Sorry, in all honesty I've nominated Slumberfreeze a time or two as well.
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Burning Question Part 2
- Thread starter torahlovesalvation2
- Start date
Thank you UG for your sensitivity and sincere understanding. It's not comfortable showing one's vulnerable side. I must say your response really touches me coming from a male perspective, as a lot of times we women think men don't understand us. Your words encouraged me for sure. Thank you!!
Hey, does that mean we could have a vicious election campaign featuring personal attacks and inflammatory emotional appeals to people's worst fears and hates?
I don't know. Who has to be Hillary? Not it!
I was referring to the G-rated version. I do strive to be a modest woman after all. LOL
The R-rated wouldn't hurt to know either, but that may cause me to blush. LOLYour closing argument is a hard pill to swallow, but I will take it under advisement. I do find great joy in serving and helping my soon-to-be husband and he is great at appreciating me and valuing me. But I am still human and filled with womanly emotions and needs. Just trying to sort out how that will all balance out. As you said, it's all in God's hands.
I realize my question may seem ridiculous, but it is a very real dilemma for me. As UG and Ginny said, it realistically can't be quantified. However, math is math. The more women added to the equation equates to less time for me. The way I perceive it now is that the more demands placed on my husband to meet everyone's needs (multiplied by children) will mean he will be more exhausted trying to make everyone happy, thereby decreasing the quality of life for us all. I'm not saying this is true in all cases or even some. This is just my current perception of the unknown.
I fully intend to defend my legitimacy as a deeply principled candidate until the moment when I suddenly and nonsensically urge my supporters to lend their strength to my hated foe; the archon of all I stand against.
Prepare to feel the freeze.
Prepare to feel the freeze.
UG, you totally get me and my intention for this post.
I am not a needy or clinging person and I am certainly not self-centered. I was getting straight to the point of my question without having to dissect myself in a long post.
I'm not relying on a book to define me. I'm using it to convey a message. I appreciate your thoughts and feedback.
I figured someone would bring this up, which is why I said there is something to be said about hugs from children, family and friends. But again, it's not the same feeling you get from your husband. And honestly, I was never the "girlie bestie" type, which in my mind is probably best suitable for poly. That could be the wrong line of thinking, but there you have it, raw and uncensored. I just find there to be more drama queens and less Proverbs 31 women out there nowadays.
I'm down with Andrew for president, slumber the headonist perhaps as a running mate? Please no violence and vicious campaigns though! I'm so tired of those…
Very glad to be of service TLS2.
There are still very good points all around. And as to the topic of the love languages book, this thread goes to show the validity of YMMV, and proves that one size doesn't exactly fit all!
Very glad to be of service TLS2.
There are still very good points all around. And as to the topic of the love languages book, this thread goes to show the validity of YMMV, and proves that one size doesn't exactly fit all!
Your question is not ridiculous. My question about "how much time" was rhetorical, simply encouraging you to ponder it more rather than answer it directly. Certainly, two women means less time overall for each one, that is basic maths. However, what you are specifically talking about here is not time in general, but time spent in physical intimacy (mostly non-sexual). That is a tiny fraction of the time, yet so important to you that you highlight it here. It is such a tiny fraction of the time, that it may not actually suffer much if at all, particularly when the suggestions of others here around mutual-couch-time are considered also.
In fact, I am finding that with just one wife and six children, Sarah's so exhausted running after them all that our physical touch time is seriously reduced, compared with when we were newly married. Many hands make light work, and I strongly suspect that a second wife, by spreading the workload, would actually mean that both wives received equal if not more quality time than if I had only one of them. I'm not claiming this would work out perfectly, just that there are many ways to look at it beyond the "double wives = half time" initial reaction.
I don't try to make anyone happy in my home, let alone everyone. Not my job. My understanding is that Cheryl spoke about this at the retreat. They're happy most of the time, though. They just don't expect me to do it for them.
A great book that I would recommend to everyone here is Marriage, A History. Demonstrates how the 'institution' of marriage has changed meaning and purpose over the centuries. And helps us come to grips with the rather modern romantic marriage paradigm and whether it's really all that. I recommend it highly over all self-help books.
The point of all that is that all of us here have been reared as children and adolescents in a particular culture and conditioned mentally and emotionally to a particular view of companion or romantic or soulmate marriage. We all start off trying to figure out how to adapt our old view of marriage to the new math. And then somewhere along the way we realize that the old rules don't apply anymore. New paradigm, new rules, new values, new expectations.
The person I was about 10 years ago used to make fun of the person I was about 18 years ago (and the family we were 18 years ago) for some of the things we tried. One of the early models came to be called "merry-go-round monogamy", because it was based on an obsessive mathematical model of fairness. If I sat by this one at dinner last night, it was going to be that one tonight, and the other one tomorrow. Unless that one had sat by me during a movie last night after dinner, in which case maybe that count as her dinner turn, and now it would be the other one's turn to sit by me at dinner.
I'm not kidding. Stuff like that really happened.
Recently I heard of a family that broke up that was so OCD they made us look completely disorganized. "If I kiss this one for 10 seconds, I have to kiss that one for exactly 10 seconds." That kind of thing.
Lord, save us.
TLS2, you're asking all the right questions, and it's good that you're asking them, and not jumping into this with some naive theory about how "great" it's going to be. It is great, but it's great in the way that the payoff after a lot of hard work and perseverance is great. And the hardest work is deprogramming our cultural conditioning, some of which we're not even aware of until we are in the middle of things and it's too late to turn back.
Just a tip: The things you're wondering about now are just the tip of the iceberg (pun retroactively intended). Our culture is a lot more messed up than you think it is until you've gotten a lot farther down this rabbit hole, and our cultural understanding of marriage is literally insane (not well, unhealthy). You will reach a point at which you realize that the least reliable information you have to work with is the set of expectations you currently have about what marriage is supposed to be like.
If the bible condones and provides for plural marriage (it does) and it teaches that we should have fulfilled, vibrant, victorious lives (it does) then there is a way for us to have fulfilled, vibrant, victorious lives in a plural family. It just may not look anything like what we've been conditioned to expect.
It's on, brother. I've done more checking into this, and am more convinced than before that the idea is defective. More when time permits, and probably in a different thread. I realize that there's a delicious irony in two guys who haven't read the book arguing about what it signifies, but I'm game if you are!
Here's the rundown:
It's better to marry than to burn, right? So theoretically, if a guy has a robust sexual appetite and a first wife with relatively limited stamina or interest, then the same logic would apply. In an abstract, distasteful, theoretical sort of way, a guy should has as many wives as it takes to keep up with his mighty, mighty libido.
On the other hand, getting laid these days is about as difficult as crossing the street in the middle of the block. If a guy only wanted sex, he only has to have a 3-digit IQ and not be actually gross to find somebody that will go home with him for a night. So guys that are really that sex-hungry have other options besides polygyny. If you're going to actually add a woman to your family, there needs to be something more going on than just randiness.
Here's a good rule of thumb: If you have a fulfilling, rewarding marriage with one woman, you just might be able to have a fulfilling, rewarding relationship with two. If there's something about your first wife that you think is lacking, or something about her you don't like and haven't reconciled yourself to, or any problem at all that you think adding a second wife is the solution to, then you don't stand much of a chance.
As it relates to sexual diversity, focus on spicing up your relationship with your existing wife. Be the kind of husband she wants to have sex with all the time. Make it creative and spontaneous and a little bit dangerous (or edgy, if dangerous is too strong). Then when you add a second wife it will just be twice as nice!
If the first marriage is strong, the plural family can be strong. If the first marriage has issues, a plural family will pretty much finish it off.
Hehe, that is ironic. I don't mind debating, and I'd like to hear your views on why the idea is defective, but I'm not emotionally attached to defending the book. I fully admit that it could be a case in which I heard the synopsis and went off my ideas of what it *should* say vs what it actually *does* say. I will happily defend the concept *as I understand it*, but that's different than defending the book.
I am now fully prepared to be your running mate. Yours is the wisdom that must lead us all.
The love languages concept is great for understanding how others express love.
Sometimes we miss their expressions of love because we don't recogize that language, becoming aware that it exists is important.
Example: I can can bust my hinde end providing for someone, but if they are focused on receiving love in another manner I am going to "fail" them.
Sometimes we miss their expressions of love because we don't recogize that language, becoming aware that it exists is important.
Example: I can can bust my hinde end providing for someone, but if they are focused on receiving love in another manner I am going to "fail" them.
Well said Steve.