plural living – Page 3 – Speaking of Polygamy…

I distinctly remember the first time someone looked up to me for being a polygamist.

We had been invited by some polygamous friends to a Thanksgiving dinner that was attended by an eclectic group of fundamental Mormons (some were members of a sect of Mormonism, but many were independent). I knew almost no one there. (This was the first time I met Benjamin Shaffer, the attorney who purchased Drew Briney’s law firm when the Brineys moved away from Utah.) I was introduced to a married couple and I asked them if they were polygamists. The wife said, “No, not yet. I wish. Are you guys polygamists?” When I answered in the affirmative, she said with sincerity, “Oh, that’s so great. I hope I can be a plural wife someday.” (She’s a plural wife now and one of the best I know. As one example of how she’s so supportive: She has a huge picture of her husband and sisterwife on their wedding day on her living room wall.)

That was a very nice moment for me. Up to that point, people expressed many different feelings about my marital status, ranging from outright rejection to disgust to fascination to neutrality to supportive, but I had never met anyone who was actually jealous of me for being a polygamist.

I didn’t consider myself a fundamental Mormon, but after that Thanksgiving dinner I started to feel more and more comfortable hanging around Mormon fundamentalists because of their general belief that polygamy is acceptable, desirable, even preferred.

I still spend plenty of time with people who merely tolerate my polygamy. When I’m around those people, I will either hide my polygamy or at the very least I feel an overarching sense of embarrassment/shame about it, like the girl who keeps brushing her bangs in front of the zit on her forehead.

However, those feelings of shame or embarrassment are left over from when I cared what those people thought. I’m not ashamed to be a polygamist. I’m actually quite proud of my plural family and in particular of my husband. I’m proud of my husband for keeping two emotional women happy most of the time. I’m proud of him for financially supporting a large family. I’m proud of him for bearing the weight of a marred reputation caused by society’s feelings about plural marriage. I’m proud of him for always putting his family first and for being the most selfless person I have the privilege of knowing. I’m proud of him that God trusts him with such a great responsibility. I’m proud of him for keeping peace (and restoring it when it’s lost) between all the members of our family. I’m proud of him for his wisdom in difficult decisions. I’m proud of him for functioning on 2 hours of sleep when one of his wives needs to talk with him all night. I’m proud of him for never putting himself first but for always always serving God and his family and others around him. I’m proud of him for being stable when one or both of his wives are being crazy. I’m proud of Joshua for so many reasons. I think of him as a king and I feel it an honor to be married to him. I’m proud to be one of his queens.

The feeling of pride I have over our functional, beautiful plural family has grown and expanded almost imperceptibly until an event that happened yesterday. We went to a party for Joshua’s aunts, uncles, and cousins. This party is held annually, but it was our first time attending since becoming polygamists. We used to go every year (and to other events with these people as well), and Joshua and I have been married for 17 years, so I’ve known these people for a good long time.

The family is a pretty big group, I would say about 85 people, and almost all of them are active LDS. This is the kind of group I have historically felt awkward to be around. None of them are excited that we’re polygamists, and many of them openly disapprove (even writing letters and making phone calls to make sure we know how they feel).

And yet, yesterday when we walked into the party, I held my head high. I felt like a queen. I look at Joshua as a king and Melissa as a queen, and yesterday I felt no shame or embarrassment whatsoever. I greeted everyone with a confident hug and just acted like my old pre-polygamy self. If anyone felt awkward, it wasn’t me. If anyone wished I wasn’t there, it wasn’t me. I didn’t feel like I was inferior to any of the monogamists in the room. I didn’t feel like I had anything to apologize for. I didn’t feel like I had a zit on my forehead I was trying to hide. I just felt proud of my plural family and proud of my kingly husband. It was a wonderful experience and certainly made me feel as tho I have progressed in my journey as a plural wife.

When I went from 11 years of monogamous marriage to a new polygamous lifestyle, I struggled to know what to do with myself on my nights alone. All my habits revolved around having my husband with me every night. I didn’t have a life separate from him, so for a time, I felt as if when he wasn’t with me, my life was put on hold. There was definitely a transition time for me while I figured out what to do with myself when I was alone.

If a monogamous woman was planning on becoming polygamous and asked me for advice, one of the things I would suggest is for her to have things she likes to do without her husband, whatever that looks like for her.

Women who naturally like having their own autonomy might gravitate towards polygamy exactly because of this time alone. I know my sisterwife Melissa calls plural marriage the ultimate lifestyle choice for feminists. She keeps herself busy with friends and hobbies, and she even chooses to have a job (even though Joshua is a wonderful provider and doesn’t need his wives need to work outside the home). Melissa considers herself a good candidate for a plural wife because her life is so full despite not having a husband who comes to her house every day.

Nowadays, I have a life with my husband, and I have a life without him. I’m fine either way. But some of my activities require planning, so I like to know in advance what Joshua’s schedule is going to be. His schedule does end up changing at the last minute at times, but generally I know what to expect. If I didn’t know each day where Joshua was going to land, it would cause unnecessary frustration in this whole plural marriage gig, because it would make it difficult for me to have a life separate from my husband. I need that separate life because otherwise it feels like when he’s not here, all I’m doing is waiting for him.

In episode 4 of Seeking Sister Wife, Dimitri Snowden and Joselyn are on a date at a restaurant. Dimitri brings up the topic of “splitting time.”

Dimitri: So, splitting time.

Joselyn: Yes.

Dimitri: You know, listen, I’m wondering…

Joselyn: I wanted to ask you.

(They both laugh.)

Dimitri: So I’m one man, um, you know, with one body, you know… How do you feel about that?

Joselyn: As long as we feel that we make the best of our time, that there’s no problem.

Dimitri: Mmm-hmmm.

Joselyn: So how would you go about that? Like, do you have, like, you think like days, certain days, or just…?

Dimitri: I ideally don’t want to have a defined schedule. I don’t want to have a chart on the refrigerator, where it says like Ashley and then Joselyn and then Ashley… Like, I’m not interested…

Joselyn: Yeah, me either, you know, because… It feels so generic to me, like I think that’s really generic.

Dimitri: Yeah.

Joselyn: I just want it to go naturally, like you said.

Dimitri: Right.

Screenshot 2018-02-13 01.19.10 — “I don’t want to have a chart on the refrigerator, where it says like ‘Ashley’ and then ‘Joselyn’ and then ‘Ashley’…”

I think this is an interesting idea, but frankly, I don’t think it’s very realistic. I laughed when I saw what the Brineys said about it on Twitter because they seem to agree with me:

Screenshot 2018-02-15 23.23.19

Not every woman likes to plan things in advance as much as I do, so I suppose Dimitri’s strategy might work for some polygamists. But in most of the plural families I’ve seen, the schedule is pretty predictable. Either they simply alternate nights (like the Alldredge family on SSW) or each wife takes a fixed set of weekdays (like the Briney family), or some combination/variation. One plural husband I’ve seen on YouTube spends 2 nights with one wife before switching and spending 2 nights with his other wife. Brady Williams from the reality TV show My Five Wives simply rotates through his 5 wives, 1 night with each wife, but gives each wife an extra night for her birthday.

Some time ago I read a novel called The Lonely Polygamist. In the book, the man and his 4 wives have a torturous meeting every Sunday where they decide on that week’s schedule (in particular, the sleeping schedule). The husband doesn’t take control at the meeting; it tends to be up to the wives to duke it out. The most aggressive wives end up with an unfair portion of his time, while the newest or most passive wife might go weeks without her husband coming to her house. This seems dysfunctional to me.

In our family, Joshua’s schedule is totally up to him, which makes sense, since he’s the one going back and forth between the houses. He’s the one that best understands his own scheduling needs as well as those of his wives and children. We give him our preferences and we can request changes to his normal schedule, but we wives don’t have to hash it out between ourselves.

And, no, we don’t have a chart on our refrigerator to keep it sorted out.