“…A highly sacred, sensitive, and secretive topic”
Plural marriage has always been a part of my life, as a highly sacred, sensitive, and secretive topic. As I grew older and had a larger span of social circles, I realized how controversial the topic was. I came to realize there was a stereotypical illusion of what Polygamy/Plural Marriage was…and it did NOT reflect what I knew it to be.
“You’re not a polygamist!”
“You’re not a polygamist!” Was a response I knew all too well, as acquaintances found out my family structure and my belief system. “My mother was a second wife,” I would respond. “But, you don’t dress like ‘them’.” Them, referring to members of the FLDS who had been the only media exposure to the plural lifestyle, a negative exposure at that.
This would be a conversation repeated throughout my life, whenever the topic would come up. I knew this was a mountain I would have to climb every time I shared my beliefs with someone; trying to overcome the stereotypes. This revealed to me how little many people knew about plural marriage.
“I know who I AM”
I know who I AM. My belief system does not change because of ignorant opinions surrounding it. I would continue to build upon my belief in plural marriage through personal studies throughout the years.
“I didn’t know I would choose Plural Marriage”
I didn’t know for sure that I would live a plural lifestyle. I knew that I believed in it, but also knew that I would be happy with marrying the right person, no matter what that looked like, even if it was a monogamous marriage. Then maybe at some point, if me and this figurative monogamous husband of mine chose to live plural marriage and it became a right step for us, then we would live plural marriage. Thankfully I never had to take that route, and I found Tami & Colton, and became a second wife.
“I wanted to protect my family”
After marrying Tami & Colton, we went through a very long year of secrecy. It was one thing to have the belief system and be open to talking about it…but then to actually live it was something else. I wanted to protect my family and staying secret seemed to be the only way of doing it.
“No wonder they have the opinions that they do”
After a while though, I realized this decision was completely based in fear. I didn’t want us to live in fear anymore. This fear was caused by the fear of the unknown; how others would react. Now it made sense to me. Many have formed their opinions based off of the only thing they have had exposure to, solely from bad media. They know nothing different. No wonder they have the opinions that they do.
“…Consider being on a reality tv show”
But look at my wonderful family! We are not the stereotypes that people know of. We are very different from that. As we were making these decisions to try and come out of the fearful secrecy and find a comfortable life just being who we are, we were approached by a casting director asking us if we would consider being on a reality tv show.
“We decided we wanted to shine in our truth, not hide in our shadows”
That escalated quickly! Ha! Are we sure we want to be out of our shadows? Did we really think this through? All I know, is I just want to be who I am and not have to hide it anymore. We went back and forth on our decision to move forward and proceed with opening our lives up for all to see. We decided we wanted to shine in our truth, not hide in our shadows.
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com
“Consenting adults should be able to choose the life they want to live..”
My reasoning in choosing to participate in filming this show, was to do our best at sharing who we are and the reality of our family choosing this lifestyle solely based off of personal choice. We are consenting adults choosing to live a lifestyle that is definitely controversial at the present time, but we hope to change that viewpoint by sharing our lives with you. We think that consenting adults should be able to choose the life they want to live, as long as that choice doesn’t harm anyone.
Live and Let Live,
Sophie Winder