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Moving Forward

T

tafamily

New Member
I have been reading the posts on this website for the past several months and this is my first post. I have a few questions and would love to get some feedback from both men and women regarding my questions.

About six months ago I started having a desire to live a polygamous life style. Not sure where it came from but couldn’t get the thought off my mind. I did some research and could not find anywhere that spoke against it in the bible. I have approached the subject with honesty and prayer. Asking God if it was an honorably way to live that pleased God that the Lord would enable me to live this way, if not would he remove the desire from my heart. So far I still have a desire for this lifestyle and do not feel convicted that it is a sin.

I have a desire to live this way but also have a lot of fear regarding the consequences. I brought it up to my wife about six months ago and her first response was “no way I would leave”. I dropped the topic as I did not want to cause conflict.
I brought it up again a few months later and her response was more of hurt. She asked questions like “do I not satisfy you”, “why are you not happy with me”, and “I feel like I am not good enough for you.” Of course this broke my heart. The last thing I want to do is hurt my wife. I told her I do not feel like there is anything wrong with this lifestyle but would give up the desire because I put my love for her first. She seemed to be happy with this response and thanked me for putting her needs over my desires.

She once asked me if she was not submitting to me if she was not willing to look into this topic. She also said if God wanted it she would not know what to do and would question why God would allow such a thing. I told her not to worry about it because I felt like she was not emotionally prepared to tackle this topic.

That being said I still cannot get rid of the desire. IT keeps coming up and I feel so drawn to it! If only with my wife would be supportive. I feel that if it was really Gods calling my wife would have the same desire, but it appears she does not. Why do I have the desire and she does not?

On another topic I also fear what my Church and family would think. I’m sure I would be excommunicated from my Church and I can only guess what family would do. Sometimes I wonder would it be worth it. Yet the desire does not leave my mind.

I know there is a lot of tangents here but my main questions are as follows. How can I continue to bring this up to my wife without hurting her? And have other women had similar responses and then come around to the idea of polygamy? If so what changed and how? Finally what about family and Church for those who have chosen to live this way, what was the fall out?

I would especially like responses from men and women who actually practice this lifestyle.

Thank you all.
 
your journey sounds about normal, i encourage you to keep reading past posts and compare others experiences with yours.
i think that you will find a lot of parallels to your experience.

keep your wife in prayer and let time and the Lord work with her. rome was not built in a day and this understanding is a hard one to switch to and will take time and patience on you part. it took my wife 3 years and then it was years before we became part of the lifestyle.
make your focus being the best patriarch that you can be, you cannot lose even if you never live the lifestyle.
 
I can only share my personal journey with you. My husband and I had always joked about "polygamy" but that was as far as it went. For the past 2 years, God has been working in our lives to become focused on Him and His commands. We have become followers and no longer fans of Christ. Well, my husband brought the similar desire to follow God and bring another wife into the family. I felt very similar to your wife and fought God for a few months. I did not believe polygany was a sin, but I would not accept the gift from God. I struggled with pride and disobedience throughout my unacceptance of hearing God's word and accepting His gifts. When I finally got on my knees and asked God to open my heart and put down pride, I accepted it with my whole heart.
We are currently praying that God would bring another woman and her children into our lives. Feel free to PM me or captainjonathan as I would be happy to encourage your wife and tell her my story.
 
My husband and I were married for 20 years when he brought the subject up to me. I took the time to study it out in God's Word and that was a huge help for me to accept it. Knowing what God's Word actually says about marriage was absolutely crucial to me, and I had to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that PM was honorable.

When I finished studying, I then had to choose to trust my husband that he would do what was right in the situation. I felt very much that God desired us to have a second wife join our family, and I knew I needed to support my husband in this endeavor, even though I knew it would be very emotionally difficult and that we would suffer the consequences. He took a second wife later that year and they have now been married almost 4 years.

What were the consequences? We were excommunicated from our church, ostracized from the christian community where we lived, our three oldest children (21,19, 17) separated from us and refused to discuss the matter scripturally, our extended families refused fellowship with us and threatened to take our children from us.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. I know for a fact that God wanted us to expand our family, as He has worked things out so beautifully, so many times. My SW is my best friend and we are one big, (mostly) happy family! My husband's extended family has since reconciled with us, we moved to a different community and have been very careful only to become close to those who will embrace our whole family.

I have a lot of sadness because of the lack of fellowship with our oldest children. We talk and see each other occasionally, but I grieve for them, that they refuse to see what a blessing this life can actually be. I grieve the loss of my extended family, as well. There is much bitterness from them towards my husband, and they refuse to have a civil discourse with us regarding the matter. I can't change them, but God can! We have chosen to leave that relationship in God's capable hands and to wait on Him for restoration.

Hope this information helps!
Katie
 
Katie,

We will be praying for the restoration of your family.

My husband and I recently met some people who were Christians and said they liked us (they met my husband and I) and would like to get to know us better - maybe we could come over for a BBQ sometime? That started a whole discussion of who we are and how we present ourselves to the outside world and where do we draw the lines of what we tell and who we tell. The discussion itself was helpful. We ultimately decided that we are not going to hide and we are not going to lie. We don't have to be in people's faces about it. There is more to us than being polygamous, but we recognize that it may make other people uncomfortable. If we were to accept their offer of friendship then right from the beginning we would tell them the truth about who we were and if they rejected us on that basis then it would be their loss not ours. To form a friendship and be constantly on edge about what we could and could not say would be awkward, plus I do not want the children to be on guard about what they can and cannot say around people. Even the impression that they need to be careful teaches them that there is something wrong and I do not want them to feel that.

We ended up choosing not to pursue the friendship for other reasons, but it was useful to sit and talk through how we wish to proceed in similar situations in the future.
 
Thank you all for sharing the more information I can get the better.

@Steve How did you bring this topic up to your wife? Did you eventually say this is what I believe and how I want to live point blank? I was hoping slowly my wife would come to want this lifestyle through prayer and baby steps talking about it?

@lalacookie Thanks for the offer I will PM you.

@sola scriptora Wow that sounds like a very hard trial. I’m not sure I want suffer that much! You must be very committed to living this way.

Do women ever come around to actual wanting this lifestyle or is it always a struggle for them? I know my wife have had our fair share of struggles in married life sometimes I wish there would be easy harmony on this issue but maybe that is unrealistic?
 
I think polygyny is just one aspect of a wider issue, patriarchy. Patriarchy in itself is a difficult concept for many women, however it is widely accepted in at least a subset of the mainstream Christian church, and the rest of the church pays lip-service to it even if they don't actually follow it. Maybe this is the fundamental issue you should be studying with your wife?

A more general look at God's plans for the family, how it should be organised, and what its ministry to the world should look like, may be very beneficial to both you and her. This should also lay the foundations for accepting polygyny as a natural expression of patriarchy.

I joked with my wife from the time we were dating about polygyny, never considering it seriously for our own lives but accepting it as ok. Through this she came to accept that it was theoretically acceptable. That's the logical side. Accepting that it is an option for your own life is a completely different question, that is a lot more emotional. Women are very emotionally focussed, and this can be very difficult for them. Even my wife, while completely accepting that it is not sinful, and now actually wanting it for our lives, finds aspects of it very difficult emotionally. This takes a lot of time and love.

Just remember there are two completely different questions here - what is not sin, and what is right for your life. You may bring her to the first through theological reasoning, but you will only bring her to the second though a lot of love and reassurance.

Remember that the Bible tells a husband to love his wife right where it tells her to obey him. Both are vital, but if the husband is a servant leader he should be starting through example with his side of the arrangement. Patriarchy starts with love, and it is through that love that a wife may come to trust her husband enough to accept a desire on his part for another wife, while being fully assured that his love for her will not reduce and his desire for another is not due to inadequacies on her part.

Yes, at least some wives do come to desire this, three have posted on this thread.
 
Samuel has made a good point in that the wider issue is one of patriarchy.
There is also a lot of individuality to take into consideration.
Some women actually deal with wanting this life while their husbands do not. Just as some men are unwilling to be a father to more then one or two children (not wanting the financial or other aspects of responsibility that more would require) some men have no desire to husband more then one woman.
With polygyny patriarchy has another sphere of influence or impact. What if you find an old fashioned gal, who will only marry with her father's blessing? Or what if you're old fashioned yourself and feel that any marriage, but especially poly, should be started with the consent of the gal's father? If the thought of asking for the lady's hand is nerve wracking for a single man, imagine how much harder would it be to ask the man for his daughter when you already have a wife? A father may let a daughter marry a young man just starting out in life, who doesn't have a lot, because she loves him, and believes he will be a good husband and father. But even here on Biblical Families there is a thread where fathers were spelling out requirements a man would have to fill, to be considered for their daughter, IF that man already had a wife. And what if you are a single gal who would consider poly, but your christian patriarchal dad will not allow or even consider it?

I guess we each have to live according to conscience. But subjects like these can raise some hard questions, and situations.

I am one of the poly friendly and would like to live it sort, and my husband is also willing and interested...but neither if us want something that would be contrary to what God has in mind for our lives. So if it ever happens it will be in God's time.
I actually have no interest at this point in even thinking about poly. It has been made abundantly clear to me that "Save the Lord build the house, they that build it labor in vain" I have heard so many sad stories of failed marriages, monogamous and poly, that even tho I deeply understand the appeal of this lifestyle, I am just going to continue to be thankful for the wonderful husband I have, even if no one ever seconds my opinion of the man, and becomes his second wife.

I hope this hasn't wandered too far from the subject of the thread. If the moderators want to move it I understand.
 
Joleneakamama said:
It has been made abundantly clear to me that "Save the Lord build the house, they that build it labor in vain" I have heard so many sad stories of failed marriages, monogamous and poly, that even tho I deeply understand the appeal of this lifestyle, I am just going to continue to be thankful for the wonderful husband I have, even if no one ever seconds my opinion of the man, and becomes his second wife.
Click to expand...
That is excellent advice even when looking for a first wife. Hunting can get you in all sorts of messes. There are so many things that can go wrong when seeking polygyny in our society, and plenty of stories of terrible experiences. But if God decides you're going to be polygynous, then He's quite capable of slapping you in the face and saying "Now! Her!" even if you're not looking. Especially if you're not looking, as then you don't have any incorrect woman in the way making it hard for you to see the right one.

So my philosophy is very similar. Don't hunt with human wisdom. But keep your eyes open and be ready for God's prompting.
 
Well I brought the issue up to my wife again and the response was more hurt. She said she could never be emotionally satisfied living in plural marriage. It looks like for now I will just have to let this one go. If God really wants us to live this lifestyle he will change her heart, but it appears it’s just not there. It’s unfortunate because I have a strong desire to live this life but sometimes we must sacrifice our desires for others. I pray one day she will come around to the idea.
 
Dear TA,

Don't give up. Be the leader that God is preparing you to be. Love your wife just like Christ loved the Church, willing to give yourself for her. What we have seen, again and again and again, is that when this issue comes up with men, they usually make one of three choices:

1) They give up what they believe the Spirit of God is dealing with them, and submit to their wives, thus making her higher than God. That is idolatry, pure and simple, and yet many men live in that realm.

2) They charge 'full steam ahead' without considering the needs of your current wife. They will start visiting sites, searching for a wife. They will start making passes at the waitress at the diner, maybe even in front of the current wife. They may even go so far as to show up one day with a wife in tow, and telling the first wife, "Deal with it." This is placing YOU in the position of God, which is also idolatry.

3) They are patient, loving, caring, yet persistent. For some men, this takes time for them to either grow up into this (they were weak before), or to grow down into this (they were arrogant s.o.b.'s before). These men do their best to emulate Jesus Christ and His sacrificial love for His first love. This means understanding that you have the RIGHT to take a second wife, if you so choose, but that you also understand that you and your current wife are ONE FLESH, and that God placed her in your life to perhaps slow you down from doing something really stupid, which as men we are prone at times to do. The problem with this approach is this takes TIME, and men are notorious at trying to be FIX-ERS rather than FAITH-ERS. Remember Abraham, how God had given him a very specific promise, yet he never saw the 'many stars in sky of his multitude' except in the eyes of promise in his son Isaac. These men are prepared to believe in the legitimacy, the right, and even the demand of plural marriage, but are willing to operate in God's timing.

One of the best pieces of advice I heard about this whole process has to do with becoming the kind of men of honor WORTHY of being considered for the calling of plural marriage. It does not have anything to do with sexual prowess, money, or personality. It has EVERYTHING to do with being a broken member of the multitudinous Bride of Christ, and SUBMITTING (yes, humbling ourselves before Him) to the changes He desires to make in our lives.

TA, are you worthy of that call? Are you the kind of man that God could trust with more than one wife? The Bible says that he who is faithful in a little, will be faithful in much. Are you taking care of the marriage you have right now, and making sure that the two of your are being open with one another, truly becoming that ONE FLESH?

Plural marriage will not solve any problems in your life. Plural marriage is a magnifier; it will multiply your problems...exponentially.

As a matter of fact, here is a piece of unsolicited advice regarding plural marriage: don't do it. Yes, you heard me, DON'T DO IT. I would not wish it on anyone.

But....

If God has called you....

Then....

Be the man he has called you to be.

But....

If he hasn't called you.....RUN, now! Clear your browser history, block this site, never mention plural marriage again, sit in church and forget you ever heard about this crazy, unbiblical, heathen, despicable, unlawful practice.

Blessings

Doc
 
Oh doc
Your last paragraph
Wish i would have read it before I exercised option number 2
:)
I wouldn't have heeded it tho.
Jh
 
We discussed it again and things went good. She said she cannot handle figuring out the ins and outs of such a heavy topic so she gave it God. Its still not something she wants but she says she has given the topic to God. Not sure what else I can ask at this point. The topic still causes her hurt but maybe in time that can change?
 
What has convinced me that it is okay and it's not the man trying to replace his first wife or anything, is that I love my kids. I love all of them equally. However many I will have, I love them all. We didn't have a second because the first didn't satisfy us. We had a second because we loved the first so much, we wanted another. There is no limit to how many of my children I can love. Being a woman, I know it's not easy to accept that there is nothing wrong with me, I'm fine the way I am. But I'm not everything every woman is. I have my own qualities, and other women have theirs. It's all about bringing in your own qualities to make the family better.
 
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