Till death do us part: I don’t want to be buried next to my husband

My husband wants us to have our burial plots side by side. I love him dearly, but the thought of spending eternity with him is literally sending me into a cold sweat. Do I just have to go along with his romantic idea that we lie next to each other forever?
G.M., Mosman, NSW

Credit: Simon Letch

In one of my rare romantic moments, possibly the only one, I suggested the same thing to my wife: that we be buried side by side, sleeping together for all eternity. And she said, “So you mean the same way we sleep now? With me holding a pillow over my head to block out your weird, mouth-popping noises? And my elbow forcing back your boob-groping hand? And my legs kicking away your scratchy, scaly feet? Uh, no thanks. I’d rather be cremated. Just burn me. Please. Like, soon.”

That hurt a bit, but she made a fair point. Sleeping together for eternity is quite a commitment: it’s not like you can take a break now and then and crawl out of your burial plot to sleep in a spare guest burial plot up the back of the cemetery. And what if the relationship goes downhill when you get older? You could wind up buried next to your ex-husband for all eternity with his new wife Phyllis buried on the other side – the one he cracked onto during knitting circle at the Golden Goitre Nursing Home.

But if your husband is anything like me, romantic gestures come along maybe once in a lifetime. So I say, just go along with it and fill his heart with joy, raise his spirits high and hope that he dies first. Then sell your burial plot to a random stranger and let someone else spend the rest of eternity sleeping next to your husband, elbowing away his bony, gropey hand.

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