is not a replacement.

That said, do not be discouraged from writing letters; just be sure to do so in a manner becoming to them. Taking the time to write a heartfelt letter is indicative of how much you care, and if you approach the matter properly, you will connect in ways you may have thought impossible.

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EDIT: Oh, I should probably note that I want to +1 grumpy as well. That's a good use of a letter.

+1 to grumpy.

I changed the title of this thread...to make it more descriptive.

And for my part, I think letters are fine. And in a situation like this, maybe even preferable. Listening is such a temporal thing and memory of what is said can be iffy at best.

Of course, that really just reiterates what Baraka has said above and I agree with everything he says.

http://www.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/c...racter0218.gif I pity the fool who doesn't use a descriptive thread title!

I'm jes' doin' what de bossman tells me to do. :p

This is a good idea. Me and my ex old lady used to get tongue tied at times and we would write how we really felt down and then sat while the other person read it and then dealt with it right then and there. It works really good and helps to keep things on track.

Oddly, I'm in the middle of this exact kind of conversation on AIM.



It's going better then I expected.

Roxxor - I think it's a totally fine thing to do. I've been thinking about doing this with my husband. We've finally seperated and there was a mix of reasons behind this, but I feel that alot of things have gone unsaid and I just feel that he deserves to know this (even though I'm not expecting the situation of where we are to change)

I think this will just help me bring closure to a situation that seems to be in limbo.

The people above me are making some assumptions which can't be gleaned out of this statement.

Have the two of you already broken up over this screw up?

Does she still talk to you face-to-face?

I like letters. I think it helps keep the emotions in check.

However I DO NOT like letters that are hand delivered. If my hubby, or any of my ex's for that matter, wrote me a letter and then sat there while I read it I would be pissed. Like "WTF why don't you give me time to absorb this and then respond." My initial response may not be a good one, but if I am given time to write back or think about it and call then things would go better.

And I totally agree with BG. LOL

I think a letter is perfectly fine - and as baraka noted, can be very useful for thinking your position through and organizing it. I've used letters in situations where I wanted to get my point across, succinctly, and I didn't want to engage in conversations. A lot of times, particularly in emotional situations, you'll have a point or a series of points you want to get across. However, in conversations it's easy to get off on a tangent, walk away, and realize the you never really got to say what you meant to say. With a letter, there is no immediate conversation - just a presentation of your viewpoint. I think they're perfect for certain information.