seekHim1 said:
How do I feel/think when hubby is having intimate time with SW? Well, I am a first wife and have had my hubby to myself for 9 years and never imagined having to share him so up this point, I don't feel good during those times. I have found I handle it better depending on the circumstances. If they are together at a time when I am busy with the children or am out of the house or they are away, I handle that much better. Nights where I am sleeping by myself are usually the worst; I just have yet to sleep well on those nights and wake up several times. I try to keep it in perspective and say "what's the big deal?" and try to make certain comparisons in my brain like do I mind when SW makes my baby laugh so why should I mind this? But other times, it seems like the biggest thing in the world to have to deal with and there is no reasoning it out to make me feel better about it.
If I am honest, a lot of times I am thinking how I can't really understand why any woman would want to be a second wife and come into such a situation. I just can't wrap my brain around joining a family and being intimate with another woman's husband. I realize it's not that cut and dry...there is the love aspect, women who need cared for, not to mention the husband's choice as head of the family, etc.
Do I get jealous? Of course although I don't consider myself a terribly jealous person. I try to use that time to focus on the LORD, but hey, I'm but flesh! :lol: I'd love to hear from any women who don't struggle with these things. I would love for this stuff to not get to me.
I'd ask for those who may have lived it longer: was it just hard in the beginning, but got easier with time?
I can't offer a wife's perspective since I'm a guy and not in polygamy, but I have read a little on the issue of jealousy from some psychologists. I think that it can get easier with time but not with time alone but also by taking practical steps to resolve that jealousy during that time. From what I've read so far, jealousy is a product of both genetics and culture (or standards, norms, beliefs, etc.). It can be worked on on by changing your thoughts/standards getting rid of some of the insecurities, but the thing is I don't know any psychologists who would extend their therapy to those who are in polygamy because there's not wide acceptance that polygamy is an okay lifestyle and most importantly that jealousy should be worked on in that setting just as it would be in monogamous relationships. It's not looked at that way as much also because the mainstream of our culture has set a monogamy ONLY standard pretty much saying that anything other than monogamy is wrong. Jealousy is not a moral issue in my view, but rather a matter of psychological health. With that said, I'd go as far as saying that how we should determine healthy and unhealthy jealousy should be based on the type of relationship you're in. If you choose to live in the polygamous lifestyle (for a wife, husband sharing), and you're getting jealous then you should work on resolving it just as you would in a monogamous relationship, unless your husband is really do something wrong - which in polygamy is not being with another woman who is also his wife but it would be if he's leading up to or having an affair with another woman who he's not married to and who you as the wife haven't known about or agreed on.
Now to support that jealousy is not 100% a genetic thing, but can be triggered based on personal standards/beliefs that one adopts from culture/society, one obvious fact is that not everyone gets jealous for all the same reasons. What may make one person jealous in a given situation (like if someone's girlfriend or boyfriend is looking at another attractive person, etc.) does not mean that everyone else would get jealous in that situation. Then we have to factor in different levels of jealousy like how frequently it occurs (rarely, occasionally, often) and at what intensity (is so much that it's causing the person to damage their relationship or is it something they can resolve themselves, etc.).
To add to this I'll include some of my comments that I posted on another forum:
Psychologist Ayala Malach Pines documents this in her book that’s called Romantic Jealousy: Causes, Symptoms, and Cures. She mentions for instance, some of the Eskimos during a ceremony or custom referred to as “putting out the lamp”would invite a guest to have sexual intercourse with his wife. Yet, that same husband would get extremely jealous if his wife had sexual intercourse with someone when it did not involve the lamp ceremony (Pg. 115 of the book, 1st paragraph). Another example that psychologists Ayala Pines refers to in her book is a study comparing 100 swingers with 100 non-swingers. The study found that oftentimes swingers did not view extramarital sex as being unfaithful, and as such, some of those swingers seldom experienced jealousy because they did not perceive their partners extramarital sexual behavior as a threat just as long as both partners knew about it (This is on pg. 144 of Ayala’s book). The two cases that I mentioned involve experiences that would drive an average person up the wall if their standard for relationships was monogamy only; whereas, some others who live in alternative lifestyles and some cultures where extramarital sex is not viewed the same way as in our “mainstream” culture don’t experience jealousy for the same reasons or at least at levels that would cause problems in the relationship.
So from this information, experience (of mine and others), and evidence, I'd have to say that jealousy in polygamy should be looked at as something that should and can be resolved (similar to what swingers that I mentioned have done although I’m not saying that polygamy goes as far as the swinger lifestyle). I'm not saying that anyone, whether in monogamy or polygamy, can perfectly do away with any and all jealousy and all the time, but it should be resolved to where it's not motivating you to cause problems in the relationship or to where it's not causing you personal hurt if you linger on it all the time (I'd say to consider resolving your jealousy if it occurs frequently but maybe you don't have much to worry about if it happens rarely or only occasionally). I think if more in society, especially psychologists accepted polygamy then more of them would even be willing to develop therapy to help wives in polygamy overcome their jealousy just as they would help a person in a monogamous relationship resolve their jealousy. I think the first step is acknowledging that polygamy is not for everyone (women or men), and for those who want to start a poly relationship then they have to accept it as a standard which may sometimes take changing your thinking from our culture's indoctrination of the MONOGAMY ONLY standard. I've been reading some books about scientists who have studied polygamy around the world to see how it works, but I've read little about those same scientists actually taking the time to develop and find good ways to actually improve the relationship.
