Letter from a former president

 

I love my Readers Digest. I started reading it when I was 12 years old; it littered my father’s library all over the house. I love the many beautiful columns and beautiful features and they contributed to my being the writer I am today. At over 50, I still read reader’s digest and I am never able to throw them away. There is always something that catches your fancy even in an old edition. I return to them time and again and I always find that there is something missed in an old edition.

It is the most read magazine that I have ever collected. I sometimes give them out to friends and family who are ill or have recently had a baby. It is a great read any day any time and there are always life lessons in them. Today let me share with you a letter from a former United States President, Ronald Reagan to his son Michael on the eve of Michael’s wedding. This is a must read for all men and aspiring grooms. The letter was written in June 1971.

Dear Mike:

You’ve heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by all the “unhappily married”. But there is another viewpoint. You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide to make it. Some men feel their masculinity can be proven only if they play out in their own lives all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, a wife does know, and with they knowing, some of the magic of the relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who kicked the whole thing away themselves than there can ever be wives deserving of blame. There is an old law of physics that you can get out of a thing only as much as you put in it. The man who puts into the marriage only half of what he owns will get that out.

Let me tell you how really great is the challenge of providing your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. It takes quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tend him while he was sick, and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow, and you will know some very beautiful music. If you truly love a girl, you shouldn’t ever want her to feel, when she sees you greet a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she was someone who caused you to be late coming home.

Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.”

Great advice from a man who should know: A father, a former President at the time and a devoted husband.

President Reagan wrote this letter to his son long before he became President. He understood the importance of dedication by men to their marriages. He also understood how critical for men to show their wives love by not breaking their hearts. This was evidence in the way he looked at the former American First Lady, Nancy Reagan, who everybody agreed was completely beholden of her husband – totally dedicated. Their long lasting marriage unto death was certainly as a result of everything that Ronald Reagan said must be done by a man in a marriage and one of my favourite points in this letter was when he said, A man must tell his wife, I love you once a day. It never kills. The other part I really love is him pondering if cheating with another woman and making your wife unhappy is worth it and he is apt. The woman who does everything for you must receive all your love. By not giving it, most men use their hands to throw everything away especially their marriages.

His marriage to Nancy was beautiful. I can see why. They were devoted to each other. Let us hope lessons have been learnt. Enough said.

 

Eugenia Abu