Married wrong man?

Hi,

I was very much in love with a non-member before I married my husband. This non-member was everything a Mormon man should be. My patriarchal blessing is unusually detailed about the person I should marry, even stating I would be in love with this man. I still believe this non-member was the person I was meant to marry. It also says that my future life with my Father in Heaven will hinge on my choice of marriage partner. Instead of marrying the non-member I married a member in the temple that I wasn’t in love with (and still not). The spirit told me that I wasn’t supposed to marry him. My husband is a good man and honors his priesthood but after 20 years of marriage I am still worried that I made the wrong choice and have now jeopardized my future life with my Father in Heaven. Just because my husband is a good man doesn’t mean that he was the right choice for me. Is my future life with my Father in Heaven in serious jeopardy here?

Anonymous

___________________

Anonymous,

A simple answer to your question would be “NO” your future life with our Heavenly Father is not in jeopardy. The only time our future life with our Heavenly Father is in jeopardy is if we commit a serious transgression and do not repent.

Have you ever wondered with regard to marrying a non-member that a non-member could have easily withdrawn you from the gospel, and if withdrawn from the gospel then your future life with Heavenly Father may have actually been in jeopardy?

I have a tendency to believe that it is very hard to learn to “love” your spouse if you are consistently living in the past. If the spirit told you not to marry him, and you made the choice to marry him, then honor the choice you made, and stop looking back, and continue to increase your love for your current spouse.

I remember wise counsel we have been given with marriage, “Choose whom you love, and love your choice.” If your husband is a good man, whether or not he was the right choice is long past gone. You have already made the choice, honor your choice, and continue faithful in the gospel. Love is a choice, not something that happens in a moment.

I am reminded of the scene from “Fiddler on the roof” where the husband asks, “Do you love me…” :

(Tevye) Golde, the first time I met you was on our wedding day. I was scared, but my father and my mother said we’d learn to love each other. And now I’m asking, Golde, Do you love me?

(Golda) I’m your wife

(Tevye) “I know…” But do you love me?

(Golda) Do I love him? For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him, fought him, starved with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his if that’s not love, what is?

(Tevye) Then you love me?

(Golda) I suppose I do

(Tevye) And I suppose I love you too

Our ability to love may begin with infatuation, a strong like, a recognition that the individual I am choosing to marry is a “good person”, however, it is not how it begins that matters necessarily, it is how it ends, and how it ends is your personal choice.

Sincerely,

Gramps