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What of effort?

SonoLumen

SonoLumen

Member
Male
I continue to see this theme: Focus on God and if it is in his plan he will bring you a second wife.

Now, I agree our focus should always be on HIM first, but this answer has never quite done it for me for a couple of reasons i'll try to explain below.

1) I believe I am already focused on HIM. After all, it was my personal faith that brought me to this point. I was reading his Word diligently seeking truths on real-life issues when I uncovered the truth of biblical marriage, and subsequently, have remained focused on him throughout this transition, I would have never been able to think this way without scripture.

2) Effort is a very real human thing. Even though my life is ultimately Gods, I am still a man and plan and preparation have their proper place. So I am affirming ultimately that I rely on his sovereignty in my life, but my effort cannot be necessarily in vain, and I know effort has led to Godly rewards in m work life, my personal life, my health, why if this is a good thing, should I not give it some pursuit?

3) I am pretty good at avoiding other women. I have been doing this for a long time as it made a ton of sense in my "monogamy only" mentality. I found in the past that the "keep distance" technique just worked best for me. I grew up around many women so I am very comfortable having conversations with them. Because of my tendency to fun and intimacy in these conversations I have just actively avoided anything besides business/small chat with any other woman besides my wife.

Obviously if I continue as I am I'll probably never have another "intimate enough" relationship to even turn into dating. So my question is about balancing effort in finding a second wife, and keeping Yahweh first and foremost in our life.
 
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That has long been a debate and question, and a very valid one.

You've put good thought into it, and have great points. I believe that, as in so many things, moderation is key. You'll find that generally when we are dispensing the advice of just focusing on God and not looking for a new bride, it is when the idea of poly seems to be someone's sole focus, when it appears that the search may be coming between that person and God, instead of glorifying him. Or maybe it seems that the persons first wife is being for good lost in the shuffle.

There *are* people that believe the mentality is similar to the old army joke "If Uncle Sam wanted you to have a wife he'd have issued you one!", and it's certainly true that if God had a special plan that required you to have a second wife then she'd darn well come find you on the hermit mountain, but personally I don't believe that's the normal way of things.

It will probably require you to "lower your guard" around women. That can be good anyway and helpful for creating real interpersonal connections not related to poly. But it's key that finding a wife not be the focus. Make friends, make connections. Don't go "hunting" though. That's creepy, smells of desperation, and worthwhile women will flee. Your history and connection style you had growing up seems to be the right type of connection. Women are people, not prizes, but not to be avoided either.

If you don't really encounter women in your life (common for a lot of guys who work with guys especially), work on expanding your interests, especially with your wife, into areas that will result in fun and closeness for you two, but also interacting with new people including women. I've not met a wife yet who would say no to trying some group dance lesson type things. A fair number of women who take dance classes are actually single. Maybe you don't like dance, maybe you like the outdoors though. Join a hiking club. The specific thing isn't important, but the socialization is.

The point is, don't do these things or build you life around the idea of finding a second wife. But live life and be open to new connections!
 
SonoLumen said:
why should I not "actively seek" a second wife if God says its a good thing to find?
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My answer for that is as follows:

1 Corinthians 7:27 New King James Version (NKJV)
27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife.

Which is exactly how I found my wife. I read a book by some old guy that said to take this verse seriously, so I resolved not to look for a wife when I was 19. I was lonely, and told the Father so at every opportunity, but I busied myself about His business rather than troubling the females with my amateurish attempts. I met the woman I was to marry 2 years later, secured her for myself 2 years after that, and married her the following year. I found her, but I did not seek her. I rather like to think that my obedience in this matter was part of how I obtained the favor from the Lord that led to me being 'issued' my wife.

Effort is absolutely necessary for the Christian life, but why spend effort pursuing what we are told not to pursue, especially knowing that God sees to the needs of His children? How much will we, with our effort, be able to add to God's efforts on our behalf. I think He expects us to use our effort for His work, and trust Him for whatever payment or favor is due us.

Or again, if we are not to worry about what we eat, drink, or wear; things that we actually DO have to toil for - how much less should we concern ourselves with things we're told not to even seek after?

I fully grant that the command not to seek a wife does not here extend to those who are currently bound to a (first) wife. But consider also:

Proverbs 5:18-19New King James Version (NKJV)
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice with the wife of your youth.
19 As a loving deer and a graceful doe,
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
And always be enraptured with her love.

My double sided question is:
a) If a man is fully satisfied and enraptured with the breasts of of the wife that he is supposed to be rejoicing with, from whence comes the desire to spend effort on another one?
b) If a man is NOT fully satisfied, shouldn't he be expending that effort to paying more attention to the boobs at hand? Maybe he should work on rejoicing harder?
 
I take a different view here. God has given you explicit permission to marry. Follow His rules and always listen to hear if He says no, but God does not have most of assigned to specific wives or husbands. We can marry or not as is expedient within His commands.
 
I know it's uncommon as of late (;)), but I agree with Zec.

Really this is a YMMV type issue. There is no "one way" to find or be sent a wife. There are examples in the Bible of people being told who to marry, brides being choosen by priests, countrymen being sent to select wives, working on a farm for 14 years for a wife, it really runs the gamut.
 
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Didn't know what that abbreviation means either, I mean I haven't even seen it before anywhere else! Must be a new thing lol
 
I'm with 'Freeze. Each of the women in my house was a friend and a co-laborer in ministry before becoming a wife was on the table, or even perceived as being an option, and if I had come into an understanding of biblical plural marriage without those relationships already in my life, I would not have gone looking, simply because I was wildly happy with Cheryl. In each case, a shared vision for and commitment to ministry is what brought us together. That relationship turned into a close platonic friendship, and later, without my trying to 'make anything happen', turned into a more permanent relationship. It changes the whole basis of the relationship.

Not saying anyone doing it differently is doing it wrong—I don't think there's a 'right' or a 'wrong' here. Just testifying re what worked for us.
 
I agree with Andrew that there is no right or wrong answer. And UntoldGlory is correct when he points out that we particularly point out that there may be no need to seek a wife when it sounds like people have an unhealthy focus on finding one. All things in moderation. Our eyes must be open - but our focus must be on our existing family obligations rather than a potential future fantasy. Nothing wrong with investing some time looking, to ensure we see whoever YHWH is sending our way, but it should not be a primary focus of our lives.
 
andrew said:
..n each case, a shared vision for and commitment to ministry is what brought us together. That relationship turned into a close platonic friendship, and later, without my trying to 'make anything happen', turned into a more permanent relationship. ..
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Wow wow wow wow wow, this story, I mean experience is better than any fairy tale ever known! Seriously, I haven't heard such a real live experience yet, thanks for sharing!
Which makes me wonder: what's your personal opinion about guys looking for more wives online (- dating sites)? I noted you already saying there is no right or wrong and obviously there are different experiences for different people but as a general rule?
I read on the internet about families that are allegedly content and full of love but don't seem to find another wife in order to share that love. Obviously, everyone's situation different but what's your personal view on this please?
 
I'd be interested in hearing what you think, UG. I don't think you and I have ever had that convo.

Lila, my personal opinion is that I just can't get my head around it, but I can't get my head around why someone would voluntarily eat Brussels sprouts, either, so it may just be me that's the problem. To each his or her own.

What I know from second hand information makes it seem like a low-reward/high-risk undertaking. 'Normal' dating sites don't feature a lot of women looking for plural families (more like "run the other way"...). In some cases to get around that men have misrepresented their marital status until the woman is already emotionally involved, which has its own set of challenges. And speaking of challenges, poly-friendly or poly-specific dating sites seem to have plenty, just along a different line of problem-solving.

Last thought: As for Ron and Nathan and me, each of our families became plural because of strong foundational relationships that gave us a huge personal stake in making it work. People that find each other on dating sites (or on facebook, which might as well be a dating site) don't have that investment, and consequently may (I'm saying may) be more likely to throw in the towel when it gets hard.

So my recommendation continues to be "seek ye first the kingdom" and let God do the adding, but that is 100% "this is what worked for me, so it might work for you" and 0% "this is the One Right Way to do it".
 
Pretty much all of what Andrew said. However, comma (this is a big enough comma to require it being spelled out), there is a place for it, and the lady I'm courting I did meet via a dating site. Specifically, about 6 or 8 months or so ago Ok Cupid expanded their options and such in a way that made it much more feasible to actually be useful for Christian Polygyny. Specifically, it allows for two people to create accounts (i.e. my wife and myself) and link them as married. So it removes the moral, ethical, and general ickiness issue of representing oneself as single just to get onto a "reputable" dating site. That by itself is the *main* reason I find that particular site acceptable. It's not "poly specific", so the scammers are just your ordinary scammers and not used to telling a poly person what they want to hear, so they're more obvious than they otherwise would be. Additionally, the "question and answer" section isn't perfect, but it does allow for basically getting an idea of general compatibility on ethical, spiritual matters quickly. I wouldn't trust those numbers, but it becomes obvious if someone is a terrible match at a glance, which is handy.

Like anything else, there are pros and cons. I am not an "aggressive" hunter when it comes to finding someone I am compatible with, in life or online. I care too much about people to try and "get women's numbers" or try and just ask a bunch of women out on dates or anything along those lines. Additionally, the type of woman I like would generally not respond well to that sort of attention. OKC is very much not perfect. For one, the search options don't have poly fidelity in mind specifically, they're more in line with polyamory. Like, you choose "monogamous" or "non-monogamous" on a search, and both of those things have presuppositions in a persons mind I think that don't exactly line up with our beliefs.

So anyway, it boils down the same way everything else in life does. If you're just on the dating site 24/7 and sending messages to everything with a pulse and your focus is on "the prize" and not on God then I think you're probably in for a bad time of things for a number of reasons. However, I don't think it's inherently good or bad, just depends on the person and application. Like for us, neither GG nor I like, camped out on it or anything. I'd occasionally check out high matches or *send* a message "cold", but only if I saw something in their writing that I really identified with or some such. Generally I would respond with a message if a woman liked *my* profile, but even with a high degree of caution.

Here are my observations.
You must intentionally practice wisdom and patience, and not get carried away or be too eager. The woman I am courting is *not* the first woman to show an interest, but there were relationship red flags with previous interested parties. Maybe they had compatible morals but we didn't really click, maybe we clicked really well but there were moral compatibility issues (that one is super dangerous), I even met a woman who had not previously thought of poly and really liked the idea of the lifestyle, but just the differences in the *type* of poly she liked and the type of lifestyle I/we want were enough to make us say: "I think you're great, but probably not a future there".

Otherwise the red flags that I would look for are the same ones I would look for offline. If she only seems interested in knowing me and not GG, that's an issue for what I want for my family for instance. I have a list of what is important in a potential match that I can use to step away from emotion and look objectively at whether or not building a courtship relationship would be healthy or not. You've got to stick to your guns to not get into a really bad situation in general, but especially online.

Oh, and I really like Brussels sprouts, lol. I know, Andrew, that you and the other "pioneers" here got kind of almost "forced" into marriage by God and circumstance, and so that's kind of your mindset. You all had no support, lots of challenge, and so you kind of come from a "why the heck would anyone want this" perspective. However we're kind of in Gen 2 now. There is support, maybe not a lot, but there is. There is community, there is some acceptance culturally even. Poly is the perfect fit for some people, and we've talked about the reasons for poly making a resurgence and why that might be important. So in that regard I do think that there is a place for *actually looking*. Again, the point I stomp my foot for every time I say anything pro seeking, it *cannot* be the focus of life and be healthy. It can be desired and sought out, but not obsessed over. Which is the case with mono relationships too, but that's just not the primary focus of this site. I actually kind of felt after a couple months of having an OKC account that there was basically zero chance of actually finding "a wife" on there, but at the same time I thought that it would also maybe help raise awareness, or help some women realize that they don't have to choose between dregs and being alone. I had some of those kinds of conversations. It's just one more avenue of "normalization" I think. GG and I have often wondered if we aren't meant to necessarily live poly, but to be ambassadors and helpers of poly families. I don't really think that now, lol, but it was a good attitude I think!
 
Dude, this forum needs a "love" button. Nailed it.

Everything he said, plus this: There are cultural forces at work ruining the lives of men and women with unbiblical and sometimes irrational expectations, and these forces are getting stronger. The bad news is more lives ruined. The good news is the opportunity created for us to share the message of biblical marriage and family. I expect this movement to grow and I believe the families here will have many opportunities to bring light and life to others who are confused and hurting and looking for something they can believe in and someone they can trust.

So with that in mind, as always, the basic advice should be "pray and do whatever you think the Lord is telling you to do", and we should all be careful to leave plenty of room for God to be creative as He works in individual families in specific ways. All we can do is testify re what we've seen that works and doesn't work, and the larger this group gets, the more varied and interesting those testimonies will be.
 
I've always had exactly Andrew's attitude towards dating sites, but I like brussels sprouts, so maybe I should take another look at them.

Good to hear of your progress on this front too UntoldGlory, congratulations!
 
Also, like I said, most wouldn't accommodate those of us from this forum. However you yourself brought up a new one that I have not looked at, and have no particular interest in looking at now, lol
 
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