The journey into accepting Plural marriage from a woman’s perspective
Life is a funny thing; it is unpredictable and will often throw a curve ball when you least expect it. We can have hopes and dreams for the future- and even make plans to carry them out to reality, BUT when life happens; the course you were on can make a drastic turn changing directions.
My life did just that— 6 years ago. It was an ordinary day, in an ordinary conversation, when I discovered the heart wrenching news that would forever change the course of my life. Within moments, my life would never be the same. What I knew yesterday was no longer; from that moment on, my life would have to be experienced within my “new normal.” There was no going back.
My heart was beating, my mind was racing, and I was experiencing the shock from what was being said. The uncertainty of what my future was going to bring overwhelmed me-- heck I did not know if I was going to make it through the day. Emotions began to rise, and I could not keep the tears from streaming down my face. I had just received the worst news. My husband, of seven years, no longer believed I was the only woman he would love. This man, the one I eagerly gave my whole heart to; the love of my life, wanted another wife.
I was broken.
My heart was shattered.
I felt unloved, rejected and unwanted.
Through our conversation, as I felt my world crashing down around me and the emotions building in my heart; he remained steady. He tried to reassure me that it had nothing to do with my shortcomings, my failures or my flaws. The pressure of disappointment, in my heart, over-flowed and it broke my heart. I wept the tears from the deepest sobs. I had never experienced the pain in my heart, as in that moment. I mourned the loss of what I knew, what I had hoped for, and what I had dreamed of. I felt that this had to be my fault. Had I been a better wife, mother, lover— would that have changed his mind?
Minutes felt like hours; hours felt like days. The sorrow hovered like a cloud. My tears streamed down my face. Questions flooded my mind- “How could this be?” I replayed the previous seven years over and over in my head. We had a good marriage; we were friends, lovers, and -at the time- partners. I questioned what changed in his heart, where was God in this, how would I survive?
This is my story. The raw journey of my experience peeling the onion layers of my heart as a first wife- watching my husband’s monogamous marriage to me change into a quest for plural marriage.