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When I think back on my first year in a plural marriage there is so much I could talk about- probably way more than anyone is interested in reading in one sitting! It took me a long time to decide on what I thought most people would be interested in reading about. I tried narrowing it down to a few topics, or maybe just a few experiences that provided growth. How do you condense a year’s worth of experiences into a few paragraphs and still have it be interesting to those reading? So I decided to try and do a little of all of it, realizing that there will be future posts to go into things in more detail.
As I look back on that first year living plural marriage, one of the first things I think about is that it was very different than what I thought it would be. I spent years talking to Colton about living it, but once we actually were I realized that talking and thinking about something is completely different than living it. There were a lot of things that I didn’t think I would struggle with at all and I did, and things that I thought I would and I really didn’t.
One of the biggest things I didn’t think I would struggle with
was my own pre-conceived notions and stereotypes of polygamy. Growing up there were so many examples of these stereotypes, many of them said in joking. But now that I was living in a plural relationship it was surprisingly difficult for me to not apply all of those stereotypes to myself. It took me quite a few months before I was finally able to convince myself that while those stereotypes might happen in polygamy, they don’t have to apply to me. I also realized that we really do fall outside of the majority of those stereotypes. We don’t belong to an abusive group, my background of not growing up in a group, and the way we came to believe in plural marriage and start living it, all shaped us to be something a little different. We really don’t fit into an any mold that I’ve found.
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Something I did think would be hard but wasn’t
On the other side, something I did think I would struggle with was not having Colton home all the time. And it is true that there was a period of time that was a bit of a struggle while we figured out a schedule that worked for us. But the thing is that I felt like I would be completely alone when he wasn’t home, and that ended up not being true at all. Thanks to technology, he’s always just a text, call or face-time away if I need him. I also have so many great friends and family around that it really hasn’t been that different and I know once we are able to get into a house with all of us together we’ll be able to see each other and help each other even more.
Learning to be more independent
A product of this that was completely unexpected for me was finding my own independence. When people talk about plural marriage, one of the biggest arguments against it I hear is how it is unfair to women and represses them. That may be true in some cases, but for me it’s been the exact opposite. I’ve always relied on Colton for everything, from socializing to filling up my tires when they need air. Not having him around all of the time made me realize how helpless I had made myself by relying on him to do everything for me. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve made the effort to make friends and be a friend, and to do things for myself that I never had before.
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Living plural marriage also made me realize that in a lot of things I had become quite apathetic. Colton knows me so well that for many things in my life I just stopped feeling the need to share my opinion with others because he always just took care of it. That sort of mindset had worked before when it was just the two of us, but I quickly realized that in a plural relationship it wouldn’t work (as well as being a very bad way to live life). That has perhaps been the hardest habit for me to break, instead of saying, “I don’t care, you can decide” I have had to re-learn to make myself have an opinion and voice it.
In the end, looking back on my first year of plural marriage, there have been a lot of ups and downs, a lot of struggles, but also a lot of growth both as a family and personally. I’ve learned to be more open with my emotions, to be more compassionate, and to be more independent. I have learned and grown so much in the last year. I truly look forward to seeing how living this way will shape me in the future. I know this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but for me this has been a refiner’s fire that I can see making me into a person I can be proud of.
