Posts by Melissa – Speaking of Polygamy…

⁵Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.

⁶Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

⁷Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

Proverbs 4:5-7 King James Version

I have a laundry system in place that really works…for me.

Before bed, I gather everything I can and put it in the laundry room. If I have 3 or more loads waiting I run a load of towels for a first wash.

I get up early and run the second wash on the towels or start a load of laundry. I’m usually done by about 11am.

This works for me because it keeps the machines available for semi-crisis and crisis situations like people vomiting with 13 extra loads of laundry, floods needing lots of towels (see toddler handbook), or a machine breaking down and someone needing to use one or both of mine. It keeps those 0-3 loads able to be put away in a timely manner and I resent dirty clothes, so it helps me have a clear head and not feel like it’s all looming over me.

I also have small hacks in place like 8ish laundry baskets which stack, do double duty as transportation up and down the stairs and they fit perfectly in IKEA Kallax furniture, so they are also storage totes.

There, that’s enough backstory.

I went to visit my daughter last month in another state. I went to visit my daughter last month in another state with the intent to help out while my son-in-law recovered from surgery.

While there, I intended to help get her laundry caught up, so I applied my laundry system to her situation which left me with a huge pile of clean unsorted clothing. I created a daunting overwhelming task.

So, I did what moms sometimes do and found myself extolling the virtues of my laundry system. Even going so far as to suggest some products that really work for me like the four-dollar flexible laundry baskets from Walmart – I love them.

Then I shut up and I listened to my daughter.

She’s smart, she’s capable, and she has reasons for the things that she does. She has her own system in place. She is a once a week laundry girl. Her husband works from home and she leaves the house daily which results in too many times laundry left in machines for too long. Her system is to have each person have their own basket and each person has their own loads. This keeps things organized and entire loads go back to one room. This keeps her from having a huge pile of unsorted clean laundry. My failure in overlaying my system on hers.

It was huge for me to have a case in point that you give help based on what is wanted within the method and within the vision that is currently in use. This takes listening and understanding why things are the way they are. It demands respect and honor of someone else’s differences. It doesn’t need to impact how you run your own life. If you take judgment from it, that’s on you.

So of course I applied all of this to my plural marriage.

The mistake sisterwives often make with each other is in applying what they would do in any given situation to what the other is currently doing.

For example, when adding a wife in and welcoming her into their existing home, some first wives do a whole I’m going to decorate my new sisterwife’s space deal, when the better option is to prepare a blank slate and then give the incoming wife the time, and resources to create what she wants for her space.

The same issue can come up with a new addition attempting to make changes to established patterns. Seek first to understand. Then when full understanding is created and respect is given, you can decide if what you would like to change is doable or even still applicable.

I went home after 6 days, my daughter’s laundry caught up, deeper relationships between little sons and little grandsons formed, and with a whole new appreciation for my beautiful and capable daughter.

Integration is hard stuff. We have to be willing to not demand that someone else justify why they do what they do. We have to not take judgment when someone does something differently than we do and also not to give judgment because it is different. We have to give space to allow others their agency. Particularly, when we are in a position of helper, we need to allow their system to run unimpeded.

Assuming good intent and competence is key.

Assuming good intent and competence is key.
Melissa

Everything I write is based on the show. I have no inside information as to how it went down otherwise.
I’m going to establish my reality on plural marriage first.

Our family has 2 wives. Joshua sets his own schedule. This is usually every other night barring other events. (Those events include, but are not limited to childbirth, illness, vacation, work trips, and other trips.) He works very hard to be fair with his time. Yes, that’s usually a 50/50 split. My husband makes time for me wherever he is.

On a regular week on my off nights, he either calls me on his way home from work (he has a very long commute), or spends at least 15 minutes in a face-to-face to check in.

We also have a nightly family gathering time that we call “Shofar and Tell”. This is a time that each family member tells a bit about their day. It can be something they learned that they want to share or an interesting experience, or a performance of some kind. I love this time of connection each evening. I don’t like scheduling things in the evenings because even the idea of missing Shofar and Tell makes me sad.

That is my framework. A very connected husband managing 2 households in the same house, with equal time given to his wives, and trying to bring the entire family together nightly.

Ok. Now to episode 1.

In the 5th minute, Kody says he doesn’t want to spend the nights on Christine’s couch.

I’m assuming that if Kody didn’t go to Christine’s, he stayed with Robyn and she welcomed him into her bed.

He complained about it being a game. I don’t think that not wanting to sleep in the same bed or “throwing him out” is a game. This is a husband-wife relationship and for that relationship to break down to that degree is a very serious thing. It’s not a game and should not be treated as such. It’s frightening to me that his belief of it being a game makes him not “play” instead of evaluating why the relationship is in the state that it’s in and taking immediate corrective action.

What Robyn told him had no teeth.

Robyn claimed having no power, but she could have had power and supported her sisterwife in refusing to have him in her bed if he was not going to spend equal time with her sisterwife.

My response for Kody not wanting to spend the nights on Christine’s couch would have been “You can spend your nights at Christine’s house on her couch. If you stay here, either you will be on the couch or I will. I will not sleep in the same bed with you on nights you should be at her home. Period.”

My husband was genuinely surprised when I told him of my stance. He didn’t believe that I would actually tell him he could not favor me with his time or that I would push to the degree thr I would plan to.

I’m pretty convicted about this issue and here is why: The only way to protect my own interests is to protect my sisterwife’s interests.

I have to be unequivocally fair in my dealings to expect fairness in return.

I never want to be blamed that I had part in the dissolution of a marriage because I enabled my husband to not have to deal with his other wife when things were hard.

Monogamy has its own difficulties. I don’t want plural marriage to have those difficulties plus the option to strengthen one marriage and sacrifice another if I can at all help it.

My vested interest is in having our family be successful. That means that each marriage is successful on its own and our family is unbreakable. This means I love my sisterwife as myself. There is no room for being a favorite over another (I have to be the best version of myself so I can be a favorite Melissa) or any desire for my husband to be monogamous. That idea is repulsive to me because it does mean failure and there would be a lot of pain and suffering, most of it avoidable.