All Eternity

The Law of Sarah

Growing up I used to daydream about days like today. I would picture putting on pretty dresses and helping my future sister wife with her hair. When I imagined it as a child everyone was happy and laughing together, sharing secrets and making jokes. The room was always full of bright sunshine. Nothing like this.

I was raised in a family where plural marriage was normal and expected. My parents - one father, five mothers - taught me to love the idea of having sister wives. I wanted more than anything to be my husband's third wife and to welcome as many sister wives to the family after me as we could.

And I got my wish. Almost one year ago I married Justin Bieber. Yes, the same Justin Bieber with close to 40 million Twitter followers who sells out concerts in a matter of seconds. The world might know me as his new girlfriend but secretly we are married. I am Justin's 3rd wife.

At least that's what my family believes. Justin's first wife is none other than Selena Gomez. She converted to our religion after she and Justin started dating because we believe the only way a husband and wife can be together forever, and the only way anyone can even get into heaven, is through the covenant of plural marriage or polygamy. As soon as Justin turned 18 they were married in secret.

8 months after that, Justin married Hope Allsop. Hope grew up in this lifestyle, like I did, only her family lived like a lot of polygamist families do - completely cut off from society. They did, and still do, a lot of really weird things that don't make a lot of sense or go along with what our church teaches. Hope was abused in a lot of ways and we've all struggled because of it.

When I joined the family a lot of different things happened. First I found out Selena wanted to leave Justin. She broke up with him as his girlfriend in public then decided to leave the family. Then there was a lot of trouble with Hope that led to her decision to run away. This left me as Justin's only wife.

You might think that since I was raised thinking the only way to get to heaven was by practicing polygamy that having Justin all to myself would be a terrible thing. In fact, I'm sure that's how my family would react if they'd ever found out that two of Justin's wives had left him. A year ago I might have been too scared to marry him if I'd known what was coming.

The past year has been a hard one, but I've learned a lot about myself and about my religion. I've actually learned a lot of really awful, scary things about the way my church lives polygamy. You might say I can understand the idea of how it's supposed to work and I'm okay with that idea. But what I've learned is that the way it works in real life is not anything like how it's supposed to work.

More than that, I've realized that I'm completely and totally in love with Justin. Growing up I was told never to fall in love because it would only lead to jealousy which, as you can guess, would just make everyone in the family unhappy. How could you ever share someone you love? You just can't.

So how did I end up here, in my old bedroom, in my parents house, watching as Selena curls my younger sister Sarah's hair to get her ready to marry the man I love? It's a really good question, one I really want to ask and if I wouldn't get in a lot of trouble for just flat out refusing I would do that.

But the fact is if I refuse I risk losing Justin entirely. I could be kicked out of the church, or worse - reassigned to another man. And no matter how confused and hurt I am right now I don't want to lose Justin. I can't.