Dear 3rd, my husband wants another woman, should I agree to it?

It's been ages since I have written on this blog. Every now and then - maybe a few times a year - I open up my mailbox just out of curiosity. Interestingly enough people still email me regularly. They ask for advice or sometimes want me to be part of some television show on polygamy. (Sorry tv-folks; not going to happen.)

A question I have received often comes from women who are asking for advice whether or not they should agree to their husband taking on another wife. I am sure many women point blank refuse such a thought from their husband. The ones that email me are usually struggling, they are not sure whether to be open to the idea or not.

So if you are in this situation - and you are wondering what to do - I have no clear cut answer, but the only thing I can do is give you some ideas to consider.

Usually the women see certain benefits in the arrangement.

_ someone to help out around the house and with the kids

sounds appealing right?...someone to help out with the task of taking care of the household, bringing kids to soccer practice, cleaning up some of the mess

_ someone to be friends with and confide in

wouldn't it be great to have someone who completely agrees that your husband is being insensitive and helps you fight some of the battles you have with him, so he will end up more considerate?

_someone who keeps the husband satisfied se.xually

after years of marriage some women don't have the energy to be as physically intimate with their husbands as they were in the beginning, to an extent they like the thought of someone else taking some of this pressure off of them

Now, I can see all these points, and I am sure there are polygynous relationships in which the women actually experience these benefits. But there is a big thing missing in these considerations...
What will the second wife want out of the arrangement?
And what will the husband want out of the arrangement?

Before making a decision you have to consider the second wife's point of view.
She probably doesn't feel like she has been put on earth to make your life easier and unburden you. And no matter how selfless an act you are performing by allowing her to step into your relationship with your husband, she will want a relationship of her own with him. She will want to be treated as an equal, and not as someone who is there to give you and your husband room to breathe.

This is a basic human need, and as a woman you should respect that.

Once you allow her in, you will have to SHARE. If you are ok with that, if you are ok with making arrangements during the holidays on who gets quality time with him when, who gets what weekend days with him when, if you are ok with her having kids of her own and you will be understanding that her kids will need just as much time with their dad as your kids do... if you realize that she is her own person with her own points of view that will be different from yours ... then ok - you may potentially be ready to reap the benefits of polygyny.

But there is still your husband's point of view to consider.
I know many people look down on this way of life and say that the husband is just exploiting the women, he is some per.vert or whatever... All bs if you ask me. It is perfectly normal for a very decent and kind guy to think of other women and maybe even to want to take care of more than one woman and more than one family.

Sure some men may be driven to this because they are sexually frustrated. In that case they may end up bringing in a second wife which doesn't share any of the values that you do. Men's ability to reject women and be selective is limited at that point. This second wife he brings in may be insecure, needy, ready to accept you as part of the relationship only because she thinks she can make him leave you in the end and choose her instead... Beware of your husband's ability to choose carefully... it may become a nightmare if he introduces a bad sample.

Now let's assume you have a decent and caring guy who is simply very honest about his internal desires and wants to offer both you and another woman a good life.
Understand that he will be choosing a wife. He is not choosing a person to help you in the household and change nappies of your babies. If that were the case you would be looking at news paper ads for homemakers. Nope.. he will chose someone he is physically and emotionally attracted to and that will be visible to you. You know your husband better than anyone else. Do you really think you won't be confronted with these emotions which will start to develop in both of them?
Be ready to deal with a husband that will be in a happy pinky place, a bit distracted, and giddy. That can be utterly annoying if you are stressed out and feeling alone.

You may be reading this and thinking - I can accept this in principle. I can understand my husband's needs and also the second wife's needs. I think I can do this.

Then hey - live and prosper! :)

I personally don't believe I could have done this without faith. You know, we are all mortals, flawed, ego-driven and ego-centric. My husband has hurt me many times, as well as my sister-wives. And I have hurt them. On some occasions it has been really rough. There were times with very little communication between us sister wives. Or periods of time when we were all upset with our husband and he was getting troubles in any home he went to.
Whoever has read through my blog has seen some of that in the posts.
I don't think I would have stuck through it if I didn't believe it served a bigger purpose. If I didn't believe this is where God wanted me to be.
That has been my way of going through all of this and finally - as my last post said - getting undefined by the situation. I am a wife of my husband. The whole 3rd thing really doesn't matter.
And my sisterwives are his wives too.
Their numbers don't matter either.

I hope whatever you chose to do, that you are honest with yourself. Never let a man drag you into a situation where you feel you are crossing your own boundaries. We should never let people bully us into anything. And we should definitely not be married to someone who pushes us to do stuff we feel uncomfortable with. If you want to explore this way of life, do it at your pace. He wants something from you right? Then he better let you decide the pace.

Good luck to all,
and if you want to email me or comment on this - feel free to do so. I may reply some months later, but your message WILL be read. :)

Love
3rd (who doesn't care she is 3rd anymore :p)

Sometimes things just take you by surprise

You'll never guess what happened!

4th all of a sudden started talking to me!

Yeah, I know, crazy right?

And it happened almost immediately after I wrote that previous post.

Its like God said, 'Ok, I see you are trying, I'll make it easier for you'.

I was actually a bit too shocked to respond at first. But then I did my best to communicate back as well. Today I made an effort to talk to her myself. Nothing special really - superficial stuff, but definitely less strained. Not sure why she changed her mind though, it surely took me by surprise.

Feedback please

Hello all.. I'd appreciate some tips today.

There is not much new stuff to write about. My relationship with 1st and 2nd is steady, not anything deep but we try to communicate about the most important events in the week for example. But with 4th it is quite strained. We limit it to the mere necessities. Now in a way I am fine with that. And in a way I feel like I souldn't have to try and change that since she obviously isn't trying.

But then again, I feel like I should just be the bigger woman so to speak. My aim is not to achieve friendship, not now anyway. But it would be nice to not feel so iced up when talking to her. Any tips?

I have considered making it a one way effort. So just start talking to her about something that happened to me during the week, even if she doesn't really respond to it. But I am honestly not so good at that "we're pretending everything is fine" type of thing. And it seems this requires some faking. Or is there another way?

Big Love airing again

HBO's Big Love season 4 has started and I am really happy about that. There is something about the show that always makes me re-think my own relationships with my sisterwives. I've said it before, but that is my main struggle. The sharing part, the jealousy, the secrecy..all of those aspects I've got pretty much under control. I wouldn't say I've got them fully under control. But definitely 80-90%. Once in a while the remaining 20-10% emerge and slap me in the face, and it hurts, but overall life is easy.

Now relationships with sisterwives.. not so easy. We go back and forth from not communicating, to being civil, to enjoying each others company, to enfuriating one another. But we never get to the level of close friendship. To a feeling of real familiarity, a real bond.

Even though the wives in Big Love have many issues with one another, the main thing that always stands out in the series is the fact that they belong to that one family. And as with any family there are fights, lies, and issues, but its still undeniably a family. We do not have that feeling with one another..

Sometimes I feel like that really isn't necessary either. Why should we be anything more than just civil? Do our lives really have to be so intertwined? But then sometimes, like now, I think well we really only have each other. There is nobody who knows what we go through. We should stick together, and truly let each other in into our hearts.

One needs a big arsenal of social skills in polygyny. And a lot of patience and forgiveness and humbleness. And I fail in all of those traits.

I told you so

4th is doing much better..
and as I expected I am back on the list of people that are to be forgotten

We emailed back and forth after my initial reply to her message. The last communication was from my side; I sent her an email, just before she spoke with Mr.Hubby, telling her that we’ve all had moments in which we feel it is too much and that she should not think it is just her.
Mr.Hubby and her spent some evenings talking afterwards. And now she is all upbeat and laughing and hysterical and I haven’t heard from her since. She hasn’t bothered to email anymore or say anything concerning her feelings now or that she is doing better.. It’s like I do not exist.
First I thought that maybe she would reply after some days.. but nope, not a word.

Obviously this is something which I expected and I also expected that I would feel as I do now. However I am happy that I was not to blame for her wanting to leave, as I wouldn’t want to have to carry that burden. Also I am happy that I did not get sucked into investing more of my time and energy in this. I already feel like a fool now, I would have felt way worse had I really opened my arms to comfort her.

I keep reminding myself that it really doesn’t matter what she does or does not do, and that I should just busy myself with trying to be a good person in the best and most true way I am able to.

Boss Baby considers leaving

Yup, you read it right.. she sent out a message to all of us saying she is seriously considering leaving. Mr.Hubby already knew of her feelings, but I was really surprised, we all were.

Why she is considering leaving? I guess the short version would be that she can’t cope with all the problems that come with the territory. She grew up with the regular fairy tale image of happily ever after, one man one wife, everyone in her family seems to be very happy and joyful in their marriage, her newlywed sister being the main reason for feelings of envy I guess. She gets guys drooling all over her, making very nice proposals, so I guess that sense of gravitation towards a different life is pulling on her so much that she is considering stepping out. Her letter was quite emotional. She said she is sorry and ashamed for feeling this way, but she can't help it. And that she is so negative and angry and frustrated and just doesn't know what to do.

Mr.Hubby’s response is that he will support her in anything she decides to do. He is not making an effort to convince her to stay, not because he does not want her to, I think he truly does, but because he feels the decision should be hers 100%. So he did not get upset and said she needs to decide for herself..
I imagine that she actually wants him to react more emotionally and ask her not to leave, to get that reassurance that she is being loved and needed. And now that he is not giving her that, the decision to stay may be even harder. Mr.Hubby is aware of this, we talked about it, but he really does not want any blame on convincing her to remain married if it really isn’t something she chooses and chooses for the right reasons – e.g. faith, not him.

2nd and 1st were like ‘well she should sort it out herself’. I replied to the message and asked her whether any part of her feeling this way was due to the relationship between the two of us. She said that the main issue is her relationship with Mr.Hubby and just to some extent our relationship - the main problem being that she feels we do not share anything anymore, that the friendship is not there.

Well here I was presented with a dilemma on what to reply. Like a test of where I am with my faith. I guess as a really good believer, I would open up my arms and be that friend to her, comfort her, reassure her that Mr.Hubby loves her, let her share her pain to ease the burden of it..
But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. And why? Because I am quite sure that once she figures things out and is all happy with Mr.Hubby again, she will forget all about me. I wrote her about my conflicted feelings on this and told her that I just feel like I can’t be that friend to her.

I was in a very low point in the beginning of her relationship with Mr.Hubby, not because of their relationship, but there was this sh!tload of problems I was dealing with, and her main concerns were whether she had enough time with Mr.Hubby, whether they went out to the movies, whether he came home on time. I was hoping for a friend and all I got from her were complaints, and accusations and jealosy.

I reminded her of that, and told her I do not want to leave her out in the cold like she left me, but that I do feel that maybe by letting her figure it out by herself she will learn something.

She answered that she does not agree and never has agreed about her letting me down as a friend, and that she did not feel like going into that topic. So she ended the letter by saying she will let me know once she makes her decision.

Mr.Hubby read the communication we exchanged and said that what I wrote was alright.. I am having mixed feelings. Should I feel more empathy for her? You see, I feel like she lacked empathy so much for all this time that right now I feel quite cold about her pain. I mean.. I feel bad about feeling so little. Any thoughts?

Back at last

Yes guys, I am back.. it's been a long pauze. I needed some time after coming home to get back into the daily routine. And then tons of mail waited for me at work. I managed to get rid of most of it. And now everything seems to be going smoothly.

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I have decided to leave 4th with her issues and not be bothered by them too much. After having had a good talk with Mr.Hubby I told him I could really let it all be, but that I needed to make sure he wasn't affected by the things she does or says. As long as he doesn't buy into whatever twisted stories she tells, why would I bother?

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So we agreed that I'd tell my side of whatever issue pops up in the future and leave it up to him to do whatever he thinks is right. I'll try! :)

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He said, and I agree, nobody ever truly gains any understanding when they are scolded or cornered. They might bow down, but inside they build up resentment. So he proposes to try and explain why it's wrong, and I told him that's his job. :)

The curse of text messages

I just totally told off 4th. I tried and tried to just keep my mouth shut, or actually to keep my fingers shut since it was a text-message thing.. Oh, the time when there were no cell phones.. how sweet must polygyny have been in those days!!!

I am so fed up with her. Gosh!!

Wouldn't it be great if you could just put a specific person on ignore in your cell, so you wouldn't receive their messages if you wouldn't want to? Or maybe some new high-tech phones offer such functionality? Please let me know if they do, it's worth the investment, I tell you that.

So she has been whining about how she doesn't trust me or Mr.Hubby, because, DRUMROLL.. she has been lied to too often. And deceived too often..and now she feels it's only understandable that she checks his phone and reads his messages, and then not only that, but tells me she knows the details because he told her everything, and tells him she knows because I told her everything..

The thing that pi$$es me off the most is that she actually believes that she is the one who's the victim, who is being treated unfairly. I turned off my phone during the whole evening just to protect myself from my own bluntness and harshness. At the end I turned it on again, and there they were, the self-pity texts, about how she wants to be different, but it's just too hard, and she can't cope... eventually I texted her listing up all the deceit and lies (the major ones at least) I got from her, and other people in the family got from her, and told her to get over her whiney self, and stop with the self-pity.

At this moment I feel relieved to have said all what was in my head. I always do when people bother me. I am so unable to be diplomatic. I wouldn't be a good diplomat. If I were a diplomat for the US I'd probably tell Israel and Palestine to make peace right away or otherwise we'd bomb the hell out of them. Ok, I wouldn't really.. I am just writing off frustration right now.

I am sure tomorrow I will feel shitty about letting my crappy alter-ego out again. Right now it feels like a relief.

Megan's blog

I've been reading Megan's blog..and I am just amazed by the way this household works and how the wives deal with each other. It really seems too good to be true. First off what I like about her family is that they're very religious. They're Christians, and have somewhat weird rules, like women wear dresses and have long hair..which is just a bit weird, not shocking or anything.. Men can have more than one wife but they have to have the means to take care of them – cheers for that.

So Megan just decided she wanted to live in a polygynous family, and she’s 18. Can’t really grasp why she came to this conclusion at this age, but her blog suggests her childhood has been rough, her dad is in jail and she feels her life now is wonderful compared to what she came from.

She came in contact with her current family through online forums or something similar, and they invited her over to stay with them and meet the family and after three weeks she married the hubby Steve. Steve is in his forties and has a first wife also in her forties, a second wife who’s 28 and now Megan. Something about being 18 and taking such a huge step, after a few weeks, made me feel wary of this whole story.. but Megan writes about Steve asking her is she was sure and asking her to think things through, first and second wife asking her if she really wanted this and that she did not need to do anything she wasn’t sure of, the pastor assuring her she needed not to rush into this, and that she could get married now but have her night with Steve in the future… Ok, so I believe all these people have good intentions..

There’s more amazing stuff to be read there, I won’t give you a summary of everything, but the way they deal with intimacy just leaves me speechless:

Megan gets married to Steve, nice ceremony, second wife even sows the dress for her.. Then Megan has her wedding night. They do make love, and Steve is a 100% gentleman according to Megan, then in the morning first wife brings them breakfast in bed. Now, I just can’t imagine this ever happening in my life, or me even wanting this to happen. Amazing first wife if you ask me. First wife and second wife even tell Megan that it is normal for Steve to spend some extra time with her now since she just entered the marriage, so she gets several nights in a row.. They ask her if she is all right, she only had a very brief and unfortunate experience before with a guy and is basically still a virgin. Second wife even gives tips.. (Mind-blowing)
Steve one night after dinner gives Megan the eye and they retreat to the bedroom.. and everyone knows why.. when they come back second wife jokes and asks if they had a nice chat…

I really think this is good family, with a good husband and great wives, I just don’t get how they do this. I think if Mr.Hubby gave 4th the eye at dinner I’d be insulted. And if he gave me the eye in front of others I’d be inhibited..

How come these wives don’t feel any awkwardness when it comes to intimacy?!

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Update from the front line

Sooo... the major, possibly life-threatening, do-or-die, the world is upside down, it might come tumbling down, DECISION - has been taken.

1st gets one day and the other day is for me and 4th. We can decide whether we want three days in a row in one week or if we want to have two days in one week and then one day in the other..I figured last option was better. 4th agreed, which was a relief, I didn't feel like dealing with her horrendous alter ego. Why is that? Why do we all have these terrible alter ego's? And I mean, we all have them.. they s*ck. Big time. And it s*cks that they seem to call each other out to play. 4th invites her alter ego over, and then mine creeps out of the house as well. And this time I locked the door safely, but it really is no guaranty for any future success. Alter ego’s stink. They stink!

Ok.

Got that off my chest.

Now; my blogroll is out of date. My intention was to have a blog roll with interesting polygyny-related blogs, with the exception of Pastoral Princess, she’s my special girl since she was my first commenter ever.. (hugs to princess) …however, many have private blogs (including princess), or have disappeared, or have stopped writing. Anyone has any suggestions??

Out of desperation, I am adding Margene’s blog to my blogroll - the blog of a totally inexistent person, but whatever.

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Polygyny Battles

I'm quite tired..had a few hours of sleep. It's been hectic in the past days. Any of you watch Big Love? The new season is airing now, and … the coincidence is very weird … Nicki (2nd wife in Big Love) said she wanted to be taken off the schedule in the last episode.. now the same happened to us last week. 2nd said she wanted to be taken off the schedule…

I wrote earlier that she has been dealing with her past, getting counseling, trying to resolve her issues. The past months have really been a rollercoaster for her. She said she just wants some time to sort things through without being in the midst of all the family issues. She wanted some time alone..

I wonder what will happen in the next episode of Big Love when Nicki’s wish lands in the family. Within our family it’s been stormy weather.

Mr.Hubby was very understanding. He knows where she’s coming from and said he would be there for her, regardless of whether she was on the schedule or not. He gave her all the space she needed. So we followed his example.

Now this sounds quite good, right?.. well… so 2nd gets taken off the schedule, everyone is very understanding, we leave it at that, till the next day, then the 1:1 talks with Mr.Hubby start.. there are two days per week left unassigned now .. who will get what?

1st sais: I had seven days and I gave that up when 2nd joined. If she won’t have them I should have them. I signed up for seven days and sacrificed my time with you for this family. 3rd and 4th signed up for what they have now, they should be content with that..

4th starts being her “Baby Boss” self. She never had much time alone with Mr.Hubby, she thinks it’s unfair, she always has to accept everything from the rest..

And I… I just don’t even want to be part of this nonsense, and tell Mr.Hubby that he should try to find a fair solution and let me know what it is, I’ll accept whatever he comes up with.

You see.. the issue starts out with two days that need to be fit into the schedule. But it ends up with being about what everyone has sacrificed, how unfair they are treated by others, what they deserve..
What a mess. I’m happy 2nd wasn’t involved in all the aftermath. She is trying to work on her own problems and I believe her decision might have been a wise one. She text messaged me if I wanted to go out to dinner tonight..it’s been a while since she felt like going out.

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The rollercoaster...

I promised I would write more about my insights but caught up in work so didn't really get the time to write again. It's tough, this blog thing. Almost like a real relationship..I feel guilty leaving you guys without any news or updates. And maybe you don't even bother..

Well, there have been some intense talks in our family, brace yourself, it’s huge. 2nd is struggling with a major issues from her childhood – abuse issues - for which she is getting counseling. Sometimes she becomes very depressed, sometimes extremely aggressive, sometimes I lose track of what the problem is and focus on the stuff she is saying instead of the things that I know are the real issues. She has been denying the real impact of everything she's been through in her youth, and I think that due to the struggles of polygyny, she came to a point when she just felt she needed to get help. I have figured out that sharing Mr.Hubby is a lot harder for her than for us. It also explains the enormous amount of jealousy she used to have when I first entered. Just yesterday I understood that often she is fighting thoughts of Mr.Hubby being a lust obsessed pervert who sleeps around. And she said crying that she knows he is not, but that she gets surges of mistrust and pain and deceit from her childhood that come haunting her in her life as it is now.

She also explained that it’s been due to counseling that she was able to find a way to explain herself. In the past she might have got angry without being able to explain why. Now she said she understands that she interprets a lot of situations as threatening, and then she reacts in the way she wanted to react but couldn’t when she was a child and that trusted person destroyed her childhood over and over again.

I am wondering sometimes what the reason is we are all together in one family unit. Maybe helping her through this will be one of the reasons. Somehow because of all of this I feel closer to our family. I feel a need to help and support her. It makes me forget the differences we have and try and think of how we can be better sisters to each other.

I hope you guys forgive me for the absence here on the blog. Work and intense home issues just leave me exhausted at the end of the day.. so it's been hard to write.

A sugercoated alternate reality

I stumbled upon this blog - it's more of a research type of blog - on the merits and disadvantages of a polygynous lifestyle. The last post dealt with the relationship between sisterwives and what the advantages are according to a certain research:

“The significance of kinship among sisterwives is that women who live near female relations reinforce each other and protect each other’s interests, whether emotional, economic, or religious” (Bennion, 1998, pg. 91).

The writer goes on saying:
“I have always thought of the negative, demeaning, aspects of polygyny, but I truly believe that sisterwife relationships are an important positive part of polygyny. This relationship is something that these women do in order to make polygyny work.”

I can’t really say that I feel this strongly about my sisterswives. I like them and admire them in many ways, but to say that having sisterwives around is an advantage of polygyny.. ? In my particular situation I can’t share my issues with my girlfriends since they don’t know about my lifestyle. – Yes, you are all surrogate girlfriends, even the male readers… LOL! – But, if all was in the open, why would one depend on co-wives for friendship?

I’ve noticed that I find it very hard to really open up and form a tight bond with my sisterwives. Somehow I feel like having this tight friendship would be naïve, like we would not be real. I’ve read about sisterwives relationships being really tight, best friend type of thing. It sounds often a bit like the elementary school type of best friend thing, where you think your friend will be your friend forever and ever, and you walk around the school yard hand in hand. Every time I read that, I just get huge question marks… Am I a skeptic or do these women live in some alternate sugarcoated reality of which I am not aware?

I like my sisterwives. Somewhere deep down inside I also love them as good women, even good friends. Each of them, even Baby Boss, have admirable qualities. However each of them also have less admirable qualities, including yours truly. The truth of the matter is that all of us can be selfish and that all of us can be forgetful of each other, which causes us to hurt one another. Can we then be close and trusting if one’s happiness often results in another one’s pain? Can you trust a person when you know that they will hurt you? Can I really look at Baby Boss and say, I know she will start squeaking again and acting all childish and bossy – on my day, thus hurting me since she is depriving me of my needed quality time - and then still consider her my best friend and confide in her, just because I know it is one of her flaws..?