# Richard Feynman’s Love Letter to His Wife, Sixteen Months After Her Death > The mechanism of enduring love is rooted in the emotional connection and shared experiences that transcend physical presence Source: fs | Date: 2026-01-15 | Reading time: 3 min | Canonical: https://library.againstentropy.dev/article/richard-feynmans-love-letter-to-his-wife-sixteen-months-after-her-death/ | Original: https://fs.blog/2013/08/richard-feynman-love-letter/ ## Snapshot - Emotional connection can persist even after physical separation or death - Shared experiences and memories can continue to inspire and influence behavior - The depth of love can make it difficult to form new connections with others **When to use:** This insight applies to romantic relationships where a deep emotional connection has been established **Common mistake:** People commonly misapply this by trying to replace a lost loved one with someone new, rather than acknowledging and processing their grief **Related concepts:** emotional-connection, long-term-relationships, grief-and-loss --- [Richard Feynman](https://fs.blog/intellectual-giants/richard-feynman/) was an amazing character mastering physics, thinking, life, and as we shall soon see, love. Richard and Arline Greenbaum were soul mates. They were a perfect symbiotic pair, each completing the other. They shared the love we all seek. Feynman was fond of writing love letters to Arline. Many of them appear in [Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465023711/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=farnamstreet-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465023711&linkId=3a8e6bdbea3203f494b7ef5d2cb90477). None is more beautiful than the one Richard wrote to Arline sixteen months after her death. > October 17, 1946 > > D’Arline, > > I adore you, sweetheart. > > I know how much you like to hear that — but I don’t only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you. > > It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing. > > But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you. > > I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can’t I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures. > > When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive. > > I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I — I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real. > > My darling wife, I do adore you. > > I love my wife. My wife is dead. > > Rich. > > PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address.