Does The Sisterhood’s Eseni Ellington really want to be a nun?

23-year-old Eseni Ellington takes a break from her longterm relationship with Darnell on Lifetime’s The Sisterhood, to decide if she wants to become a nun.

The lives of the Sisters who came to Eseni’s house as a child fascinated her because they seemed so simple. She was drawn to this perceived simplicity because she was raised with chaos and drama. Her dad had a baby with another woman when she was nine, and she remembered her mom crying hysterically.

“Their life is so complete. Why can’t I have that?” she remembers thinking of the nuns. But then when she grew up, she met Darnell, and they two of them have been living as a couple for awhile.

“Deciding to go on this journey is hard for me because I’m hurting someone I really love,” she says

Darnell took it hard when Eseni told him she wanted to possibly live in a convent as a nun. “I haven’t been without her since the day we’ve met. If she’s really serious about becoming a nun, man, I don’t know what I will do. That’s my love, man.That’s my heart.”

When she explained to him that this was something she’s wanted since she was little, he countered that she should have told him about this dream from the start. “That’s something that you let me know on the first date,” Darnell says, visually hurt, “”Hey, my name is Eseni, and I want to be a nun one day.’ ‘OK, cool, I know not to get my heart too involved.”

Eseni explains that she’s thinking about being a nun because she doesn’t want to go through what her mom went through, and Darnell responds with a hug and promise to be with her no matter what. It seems like the idea becoming a nun is just a reflex coping for Eseni, and not something she truly wants.

As Sister Cyril explains, “Women don’t enter with hallows. They don’t come in holy. God called them from where they are, and they all come from different backgrounds. It will be very difficult. It is a difficult journey to begin with, but if they’re running from something, or if they’re not being true to themselves, it won’t work. And if they don’t see it, we see it, and then we’ll call them on it.”

Another nun at the convent related to Eseni because she had also been in a relationship when she decided to become a nun, so it’s not out of the question that Eseni decided to leave her relationship for her new life.