Hi Sue,

You’re very wise and have great spiritual understanding. You’re doing what we advise people to do. Your love for your husband is very apparent.

You wrote,
I am worried that I might hold back my husband's spiritual development and I would not wish to do this. That would be very selfish but I love him so much that I cannot imagine not having the spiritual closeness I feel we have now. I feel so torn.

Don’t feel torn. You’re not holding him back. Let me explain what I mean. Your husband is involved in his new life, as though he had gone on to graduate school somewhere. He’s away from you, but when you call him, he comes to you, like answering the phone when you call. He’s still going to class and is involved in his studies. But he thinks of you often just as you think of him. He’s the same person on the next plane of life as he was here. So when he thinks of you and misses being with you, he’ll come to you, like calling YOU on the phone. When he does that, you get the wonderful signs you get of his presence.

His love for you is as strong, and it will continue, just as it does when someone goes away to college. But he does have his own spiritual development to pursue, and hobbies to enjoy, concerts to attend, plays to watch, and a great variety of other activities to enjoy. He’s engaged in them, while all the time continuing his great love for you. And when you want to communicate, he can come to you.

Don’t worry about holding him back. Enjoy the phone conversations with him any time you want. And enjoy the calls he makes to you in wonderful signs, sudden feelings of love and warmth, spontaneous memories of things you did together—those are all him when he decides to make contact with you.

Now, you may have read in my books or Web site that when people grieve profoundly for their loved ones, that may hold them close to the Earth plane out of great concern and sadness that they can’t communicate that they’re OK. Yes, that does happen. They may stay close for months or years. That’s not your case. You don’t sound like your hysterical and dramatic about your grief. You just have the normal grief from things being different now, and the loss of the things you used to do together. That’s normal.

But more importantly, we have an eternity! If someone decides to stay close to the Earth plane because their loved one is ill, depressed, in grief, or otherwise needy, they choose to do so out of love, just as any of us on the Earth plane would give up our own lives to care for a child or spouse who was ill. That’s not holding the caregiver back, and it isn’t holding back the person on the next plane of life. They choose to do that out of love. And if they don’t get fully engaged in their new life for a couple of decades, they still have a million billion years to do so! Time is meaningless outside of the Earth plane.

So don’t worry about your husband. He’s at graduate school, and you can contact him or he can contact you any time. He’s busy with his studies and you won’t distract him for long periods, just as you’re busy with your life. Just enjoy your new relationship. There’s much to enjoy there if you allow yourself to.

Love and peace, Craig