POLYMISS said:
With all due respect to you sir, you stated in your post that you were prepared for a decade long war with your wife over this issue, but she finally agreed after only 3 years. this sounds to me as though she's only accepting this out of fear of loosing you, or some other negative consequence as a result of not going along with you on this matter. if this is the case, then can one truely call this acceptance. i'm a single female and if i came across a couple like you and your wife and discovered this, i would NEVER join such a family. i would NEVER want to be part of a family where the wife felt cornered into polygamy for fear of loosing her husband or some other consequence (ie, and affair). if this was about your wife going along with this out of love for you, then it would not have taken 3 whole years. it sounds as though you're so focused on how much you want this, that you've failed to see or care (whichever the case may be) about how deep down, your wife does not truely want this..............i mean 3 years!!!! COME ON!! i feel sorry for your wife and any potential sister wife who may end up suffering as a result of this. good, functional families are sooooooo hard to find. an added wife should be a blessing to ALL involved, and if this is not the case then needless suffering will result.
No offense intended, but I really don't think that Elisha meant it the way that you took it. It seems as though for some reason you're assuming that he somehow pressured or forced her into this and I really don't think this is the case. So when Elisha posted this I really think he did so in earnest for advice and counsel. Just because a lady accepts and believes in plural marriage doesn't mean she was somehow forced into believing it. Maybe he brought it up somehow and over the course of the next 3 years they studied the scriptures together. After all, my beautiful fiance, in under two weeks, found out my beliefs on plural marriage, studied for herself in the scriptures, and came to accept and believe in it before we even started dating. Two weeks is a lot shorter time than three years and I wasn't even involved in any way in her coming to this truth.
I think his use of the word "war" might have been what threw you off, but I don't think it was meant in the way that you think. For example, there are many things that I have learned through scripture study that completely refute what I was raised to believe and what my family believes. Christmas, Easter, Sunday as the sabbath, steeples on churches, the name Jesus, etc. And even though these things have been discussed between us with both sides holding to their corner we still love and accept each other without pressuring either one to accept the other's belief. You could call that "war" simply meaning that there are two opposing viewpoints.
Yahuweh bless you and keep you.