First Thessalonians plainly describes the “meeting the Lord in the air” as following the General Resurrection. The you quote from Matthew’s Gospel and the parallel passage in Luke were always understood as referring to the Last Judgement until some sentimentalist in the 19th century invented the notion of the “pre-tribulation rapture” which deprives the Church in the last days of the glory of martyrdom which she had in the first days after Our Lord’s Ascension.
St. Cyril of Alexandria in his 118th Homily on the Gospel of St. Luke links the parallel passage in Luke with that in First Thessalonians and sees them both as applying the Last Judgement — the understanding the whole Church East and West, including all of the confessions that arose from the Reformation held of the matter until the 19th century.
The Tribulation period is a time of wrath, God’s wrath poured out upon a God rejecting Humanity who are slaughtering the 144,000 elect JEWISH Saints evangelizing the survivors following the Rapture. The wrath of God falling upon The Church makes no sense to anyone but those misled. If you want to stick around for the wrath being poured out, just keep rejecting the Gospel of Grace in Christ and the immediate sealing by the Holy Spirit upon your human spirit, and you will be around to tell the survivors what they need do to then to receive God’s Christ.