Assalaamu alaykum. In heaven, who will we love more, the husband, the wife, or the children? Or do we get to choose? I am asking because there is a verse that says that we will have eyes only for our partners, so does that mean that we will love our partners more than our children? Do we not get a choice? Will we be forced to love our partner more than our children? Can we have the choice? What does that verse mean?

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

We did not find any statement of scholars that answers your question. In fact, they never preoccupied themselves with searching for such details about the conditions of the people of Paradise, especially given that this matter is part of the Unseen, the knowledge of which is the exclusive domain of Allah, The Exalted. The wise believer should concern himself with what helps him earn Paradise; he should ask about what he needs to carry out good deeds and attain the highest ranks in Paradise. Allah, The Exalted, says (what means): {Indeed, those who have believed and done righteous deeds will have gardens beneath which rivers flow. That is the great attainment.} [Quran 85:11]

The verse that you are referring to has nothing to do with a woman loving her husband more than her children; rather, it means that she is content with her husband and refrains from aspiring to any other man and accordingly finds perfect happiness and bliss with him. Ibn Al-Qayyim wrote, “The women of Paradise lower their gaze and do not look at other men aside from their husbands because they are content with them and love them. This implies that their husbands also do not look at other women; as their beauty makes their husbands refrain from looking at other than them.”

Allah knows best.