Not a Typical Love Letter to My Husband Happy Valentine's Day

Taye Bela Corby

Daniel,

I have something I need to get off my chest—a kind of dishonesty, not in the way of deception, but in the way of hiding. Hiding from my own grief, from the truths that hover between us, unspoken, shaping the space we now occupy—together, yet apart. This is not a typical love letter.

I used to fear grief as if it were a wave too strong for me to bear alone. But I know now that I must meet it, not skirt its edges. I have already touched its weight. And I am not so foolish as to think I can hold it without a steady hand beside me.

Perhaps writing can help.

Perhaps writing will help.

I don’t believe I have loved you well enough since that famous August night in Austin—since the unraveling that left me grasping at something no longer there. I have carried the story of rejection like a wound I refused to let close, fighting back in ways unseen but no less harmful—forcing myself into your space with quiet demands, hoping you would be the one to ease my suffering.

I am not a victim in this relationship. I have my blind spots, yes. But never have I been a victim. And I refuse to be one now.

Whatever shielded me before is no longer doing its job. What happened between us swept away the tenderness, the warmth of skin meeting skin, the ease of affection. I lost that. We lost that.

However I contributed to its absence, it is gone.

So here I am, standing in the hollow where it used to live, facing the part of myself that swore I could never let this happen.

Yet, here I am.

If I am honest, I do not feel love in this space. It is void of everything. Anything. Certainly not the kind of love that once threaded us together.

And yet—something keeps reminding me that love must still exist in some form. Because I sit here writing to you. Because I still notice you. Still watch as you sit in your chair, coffee or beer in hand. Still recognize the man who protects and provides in the ways only you, Babes, knows how.

I still see you, Daniel. I still think about your well-being, even if I have struggled to touch you. And if I am in tune more deeply, I sense what I do not want to name. A change in you. A slowness, a hesitation—something shifting in the way you move, the way your hands work, the way memory folds in on itself. And I am afraid.

Afraid of seeing too much. Afraid of making too much of what may be nothing. Afraid of nothing at all. Afraid that you will die on me.

I do not want to harm you by imagining things that aren’t there. And yet, I cannot ignore these overwhelming feelings.

Perhaps the hardest truth for me to bear is this: You cannot love me the way I once longed to be loved. And I cannot love you in the way you might have once imagined I would. If I am honest, neither of us is who we thought the other would be.

But if I were to love you better now, I would begin with gratitude—that you are still here. Still sitting across from me. Still listening in the way that you can. Still asking me questions that force me to be more objective. Still here to soften whatever monsters arise.

I would forgive myself for the ways I have hurt you—whether I knew it at the time or not. Even when I cannot pinpoint my part exactly.

I would release the guilt that sits in my belly, the guilt that demands I blame myself for our slow burn.

I would marvel at my body’s healing ability to send you the purest good vibes—love that asks for nothing in return. The kind that simply wishes you ease, healing, and peace in your body, mind, and movement. Whatever is happening.

And then I would just sob. Let myself collapse with grief.

Not just for what I lost. Not just for what we lost. I would fall to my knees and shake for the man I married. For the life I imagined. For the life you imagined I would share. For myself. For the tenderness that once came so easily.

Babes, this is me. Coming clean. Happy Valentine’s.