Dear Emily,

I’m a 32-year-old man engaged to the love of my life. She’s my older brother’s widow who was married to him for seven years till he died in a car accident.

I have always been secretly in love with her, but I kept my feelings to myself, as I didn’t want to ruin my brother’s happiness. But it was hard keeping it all inside me during that time.

After my brother died, I finally got the courage to confess my love for her and I was surprised to know she felt the same way about me. We became very close and developed a relationship. When I told my parents this, they said it was disrespectful to my late brother. They said it’s in the bible that it’s a sin against God for a man to marry his dead brother’s widow.

I love her very much and want to spend the rest of my life with her, but everyone is against us—my parents, her parents and many of our friends. We desperately want their blessing but I think we are not going to get it.

Mr. In-Conflict

Those against this union are saying that the bible is forbidding it and calling it a sin? I’ve seen mentions of them in the great book and the few I’ve read have opposing views and can’t seem to agree on what God actually said. Those were written by old men who lived thousands of years ago. I suggest you write your own version using your heart and mind as you see fit.

Your brother is dead, and his wife didn’t jump in the funeral pyre to follow him to the great beyond. Now that she’s single—as you are—what is the problem again? Are there really certifiable impediments here? You’re not stealing another man’s wife and you’re not forcing anybody to come away with you. Together, your only fault is falling in love with each other and not finding each other sooner. If that is a crime, so be it.

Don’t worry about making God angry. You cannot fathom how infinitely fantastic, liberated and forgiving the God we believe in is. He doesn’t possess a pea brain like many of us do.

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