A Letter: On Marriage, a Woman’s Heart, and Sex On Any Given Tuesday.

Thoughts on how to live inside a marriage.

Dear Jay,

Those countless days sprawled across your lounge room floor by the fire with tea and chocolate truly gave way to some of the most insightful, truthful and honest conversations about love, marriage, God, and the desires placed on a woman's heart. Some days, the tea tasted more of tears than peppermint, and the curiosity cushioned itself right up close to concern, as if you were unsure in those tender moments if two things could be true.

I saw your heart tumbled through wild waters, bounced off the walls of the raging riverbanks, pulled under, weary and bewildered, again and again. I watched you learn to swim when the ground you had trusted gave way beneath you. I watched you gather yourself from the currents that tried to undo you.

And I watched the way you danced yourself back to life when you were asked to begin again.

It is here that I know God did his greatest work, because through it all, you did not harden. In those quiet, candlelit early mornings with your Bible open, your heart still reaching toward hope, you stayed buoyant to what was possible. All the while, life was gently preparing you for a love that would change everything and gifting you the wisdom, born from all the storms, to recognise real shelter when it arrived.

You’ve found your harbour, my love.
And this weekend, you become a wife to a good man.

It is no small thing to stand at the edge of a new beginning. To say yes to a future you cannot yet see. To offer your whole heart, your dreams, your trust, your tenderness into the hands of another.

And rarer still, to be met there by someone ready to cherish it all.

As I sit here writing to you, I find myself thinking not just about weddings or beginnings, but about marriage itself and the extraordinary beauty that unfolds when two people choose each other, not just once, but over and over again.

I remember writing my wedding vows, as if the moment still lives peacefully in my chest, untouched by time. It was a Thursday evening, and I was sitting at my office desk in our old federation rental, with ceilings so high you could feel the stories they held. My desk sat in the middle of a room heavily influenced by the Samantha Wills bohemian era. Pink roses in a vase sat on top of a curated collection of books, splashes of turquoise, and an odd pair of antlers on the mantelpiece. The room smelled of those early years of Jase’s business, candles curing on every surface and the air thick with essential oils. If I close my eyes, I can still find my way back there.

Much like how I write today, sentences, words and threads of feeling swirled in my awareness for weeks before I finally put pen to paper.

I knew I would begin with the words,
"Jason, you are the great love of my life."

I promised him I would be,
"Quick to listen, and slow to speak,"

and that I would,
"Strongly protect his heart for all of my days."

I added a scribbled line from the notes app on my phone that said,
"It is your heart that moves me, your spirit that inspires me, and it is your love that has healed me."

And I finished by saying,
"I am grateful to God that our worlds collided at a moment in our lives where we could accept this life-changing love."

While I am able to close my eyes and meet that misty-eyed bride-to-be right there in that moment, what I didn’t yet understand, at 28, with giddiness in my heart and vows fresh on my tongue, was how to live marriage.

We are taught how to dream about marriage, how to celebrate its beginnings, but we are rarely taught how to live inside it. We are sold the beauty of the wedding day, the romance of the early chapters, but not often the truth about what it means to build a life. To choose each other through the ordinary seasons, the uncertain seasons, and the seasons that demand more than you ever knew you could carry.

But with time, marriage has not only revealed its gritty and glorious self to me, it has shaped me in ways I could never have understood standing at the altar.

I’ve come to know time as the slow alchemy that turns vows into something lived. It is the forgiveness handed back and forth like a gift. It is the joy woven into the fabric of ordinary days. And it is the thousand quiet choices to stay soft, to stay kind, to stay open.

That is what makes marriage so sacred. Because the real beauty lies in the unseen, the parts of yourself you entrust to just one person. The silences that speak volumes. The daily acts of choosing, again and again. It’s that quiet, consistent exchange of truth, love and presence that no one else will ever fully witness, but that, in the end, defines what love and marriage truly are.

I find myself fumbling over my words, torn between the urge to offer you advice and the knowing that marriage can’t be distilled into neat little phrases, especially not ones like “marriage is all about compromise” or “happy wife, happy life.” My advice doesn’t come because I have it all figured out, but because I deeply believe in marriage.

I believe in the togetherness, the unity, the safe corners of marriage that allow you to be most fully yourself. And I want to offer you something, not as a prescription, but as a love letter.

I want to tell you that marriage, the kind that stretches you and holds your heart all at once, is not built on control, perfection or performance. It’s found in the grace you offer one another when things are messy, unfinished or misunderstood.

I want to tell you that marriage, the kind that endures, that softens and strengthens over time, requires you to believe in the goodness within one another, even when it’s hidden, even when it’s hard to reach. To speak it in every room, to honour it, and to feed it intentionally with your words, your touch and your presence.

I want to tell you that marriage, the kind that becomes a safe home for your soul, is made stronger with the intimacy of honesty, vulnerability and the courage to be fully seen by another. The kind that asks you to be bare, in truth, in tenderness, in trust.

I also want to tell you to pash in the kitchen.
To make love on any given Tuesday.
To dance barefoot while the pasta boils.
To whisper something outrageous in the middle of the supermarket.
To hold hands under the table, long after the guests have gone.
To leave the light on. Just because.

I want to tell you to undress each other slowly, even when time says hurry.
To write each other notes no one else will ever read.
To laugh mid-argument, even when you're trying not to.
To remember what turns each other on, and what calms each other down.
To fall asleep tangled, even when it’s too hot.
To say “I love you” when you hang the washing out, and mean it.

I want to tell you to light the candles on a Wednesday.
To run a bath just because they look tired.
To sneak out early for croissants and come back with two of everything.
To make time for desire, not just when it’s easy, but when it’s needed.
To kiss in the doorway like you’ve been apart for years.
And to let your love spill into the ordinary, the dishes, the fuel light, the school pick-up line.

I want to tell you that marriage will only ever be how you make it.
It becomes what you give to it.
What you speak into it.
What you are willing to believe in, again and again.

So, my love, this is what I have come to learn.

To live inside a marriage is to let it be alive.

A living ecosystem that breathes and bends with time, with context, with seasons and life stages.

It is to carry the weight and the wonder in equal measure.

To let the mundane become sacred through attention.

To let the repetition become a rhythm that steadies you.

To let the ordinary moments become your private language of love.

And to remember that love doesn’t always feel the same over time,
but it is always asking the same question:

Will you meet me here?

It is time to let the great love in.

Happy Wedding Day.

Love,
Jody x