Commentary by Hannah Lillis
We have a cross stich that my mother-in-law made when Matthew and I got married. It says “Families are Forever,” and honestly every time I see it now I think “well, I hope not!”
Don’t get me wrong—I love my husband and my children. I really, really love our three daughters, and I would never want to spend eternity without them. But to be honest, I expect that they will spend just as much of eternity with their husbands and children as they might with me. Since they have grown, some have gone on missions, some have gone to school, and some married, it has been bittersweet for me to see them go. Right when they get fun and can take care of themselves they leave! I expect Families are Forever means lots of being together but also lots of leaving.
If it were just that then I could handle an eternity of having people I love come and go. The real problem is that it have to spend more than 15 minutes with Matthew after this life, just the two of us together, I might look for the shuttle to the Terrestrial kingdom.
I said at the outset that I love him, and I mean it. But I also mean that I want the best for him. I want him to be happy. I want God to give him a heaven with eighteen straight hours of college football, with March madness and with those brackets he makes, with a to-do list he can ignore, with the freedom to go to church when he feels like it, with a mansion that has toilet seats left up and wet towels on the bathroom floor, and a celestial kingdom where he can generally be emotionally and sexually withdrawn. He needs a heaven where he can not notice my efforts to connect with him, where he can turn a blind eye to my efforts to be best friends. His heaven needs to allow him to not share things about himself with me so that he never has to take risks or be vulnerable and we never have to deal with real struggles or conflict. Or real intimacy. Or real love. Throw in some clouds, harps, his three brothers, (maybe his secretary?) and I think it will be perfect for him.
That would be heaven. For him. Just please don’t ask me to be there. At all. Ever.
Miguel Barker-Valdez
Miguel is a Guatemalan-American Mormon living in the Northwest with his family. He is one of the proprietors of the Rational Faiths blog.
All posts by Miguel Barker-Valdez
I’m sorry, it sounds like your marriage is very unhappy. I hope you find the help and healing you need.
Yes. Me too. I’ve often thought the Celestial Kingdom is a world where men’s fantasies come true. And all the unmentioned women are just there to facilitate them. I’ll take any other kingdom, please. Not that one.
Sounds like you probably won’t have to worry about it.
None of us do. It’s all crap.
After suffering through his awful political posts and most of his other opinions, I understand where your coming from. Hopefully your marriage issues get resolved sooner than later.
What a pathetically sad post. I’m so sorry.
Thankfully, we can choose whether or not to stay with our eternal companions. Not sure if that changes where we end up. I’m sorry for what you’re going through. Hopefully things will improve for you both. Prayers and hugs.
I love my husband. No, really. I love him a lot.
Now here’s a list of his flaws for everyone to read on the internet.
Made me giggle! Life is complicated. (I assume eternity will be too.). But it reminds me of an emotional time in life my life when I burst into tears during a sacrament meeting because I didn’t want to go to heaven with the speaker.