Is My Wife Ready For Plural Marriage?

[Rachelle West]

I hear you, @Rachelle West. I just missed the part about how you were only wanting support from sisters.

I don’t mind support from bothers in the Lord when they don’t respond by saying that my husband is not doing his job as my husband in leading me right because of the emotional place I am in. One thing you will learn about me very quickly is that I do not and will not be ok with anyone trying to down grad my husband or family in anyway even if they are in the wrong. I might be hurting but they are still my family and it is my job to and their job to Protect our family. You read a small Sentence that I wrote and tried to say that I was looking to get Rescued it seemed to me like what you do in must cases of Interacting with the Opposite sex. You read in to signs that are just not there. I have read a few of your post going on about women you have talked to and I am sorry to tell you but you read in to them being friendly and think it is them coming on to you. The women in Particular i am Referring to is the one that had the manager and a coworker come out and tell you to leave her alone. Anyone in customer service is to be nice and kind and sweet to the customers and sometimes those men take it to far and think it is more then what it really is. I have been there and have been put in to the same Position you have put that Young girl in. She didn’t know how to handle you coming on to her and it made her very Uncomfortable. That is 9 time out of 10 how it is if a women is being nice to a man in a setting like that. You remind me a lot of my ex husband in thinking that any women that was nice to him liked him and he had a chance. I don’t know you so I want say that you are a Womanizer like he was and thinks that he is Gods gift to women. But for the women’s Sake be careful and try to read the true signs she is giving you. It is not far to them if she is just doing her job and the man takes it the wrong way.

 

[Sons of Issachar]

We have another thread on the forum, about men being blind to the hints women drop, and how that blindness is because of all the false positives we get. Some men think the true moves are false. Some men think the false moves are true. We live in a crazy messed up world.

 

[Rachelle West]

So my husband saw my post back to you and he is not happy and feels I went to far so I am to say I am sorry. So I am sorry for the way I spoke to you. I could have worded things differently then what I did. I did not mean to hurt your feelings if I did. I know you where just try to be nice and try and help me.

 

[Keith Martin]

[While I was writing the following post, @Rachelle West, you posted your apology. I do humbly accept your apology. I had already posted what follows below and first deleted it with the thought that I should amend it to reflect your having apologized. However, in re-reading it, I discovered I only wanted to change a spelling error and insert a missing word in one sentence, because I believe this is a situation that warrants attention from all of us. Rachelle, I hope you will read this as an attempt to directly address what you wrote and how it can apply to any of us, rather than being only directed to you.]

*************

" Again, I hear you, Rachelle, and, yes, I'm addressing you directly, because you are the one who chose to, as you labeled it, vent on this forum about your predicament. You will have to excuse me if my attempt to provide you support and comfort was inadequate or not what you were seeking. You have yourself read far more into what I wrote than what was actually there. It has nothing to do with anything related to your husband in particular but entirely in response to what you wrote. You misunderstand me if you think I was asserting that your "husband is not doing his job as [your] husband in leading [you] right." Every one of us as men faces challenges with our women; some of those challenges we can take in stride; others represent new, daunting challenges, and those challenges require of us if we're going to transcend them to the point of being the covering we're responsible for being for our women that we dig deeper within the wells of our soul to learn lessons we have never learned before. Your husband and I have some history, and, yes, that history includes some conflict (I would assert that all but the most superficial of relationships will inevitably include some conflict), but I can promise you that our history only provided a glancing-blow nuance to what I wrote. My words were at least 99% formulated in direct response to what you chose to write, and I stand by them for the most part, because I believe my reactions were only reasonable given what you wrote (you should re-read your post if you challenge that). You can chastise me for writing to you when all you wanted was supportive sister talk, but you chose to vent in an open forum, when you could have done so in a female-only venue. I didn't give you grief. I simply reminded you that you were not alone, when you wrote that you had been put in touch with some people here and still felt like you were still alone in it all. Personally, I like being reminded that Yah has my back when I'm down-hearted or feeling sorry for myself or wondering if no one else understands what I'm going through, but I guess I need to further learn that the Golden Rule doesn't always apply. On the other hand, though, it's unfair on your part to expect the rest of us to read your mind. My intention was honorable and kind, and you repaid that by playing the damsel in distress who along with her husband was supposedly unfairly attacked -- when the only substantive questioning of your husband's leadership was voiced by you in your post earlier today. You in fact implored other men to properly prepare their first wives better (by your implication, than your husband did) before taking a second wife.

"You compounded this unfair response to my message by choosing to attack me in a manner that was not only unrequested but hostile. Don't worry; I can take it, and if I couldn't I wouldn't post the narratives of my dating-site, etc., experiences on here; in fact, they are there for anyone to read, just as your post is on here for anyone to read, and we both should be prepared for honest, straightforward, direct and even critical responses to the things we voluntarily post in open forums -- but please don't attempt to justify equating me with your ex-husband by pulling an out-of-context post that describes something you clearly didn't read thoroughly out of another thread and dropping it down in distorted form into this one, because doing so smacks of attempting to change the subject on your part.

"After you first criticized my attempt to provide some assistance, you could have just noticed that I let you vent, while subtly pointing out that you had not limited your request for responses from women only -- and you could have just let it go. Instead you doubled down. You're now going to have to decide if you're prepared to remain in this arena or limit yourself to the forum threads that are for ladies only. Please know this: I consider you entirely welcome here, or anywhere. For a long time, I've been looking forward to meeting your husband in person to shake his hand and have the opportunity to size each other up so we can let bygones be bygones. I have welcomed your introduction to this space and your participation in it. But one thing is certain: it is entirely unfair for any woman to simultaneously expect to be treated as something delicate while expecting to be treated as having equal standing in the realm of difficult discourse. [Full disclosure: I recently had a conversation with a key person in this organization about the current state of the online forums; my opinion is very strongly along the lines of seeing the atmosphere as having improved greatly over the past couple years: the Torah-Keeper vs. Grace-Alone feuds are fewer and further between; and the feminism-is-the-death-of-modern-civilization, men-are-to-be-obeyed-no-matter-what voices have diminished greatly. His concern was that some women still feel like the only safe place for them is in the ladies-only section. My response to this was that, for many women that is the only place they will feel safe, but that the only way to make every woman feel comfortable in the open forums would be to water them down to the point that nothing would ever be honestly discussed in any depth.] If you are uncomfortable with the fact that I have now responded in full to your insistence on attempting to invalidate me through ad hominem attacks, then you should probably not vent-post in forum threads where people you don't want to hear from are legitimately permitted to reply to you.

"And if you want to challenge me about my behavior in regard to the woman who performed an about-face by getting her supervisor to give me a warning, then please do so in the context of the Intro III: My Former Online Dating Profile thread (https://biblicalfamilies.org/forum/threads/intro-iii-my-former-online-dating-profile.15296/), but if you do you should be prepared to learn much more about what you misinterpreted the first time around.

 

[FollowingHim]

@Rachelle West, I thought I'd just point out that @Keith Martin has told me off before for giving him unwanted advice, so I'm just glad to see him fall into the same trap and give unwanted advice to someone else!

 

[Keith Martin]

We have another thread on the forum, about men being blind to the hints women drop, and how that blindness is because of all the false positives we get. Some men think the true moves are false. Some men think the false moves are true. We live in a crazy messed up world.

Let me add the following items to that, because I think it doesn't go far enough, as your dichotomy both (a) ignores the responsibility of women in the matter and (b) more thoroughly rewards judging others than the amount of useful insight it provides:

• Some men are incapable of discerning what moves are true or false.
• Some men think all men are incapable of discerning what moves are true or false, but if this were true, then how are the men who think this able to know if the other men are right or wrong about it?
• Some women make true moves and stand by them.
• Some women make true moves then pretend they were false moves or no moves at all.
• Some women make false moves then own up to having made false moves.
• Some women make false moves and then pretend they were true moves and get offended that men don't respond to their false moves.

"Crazy, messed-up world" doesn't even begin to give this entire situation justice. Men are put in a position in which they are not only expected to tiptoe through mine fields but are further expected to pretend that they believe the mine fields are in their best interests.

 

[Keith Martin]

@Rachelle West, I thought I'd just point out that @Keith Martin has told me off before for giving him unwanted advice, so I'm just glad to see him fall into the same trap and give unwanted advice to someone else!

I believe the grief I gave you was for "publicly shaming me," @FollowingHim.

Seriously, though, you're missing the point as well. In this forum thread, @Rachelle West initiated this by giving unwanted advice to any man considering taking a second wife, within the format of an extended vent-post that could be interpreted by any reasonable person as a cry for help. Of course, I partially now wish I had just started out with, "I hear you, Mrs. West," and left it at that, but that's a matter of 20/20 hindsight, because I didn't know then what I know now about how she would react. So the way I experienced it while I read it was that it was an (at least) unconscious criticism of her husband perhaps much better addressed in a more private setting, which she said to him right in the post that she was sorry for, combined with advice for other men, which it appears she gave without first seeking her husband's counsel, and it begged for something other than just, "You go, girl!"

In fact, it would also appear that, if anyone first fell into the unwanted advice trap here, it would be this guy:

I would suggest rephrasing that. You are in an extremely difficult mess, and you have found that the mess you are in is not something that you enjoy. Whether the lifestyle as a concept is "for you" or not is irrelevant, it's really not the right question to ask or answer. What matters is where you are at today, and how you will live today and tomorrow and the next day, given the situation you find yourself in today.

 

[Sons of Issachar]

Let me add the following items to that, because I think it doesn't go far enough, as your dichotomy both (a) ignores the responsibility of women in the matter and (b) more thoroughly rewards judging others than the amount of useful insight it provides:

• Some men are incapable of discerning what moves are true or false.
• Some men think all men are incapable of discerning what moves are true or false, but if this were true, then how are the men who think this able to know if the other men are right or wrong about it?
• Some women make true moves and stand by them.
• Some women make true moves then pretend they were false moves or no moves at all.
• Some women make false moves then own up to having made false moves.
• Some women make false moves and then pretend they were true moves and get offended that men don't respond to their false moves.

"Crazy, messed-up world" doesn't even begin to give this entire situation justice. Men are put in a position in which they are not only expected to tiptoe through mine fields but are further expected to pretend that they believe the mine fields are in their best interests.

Well said! I specialize in being brief. You specialize in being thorough. Being thorough is a clear win on this one.

 

[Keith Martin]

Well said! I specialize in being brief. You specialize in being thorough. Being thorough is a clear win on this one.

• @Philip, you are a great addition to this organization.
• You are also eloquently thorough yourself on occasion.
• We both can do both.
• My favorite comments in this thread have been from you, especially the ones about how we will wait forever if we wait until everyone is entirely ready.

 

[FollowingHim]

Come on @Keith Martin, relax. I suppose I have to spell out what I was doing more clearly, since it clearly wasn't obvious enough.

I saw an emotional woman calmly apologise for her emotional outburst, only to receive one of your essays in response. I decided to inject some levity into the situation to lighten the mood for her. I am not even going to entertain any sort of discussion on the accuracy or inaccuracy of the levity I was injecting, because I was not even attempting to achieve factual perfection. Just injecting levity.

 

[Rachelle West]

[While I was writing the following post, @Rachelle West, you posted your apology. I do humbly accept your apology. I had already posted what follows below and first deleted it with the thought that I should amend it to reflect your having apologized. However, in re-reading it, I discovered I only wanted to change a spelling error and insert a missing word in one sentence, because I believe this is a situation that warrants attention from all of us. Rachelle, I hope you will read this as an attempt to directly address what you wrote and how it can apply to any of us, rather than being only directed to you.]

*************

" Again, I hear you, Rachelle, and, yes, I'm addressing you directly, because you are the one who chose to, as you labeled it, vent on this forum about your predicament. You will have to excuse me if my attempt to provide you support and comfort was inadequate or not what you were seeking. You have yourself read far more into what I wrote than what was actually there. It has nothing to do with anything related to your husband in particular but entirely in response to what you wrote. You misunderstand me if you think I was asserting that your "husband is not doing his job as [your] husband in leading [you] right." Every one of us as men faces challenges with our women; some of those challenges we can take in stride; others represent new, daunting challenges, and those challenges require of us if we're going to transcend them to the point of being the covering we're responsible for being for our women that we dig deeper within the wells of our soul to learn lessons we have never learned before. Your husband and I have some history, and, yes, that history includes some conflict (I would assert that all but the most superficial of relationships will inevitably include some conflict), but I can promise you that our history only provided a glancing-blow nuance to what I wrote. My words were at least 99% formulated in direct response to what you chose to write, and I stand by them for the most part, because I believe my reactions were only reasonable given what you wrote (you should re-read your post if you challenge that). You can chastise me for writing to you when all you wanted was supportive sister talk, but you chose to vent in an open forum, when you could have done so in a female-only venue. I didn't give you grief. I simply reminded you that you were not alone, when you wrote that you had been put in touch with some people here and still felt like you were still alone in it all. Personally, I like being reminded that Yah has my back when I'm down-hearted or feeling sorry for myself or wondering if no one else understands what I'm going through, but I guess I need to further learn that the Golden Rule doesn't always apply. On the other hand, though, it's unfair on your part to expect the rest of us to read your mind. My intention was honorable and kind, and you repaid that by playing the damsel in distress who along with her husband was supposedly unfairly attacked -- when the only substantive questioning of your husband's leadership was voiced by you in your post earlier today. You in fact implored other men to properly prepare their first wives better (by your implication, than your husband did) before taking a second wife.

"You compounded this unfair response to my message by choosing to attack me in a manner that was not only unrequested but hostile. Don't worry; I can take it, and if I couldn't I wouldn't post the narratives of my dating-site, etc., experiences on here; in fact, they are there for anyone to read, just as your post is on here for anyone to read, and we both should be prepared for honest, straightforward, direct and even critical responses to the things we voluntarily post in open forums -- but please don't attempt to justify equating me with your ex-husband by pulling an out-of-context post that describes something you clearly didn't read thoroughly out of another thread and dropping it down in distorted form into this one, because doing so smacks of attempting to change the subject on your part.

"After you first criticized my attempt to provide some assistance, you could have just noticed that I let you vent, while subtly pointing out that you had not limited your request for responses from women only -- and you could have just let it go. Instead you doubled down. You're now going to have to decide if you're prepared to remain in this arena or limit yourself to the forum threads that are for ladies only. Please know this: I consider you entirely welcome here, or anywhere. For a long time, I've been looking forward to meeting your husband in person to shake his hand and have the opportunity to size each other up so we can let bygones be bygones. I have welcomed your introduction to this space and your participation in it. But one thing is certain: it is entirely unfair for any woman to simultaneously expect to be treated as something delicate while expecting to be treated as having equal standing in the realm of difficult discourse. [Full disclosure: I recently had a conversation with a key person in this organization about the current state of the online forums; my opinion is very strongly along the lines of seeing the atmosphere as having improved greatly over the past couple years: the Torah-Keeper vs. Grace-Alone feuds are fewer and further between; and the feminism-is-the-death-of-modern-civilization, men-are-to-be-obeyed-no-matter-what voices have diminished greatly. His concern was that some women still feel like the only safe place for them is in the ladies-only section. My response to this was that, for many women that is the only place they will feel safe, but that the only way to make every woman feel comfortable in the open forums would be to water them down to the point that nothing would ever be honestly discussed in any depth.] If you are uncomfortable with the fact that I have now responded in full to your insistence on attempting to invalidate me through ad hominem attacks, then you should probably not vent-post in forum threads where people you don't want to hear from are legitimately permitted to reply to you.

"And if you want to challenge me about my behavior in regard to the woman who performed an about-face by getting her supervisor to give me a warning, then please do so in the context of the Intro III: My Former Online Dating Profile thread (https://biblicalfamilies.org/forum/threads/intro-iii-my-former-online-dating-profile.15296/), but if you do you should be prepared to learn much more about what you misinterpreted the first time around.

So to be honest I read half of what you sent back because to me all I hear is none sense. I posted on a post Warning about taking a second wife when the wife is not ready for it. I shared what I am going though not for Advice or support but to share that it is hard for all involved and not just the first wife when she is not ready. So the Proper response and Encouragement would have been to say thank you for sharing your experience that is what some people need to hear and I am glad you shared like some of the other responses I got. You where putting yourself in where not needed and giving something that was not needed for me just sharing my experience in the topic I posted on. I have when needed gone to the women’s group and have posted when needing my sisters in the lord’s support I was not looking for that here in anyway and the other people on this group saw that and said thank you for sharing your experience. Oh and I am well aware of you and my husband’s history.he still made me Apologize when I didn’t want to because I feel you needed to be told what is what. Because no one else seems too have on here that I have seen. I did as I was asked by my husband because I am Submitted to him as I should be but you are not my head nor are you the person to try and Correct me. I think if you have any more to say to me or my sister wives or to try and correct me you should go to my husband from here on out. Thank you.

[While I was writing the following post, @Rachelle West, you posted your apology. I do humbly accept your apology. I had already posted what follows below and first deleted it with the thought that I should amend it to reflect your having apologized. However, in re-reading it, I discovered I only wanted to change a spelling error and insert a missing word in one sentence, because I believe this is a situation that warrants attention from all of us. Rachelle, I hope you will read this as an attempt to directly address what you wrote and how it can apply to any of us, rather than being only directed to you.]

*************

" Again, I hear you, Rachelle, and, yes, I'm addressing you directly, because you are the one who chose to, as you labeled it, vent on this forum about your predicament. You will have to excuse me if my attempt to provide you support and comfort was inadequate or not what you were seeking. You have yourself read far more into what I wrote than what was actually there. It has nothing to do with anything related to your husband in particular but entirely in response to what you wrote. You misunderstand me if you think I was asserting that your "husband is not doing his job as [your] husband in leading [you] right." Every one of us as men faces challenges with our women; some of those challenges we can take in stride; others represent new, daunting challenges, and those challenges require of us if we're going to transcend them to the point of being the covering we're responsible for being for our women that we dig deeper within the wells of our soul to learn lessons we have never learned before. Your husband and I have some history, and, yes, that history includes some conflict (I would assert that all but the most superficial of relationships will inevitably include some conflict), but I can promise you that our history only provided a glancing-blow nuance to what I wrote. My words were at least 99% formulated in direct response to what you chose to write, and I stand by them for the most part, because I believe my reactions were only reasonable given what you wrote (you should re-read your post if you challenge that). You can chastise me for writing to you when all you wanted was supportive sister talk, but you chose to vent in an open forum, when you could have done so in a female-only venue. I didn't give you grief. I simply reminded you that you were not alone, when you wrote that you had been put in touch with some people here and still felt like you were still alone in it all. Personally, I like being reminded that Yah has my back when I'm down-hearted or feeling sorry for myself or wondering if no one else understands what I'm going through, but I guess I need to further learn that the Golden Rule doesn't always apply. On the other hand, though, it's unfair on your part to expect the rest of us to read your mind. My intention was honorable and kind, and you repaid that by playing the damsel in distress who along with her husband was supposedly unfairly attacked -- when the only substantive questioning of your husband's leadership was voiced by you in your post earlier today. You in fact implored other men to properly prepare their first wives better (by your implication, than your husband did) before taking a second wife.

"You compounded this unfair response to my message by choosing to attack me in a manner that was not only unrequested but hostile. Don't worry; I can take it, and if I couldn't I wouldn't post the narratives of my dating-site, etc., experiences on here; in fact, they are there for anyone to read, just as your post is on here for anyone to read, and we both should be prepared for honest, straightforward, direct and even critical responses to the things we voluntarily post in open forums -- but please don't attempt to justify equating me with your ex-husband by pulling an out-of-context post that describes something you clearly didn't read thoroughly out of another thread and dropping it down in distorted form into this one, because doing so smacks of attempting to change the subject on your part.

"After you first criticized my attempt to provide some assistance, you could have just noticed that I let you vent, while subtly pointing out that you had not limited your request for responses from women only -- and you could have just let it go. Instead you doubled down. You're now going to have to decide if you're prepared to remain in this arena or limit yourself to the forum threads that are for ladies only. Please know this: I consider you entirely welcome here, or anywhere. For a long time, I've been looking forward to meeting your husband in person to shake his hand and have the opportunity to size each other up so we can let bygones be bygones. I have welcomed your introduction to this space and your participation in it. But one thing is certain: it is entirely unfair for any woman to simultaneously expect to be treated as something delicate while expecting to be treated as having equal standing in the realm of difficult discourse. [Full disclosure: I recently had a conversation with a key person in this organization about the current state of the online forums; my opinion is very strongly along the lines of seeing the atmosphere as having improved greatly over the past couple years: the Torah-Keeper vs. Grace-Alone feuds are fewer and further between; and the feminism-is-the-death-of-modern-civilization, men-are-to-be-obeyed-no-matter-what voices have diminished greatly. His concern was that some women still feel like the only safe place for them is in the ladies-only section. My response to this was that, for many women that is the only place they will feel safe, but that the only way to make every woman feel comfortable in the open forums would be to water them down to the point that nothing would ever be honestly discussed in any depth.] If you are uncomfortable with the fact that I have now responded in full to your insistence on attempting to invalidate me through ad hominem attacks, then you should probably not vent-post in forum threads where people you don't want to hear from are legitimately permitted to reply to you.

"And if you want to challenge me about my behavior in regard to the woman who performed an about-face by getting her supervisor to give me a warning, then please do so in the context of the Intro III: My Former Online Dating Profile thread (https://biblicalfamilies.org/forum/threads/intro-iii-my-former-online-dating-profile.15296/), but if you do you should be prepared to learn much more about what you misinterpreted the first time around.

 

[Rachelle West]

No one else responds to you there so why would I go there to respond to nonsense.

 

[Rachelle West]

I believe the grief I gave you was for "publicly shaming me," @FollowingHim.

Seriously, though, you're missing the point as well. In this forum thread, @Rachelle West initiated this by giving unwanted advice to any man considering taking a second wife, within the format of an extended vent-post that could be interpreted by any reasonable person as a cry for help. Of course, I partially now wish I had just started out with, "I hear you, Mrs. West," and left it at that, but that's a matter of 20/20 hindsight, because I didn't know then what I know now about how she would react. So the way I experienced it while I read it was that it was an (at least) unconscious criticism of her husband perhaps much better addressed in a more private setting, which she said to him right in the post that she was sorry for, combined with advice for other men, which it appears she gave without first seeking her husband's counsel, and it begged for something other than just, "You go, girl!"

In fact, it would also appear that, if anyone first fell into the unwanted advice trap here, it would be this guy:

You did the same to my husband in your first response to me. so don’t you go and do what you went off on him for. You really have to be liked dont you?

 

[Rachelle West]

I believe the grief I gave you was for "publicly shaming me," @FollowingHim.

Seriously, though, you're missing the point as well. In this forum thread, @Rachelle West initiated this by giving unwanted advice to any man considering taking a second wife, within the format of an extended vent-post that could be interpreted by any reasonable person as a cry for help. Of course, I partially now wish I had just started out with, "I hear you, Mrs. West," and left it at that, but that's a matter of 20/20 hindsight, because I didn't know then what I know now about how she would react. So the way I experienced it while I read it was that it was an (at least) unconscious criticism of her husband perhaps much better addressed in a more private setting, which she said to him right in the post that she was sorry for, combined with advice for other men, which it appears she gave without first seeking her husband's counsel, and it begged for something other than just, "You go, girl!"

In fact, it would also appear that, if anyone first fell into the unwanted advice trap here, it would be this guy:

@FollowingHim was not giving unwanted advice to the point that you did and saying that I was crying out for help at all in the response to me and he was also the one that thanked me for just sharing what I have been through by pushing the first wife to far. Yes there is a point where a wife is just doing emotional shit to stop it but sometimes the men don’t see that she is not emotionally ready or Spiritually ready for it. I was not giving advice to the men but sharing what it could do to a family it the husband pushes to fast.

 

[steve]

I’m throwing a caution flag on the field.
I feel the need to address the idea that has been pushed on this thread, and elsewhere, that a man shouldn’t proceed until his wife or wives is ready.
In some cases that is the greatest of advice.
In other cases that leaves the wife/wives ruling the roost. Those cases where the women will choose to never be ready because they are comfortable with the status quo.

Judging another family’s s situation is not a good idea. Nor is judging one’s own husband.

 

[MeganC]

What would you say to a woman that can’t have anymore baby’s even if she wanted to do to help?

Then it sounds to me she's already got the commitment thing figured out if she wants to be a part of the family. I guess with the pregnancy thing I'm really talking about younger women who can be very confused about what they want.

 

[Delta]

I so agree with this. I am a wife that has come in when the other wife was not ready and now I feel that I am a home Wrecker for coming in to the family when she was not ready with how their marriage is now. I have also been hurt in it a long with her. I am at the point that I don’t want the lifestyle as well and feel like I am Stuck in something I don’t want and feel that if I walked away it would be better for all involved but the Bible tells me that now that I am a wife I am not supposed to leave. I feel bad all the time. I hurt her and myself by coming in. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. How it has all played out is not how it was supposed to be. This is not what they said it would be. So for the men wanting to bring in the next wife please don’t in less you know for sure your wife can work through it. If you don’t it is going to hurt her, you and the wife coming in. I came in thinking that this was going to be hard but was looking forward to the happiness it would bring and instead I am getting the wrong part of how it is supposed to be. I wish sometimes I never came in. I love my husband and I am sure he is going to be mad at me for saying any of this but I don’t want others to get hurt anymore then what they will in this lifestyle. It is not for everyone. I have seen that it is not for me but I am in it and now I have to live it with the pain or not. So be careful man how fast you push your wife and make sure the one you are bringing in can handle it as well. Sorry my love but I can’t stop from sharing my truth if it can safe someone else the hurt and pain.

I liked your post because I appreciate your honesty and openness. I do hope that one day you all can come to a place where you are all happy. I am the first, and only wife at the moment, so I always appreciate hearing the perspectives of the 2nd etc wives.

 

[Rachelle West]

I liked your post because I appreciate your honesty and openness. I do hope that one day you all can come to a place where you are all happy. I am the first, and only wife at the moment, so I always appreciate hearing the perspectives of the 2nd etc wives.

Thank you. You need to know that I wanted sister wives. I wanted them because I lost my best friend a few years ago and I wanted that back with someone. We help raise each other’s kids and help with house work and lived together for a time as well. She called me her wife and I called her my wife as a joke for years. We acted and Function like sister wives Minus sharing our husbands. I met my ex husband after knowing her for years. I didn’t care for her husband ever much, but I am sure if she was not married and my ex was open to it we would have ended up sharing him as a husband. It didn’t work that way but that is how close we were. I wanted that with my sister wives I have now but I don’t think my life is going to work out that way as I hoped it would. Things are to messed up at the moment with them and I have been hurt to much already for me to see a happy ending as far as I saw it happening. So right now I am just working on healing from the pain and will see where God leads me later in my life’s path. Don’t take others experiences and make it to where you are not open to it. God has a plan for us and my plan is going to be different then your plan He has. The best thing to do is learn from other’s mistakes and listen to the ones getting it right. If you need someone to talk to I am here just message me. The best Advice I can give you at the moment is work on your Insecurities and don’t let fear get in your way and hold you back from Gods plan for you and your family.

 

[Anthony Clark]

Problem: How do you know if your wife is ready for plural marriage?
Answer: She's not.
Solution: Don't do it.

But, how do you know if your wife is ready? Well, not if she says she is, as strange as that sounds. The pattern that I've noticed, is that for most women they take a while to come around. Once they've grasped the biblical knowledge of PM, they then need to grasp the idea of it happening in their home, and that's a whole other thing to deal with. This could take years of back and forth. Sometimes they want another wife in the house, and other times they want to make sure their hubby would never ever bring someone else in.

Preparing for PM is like preparing for a baby. So, you want to have a baby. You read all the books, you set up a room for the baby, you prepare as much as you can. You buy all the baby things you think you need and you listen to all the advice you can (and try to figure out what is right because it's often contradictory). Then you get pregnant, and the pregnancy is much harder than you thought it would be. The morning sickness doesn't seem to stop like the books said it would at 12 weeks, and they don't talk about all the pain you have just from baby turning around inside you. Labour kicks in and it's nothing like anyone described. Then you have a baby. A tiny little newborn baby that you don't know what to do with! All those books don't help. All that advice doesn't help. All the latest gadgets you bought don't help. Nothing could actually prepare you for what it was going to be like to have a newborn, just how hard it was, how much you had to rely on God and your husband to get you through it, how you realised that you truly knew nothing. Because your baby never read the books. Your baby is an individual with their own needs. You find that you aren't the mother you thought you would be, you lose your cool sometimes, and sleep deprivation is far more toxic than you ever realised.

And so it is with plural marriage. You might spend all the time preparing, and you think you know what it will be like, and you think that you have read all the books and got all the advice and you'll be able to do it better than others. But then another woman came along and she's nothing like what you had planned. She's her own individual person and she didn't read the books you did. You find you aren't as calm as you thought you'd be, and sometimes you lose it. You find that there are some really deep down insecurities that you had no idea existed that have now come up to say hello, and you don't know what to do with them. This was a hundred times harder than you ever imagined.

You see, to know if your wife is ready for plural marriage, is not to know if she is ready to have another woman in the house, or whether she's ready to share you. It's definitely not knowing that she's understood it's OK biblically. It's knowing that she's in a place where she's ready and able to go through the fire and come out the other side without being destroyed.
Read that again. It is not about her being accepting of plural marriage, it's about her being willing and able to go through great hardship and difficulty and survive it.
If there is any doubt that she is ready, that she could handle it, then don't do it.
There are too many failures. Too many people rushing something that takes much longer than you think. Too many people not knowing how difficult it really is, and that that difficulty is normal and will take you to an amazing place, if you have the strength, courage, and ability to ride it out.

One other thing they don't tell you in baby books. No one, no words written or spoken, no images, can ever describe to you the love you will feel when you look at your newborn baby in your arms. You can't possibly know until you experience it. I understand it's the same with plural marriage, there is much joy and love to be experienced, something that can't be understood until you're there in it.

Thank you @FollowingHim2 for writing this message.

I made the decision to walk the path of creating a biblical family about 6 months ago and told my wife of my intentions soon after I started doing my research.

The timing of finding your article was perfect. Yesterday I had a deep and meaningful, open-hearted conversation with my 1st wife. I have given her several books to read, as well as articles and this forum. She has been 'open' to the idea and I thought things were 'going great'.

However, I could tell that she was struggling and so I asked her to lay beside me in bed. Wrapped her in my arms and gave her the opportunity to fully express her feelings and emotions on the topic with no filter, all raw and real. I listened calmly and patiently.

Some of the things that she said:

"I don't want to share my husband."
"I understand what all the books say and what the Bible says, but I'm not ready."

I started to get a bit defensive, then stopped. And listened more, keeping calm and feeling great empathy towards her.

I did not 'cave in' or tell her that I won't do X or Y. I simply committed to being a patient and compassionate leader, making the choices I feel called to do, which include helping all members of my family get to the destination together.

^^^ this is the short version.

Later in the day I hopped onto this forum and ended up finding this article. Read it. BAM! Wow, that's exactly correct and that's where we're at. Sent it to her. She resonated well with it, and also read the first page of comments.

Our relationship has gotten much stronger since I made the decision to walk this path, and I have grown as a man and patriarch as I continue to learn and continue to be patient and compassionate.

If God gives you a second woman and makes it abundantly clear that you are to take her, then it's the right time, even if it doesn't feel like it. Obey. "Unplanned polyhood" will still be difficult but will work out abundantly better than the consequences of disobedience.

However, for those trying to pursue this under their own steam - I think that Sarah's talking about the fundamental problem underlying most failures in polygamy. Pay attention to it. So many failures are "my wife said it was ok - and then she left, and I can't understand why she changed". The problem is that she was never ready in the first place, whatever she might have said. The goal is not to get your wife to agree mentally with polygamy, but to husband her, to tend her to grow in all ways, to become stronger to face every problem - and that is good advice even if you never take a second wife.

@FollowingHim thank you for this comment re: obeying and following God's guidance, even if we are 'not ready'. Also, the point about husbanding is timeless and a great reminder.

My role as husband is to be a guide (spiritual and physical), not a persuader or manipulator. If she chooses to follow, that is wonderful. If she chooses not to, that is my burden to bear, and I can only be firm yet patient.

It is impossible to force someone to willingly go along, and the last thing I want is a family of people (wives or children) who do 'what I want' because I have mentally beaten them into submission. I know the pain of this very well because my relationship with my parents was very much like that, and it only leads to bitterness and sadness.

By God's grace and mercy I have learned and am continuing to learn to lead with love... not force.

 

[frederick]

Thank you @FollowingHim2 for writing this message.

I made the decision to walk the path of creating a biblical family about 6 months ago and told my wife of my intentions soon after I started doing my research.

The timing of finding your article was perfect. Yesterday I had a deep and meaningful, open-hearted conversation with my 1st wife. I have given her several books to read, as well as articles and this forum. She has been 'open' to the idea and I thought things were 'going great'.

However, I could tell that she was struggling and so I asked her to lay beside me in bed. Wrapped her in my arms and gave her the opportunity to fully express her feelings and emotions on the topic with no filter, all raw and real. I listened calmly and patiently.

Some of the things that she said:

"I don't want to share my husband."
"I understand what all the books say and what the Bible says, but I'm not ready."

I started to get a bit defensive, then stopped. And listened more, keeping calm and feeling great empathy towards her.

I did not 'cave in' or tell her that I won't do X or Y. I simply committed to being a patient and compassionate leader, making the choices I feel called to do, which include helping all members of my family get to the destination together.

^^^ this is the short version.

Later in the day I hopped onto this forum and ended up finding this article. Read it. BAM! Wow, that's exactly correct and that's where we're at. Sent it to her. She resonated well with it, and also read the first page of comments.

Our relationship has gotten much stronger since I made the decision to walk this path, and I have grown as a man and patriarch as I continue to learn and continue to be patient and compassionate.



@FollowingHim thank you for this comment re: obeying and following God's guidance, even if we are 'not ready'. Also, the point about husbanding is timeless and a great reminder.

My role as husband is to be a guide (spiritual and physical), not a persuader or manipulator. If she chooses to follow, that is wonderful. If she chooses not to, that is my burden to bear, and I can only be firm yet patient.

It is impossible to force someone to willingly go along, and the last thing I want is a family of people (wives or children) who do 'what I want' because I have mentally beaten them into submission. I know the pain of this very well because my relationship with my parents was very much like that, and it only leads to bitterness and sadness.

By God's grace and mercy I have learned and am continuing to learn to lead with love... not force.

Hi @Anthony Clark, welcome to the forum. It's a blessing to read your comments and I pray you and your wife will continue to learn and grow together. If you get a few minutes spare, please post an introduction.

In some respects this journey is like becoming a parent. One day you are a husband, but then your wife has a baby so you instantly become a father. You may have read books or talked to other fathers, but it's not until you have your own child you yourself are a father. From day one you are 100% a father, yet you are probably ignorant of so many of the practical realities of fatherhood. You work hard to be the father you instantly became. You and your wife, who became the new mother, have to learn to be what you have become. If you and your wife currently have kids you know it's a wonderful joy and blessing, but it's also a long learning curve. Well, so is plural marriage, it's a wonderful joy and blessing, but it's a long learning curve. When (If) God blesses you with more wives you will all have to learn to be what you became.

Best wishes for you and your wife as you walk this path of life together. Shalom