Man Pens Love Note to Wife Every Day for 40 Years

The happy couple's advice: Put the phones down and focus on each other
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 13, 2015 8:49 AM CST
Man Pens Love Note to Wife Every Day for 40 Years
Kris and Bill Bresnan have saved the 10,000 love notes he's written for her since they met in 1974.   (Courtesy of Bill Bresnan)

Bill and Kirsten Bresnan are off to an early Valentine's Day start—they've been sharing holiday-themed cards since Feb. 1. But that's not even close to the whole story. Bill has penned a love note to his wife nearly every day since 1974. Bresnan tells the Asbury Park Press that "Kris" was initially a student of his in a six-week prep class for the Series 7 exam; when they started commuting on the same Long Island Railroad train, he began by jotting notes to her on napkins. It grew from there to, by today's count, 10,000 letters, organized chronologically in some 25 boxes. The couple, who say they've never had a fight in all those years and prefer to talk it out instead of argue, call the collection their "love diary." The signature of each letter bears an infinity sign.

Some of the notes are short and sweet—"Thank you for being you and loving me," scribbled on a postcard in December 1989—but sometimes Bill goes big, reports ABC News. In the 50 days leading up to Kris' 50th birthday, for instance, he sent a series of 50 special cards. But in the end, Bill says, the key is to focus on and treasure each other, not phones and other distractions; he says dinner each night is eaten by candlelight, with romantic music as a backdrop. As for this Valentine's Day, "We'll probably have a nice dinner, a special bottle of wine, and a piece of chocolate," he says. "We're past the craving for jewelry and expensive nonsense. We just enjoy simply being together." As for his letter-writing habit, he expresses a single qualm to CBS New York: "As I get older, my biggest fear is the day I forget to give it to her." (One couple's love letters from WWI were recently uncovered.)

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