Reader, I Married Him

“Books are love letters (or apologies) passed between us, adding a layer of conversation beyond our spoken words.”

--Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer

One of the first things I noticed about Don was that he was a reader. We met in the early ’90s while working the front desk at a swanky boutique hotel in downtown Dallas. Don always had a book in his hands during breaks. Sometimes a paperback. Often, comics.

He was the first adult I knew who read comic books. These weren’t the Archie digests I flipped through at the grocery store checkout as a kid. Don read Vertigo titles like Hellblazer and V for Vendetta, their covers dark and daring. He devoured superhero comics, believing Spider-Man was a childhood mentor as much as a character. He loaned me my first graphic novel, introduced me to Spiegelman’s Maus duology and Alan Moore’s Watchmen, and taught me that comics are both art and literature.

As a romantic interest? I’ll be honest—I didn’t take him seriously at first. I was a new manager and a single mom. He was a goofball. Always singing and dancing around the front desk. But he talked like a reader—thoughtful, opinionated, eager to debate current events and human nature. Beneath the antics, I saw someone insatiably curious, someone who thought deeply. And as a reader, I’ve always appreciated that about him.

Because of our parents’ divorces and other family struggles, Don and I were independent long before we should have been. I graduated from high school; he got his GED. We wanted to learn, but college was out of reach at the time. So we fed our brains however we could, reading at bus stops, during work breaks, in laundromats—anywhere. For a decade, we both worked shift jobs in hotels and restaurants and stole reading time. Even without degrees, we built a foundation of knowledge from books and expanded our worlds beyond the day-to-day grind of working and paying bills.

By the time Don and I met in our mid-twenties, I was a divorced single mom, and he was the lead singer in an alternative rock band. I was wary of men who shrank from smart women. He was tired of casual relationships and wanted a family. Neither of us was interested in anyone who didn’t read.

(There’s a famous John Waters’ quote about romance with nonreaders. It’s NSFW, and a lot of teachers read my posts. You can find it yourself. Enjoy.)

In the early days of our relationship, date nights were rare. Money was tight, and we had a young child at home. When we could, we’d scrape together enough for the $8.99 all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Afterward, we’d wander Paperbacks Plus, a used bookstore now lost to time.

Don had store credit there—earned by swapping in his well-loved books. The staff tracked accounts using index cards in an old recipe box. One night, he scrawled my name on his card. Who needed expensive jewelry? I had a man who sang to me and shared his bookstore credits.

Reader, you know I married him.

The next three decades are a blur, but I savor hundreds of reading memories shared with my husband and our family.

Don read to our daughters at bedtime, waiting until their eyelids fluttered shut before sneaking in absurd plot twists, testing to see if they'd catch him.

Wandering through bookstores and libraries with Don, wherever we go, each new place bringing new stories and encounters with other readers.

Don mailing books, packing donations, organizing my classroom library, and hauling boxes—he’s the hands that carry my reading life and work.

On road trips, I take the wheel while Don takes the rest. Motion sickness keeps me from reading, and his restless energy makes him a natural co-pilot—DJ, backseat wrangler, supply manager. He reads aloud as the miles slip by.

These moments, like so many others, remind me that our shared life together is built from these rituals. Reading rituals.

Don enjoys a pint and a the fire pit at a recent Silent Book Club meeting in San Antonio. He is reading Humankind.

Living with another person for thirty years requires compromise, empathy, and a willingness to evolve—both together and apart. Reading fuels our conversations, sparks our debates, and shapes our dreams. We love nothing more than info-dumping random facts at each other from things we have read. Recent discussions have ranged from the evolutionary advantage of Chihuahua ears (mine) to historical constitutional crises (his).

Having a partner who shares your love for information and your quest to understand the human condition isn’t always easy. People who enjoy arguing about existential ideas often just enjoy arguing. Being married to a reader doesn’t guarantee harmony; it just means we have more material to debate about and more words in our vocabulary to do it!

(In general, most of the readers I know do not suffer fools. Being married to another reader keeps you on your best foot!)

Encouraging and challenging each other as readers has also made us more socially aware, more intentional in the voices we seek out, and more engaged with the world beyond ourselves. When we first met, we read more narrowly. We didn’t realize how biased and small our reading lives were. But over the years, we’ve sought out stories and perspectives beyond our own, broadening our understanding of the world. Since the ’90s, the publishing industry (including the comics industry) has made strides in seeking out and promoting diverse voices, and we’ve been eager to read them. Our lives have expanded alongside our reading.

Now, as middle-aged Gen Xers settling into our Empty Nester Era, our shared bookshelves hold thirty years of beauty, pain, sorrow, and joy. People often choose their life partners based on shared values, and the values we’ve nurtured through wide reading have shaped our long, steady match. The spark of curiosity, integrity, and intellect that first drew us together has been kindled, page by page, all these years.

Three years ago, we moved three hundred miles south to San Antonio. We donated thousands of books, yet somehow, our collection hasn’t shrunk enough. Now, as we finish the major repairs and renovations on our 1920s bungalow, it’s time to unpack our books in this house, which we hope is our last. For the sixth time, we’re curating our shelves, keeping the treasured books that mark our past and making room for the unread ones that will push us to keep growing.

If books are “love letters passed between us,” then our collection is an ongoing conversation—one of argument and agreement, challenge and admiration. And after all these years, we know there’s no better match for us. Marrying a reader has been life-shaping.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

—Donalyn