You Can't Fix 'Em-But What About Family?

[2Lady]

I'm actually from a different culture from him, but I have lived in his country for more than half of my adult life and am a naturalized citizen of his country. He has lived in my country too with me and is a naturalized citizen of my country. She is from the same culture as him, but does not have the worldly experience we have. We are now living in his hometown but he spent his entire adult life until recently living elsewhere, so he has been away from the local culture for a long time and adopted ways different from it. He and I actually have the same high level of education and hers is lower. So really he and I actually in some ways have more in common with one another than he does with her, in spite of the different origins.

He has never thought so much like people from his own culture and doesn't buy into all the traditions etc. That was what struck me about him when I first met him, that he actually had a natural way of thinking similar to people from my own culture in many ways. Case in point is how much he isn't into the wedding traditions.

To some extent I think maybe the replay is about reclaiming his own culture but I am not sure it is going to really fit him as well as he expects because he has always been his own man and the expected conformity will be a burden on him.

[ciluzen]

2Lady,

Hope you are well, or the best you can be under the circumstances.

As to your question about his possible reactions; he is most likely in MLC. His reactions could be one or a bit of all four reactions...or a fifth absolutely improbable one. Your H's reactions, since he is in a crisis, should not dictate your actions unless they would be in some way dangerous to you. Right now, giving him space and doing what will make you most comfortable at this time are important.

You mention the timing of an event that could be dangerous and that it might make him think about how he can't be there to protect two wives at the same time. I hope that you are not planning to do something to just to get a reaction out of him. Think very hard about this; I'm sure we all have considered actions on various levels that would "open their eyes" to what our MLCer is doing. This almost never has the intended effect. It may bring about a protectiveness and concern, but it can also, afterwards, solidify a decision to leave because they feel that they can't keep that level of emotion going. They need to get away from that.

My own H has repeatedly shown concern for my well-being, guilt for not being there to protect me, spoken of my "not being his concern anymore", and then asked after my well being with absolute pain in his voice every time he sees me. When he speaks of our youngest daughter (she is going through a rough time) he has asked after her well-being, said "I can't care about her...it would kill me", and then volunteered to help her out, then pulled back and gone back to no contact with her. He still cares, but it is draining to him so he tries to fight his innate caring and concern.
What I'm trying to say is, the MLCer is in a crisis. As others have said, they are trying to find a way to feel better, to feel good. New wife, new life, something different than they have since what they have isn't making them feel good. They have to figure out that the demon they are running from is inside of them; not us, not their children, not a job, not a community. They have to discover that on their own. Please don't try to manipulate it by trying to have him focus on you (if, when you think about it hard, you are even a little bit thinking of this). It will not work and will probably back-fire. You are better than this crisis.

Just be the strong intelligent woman that we see in your posts. This is painful, but not in your control. Give him space, focus on making you happy or at least, content. Wait him out. You are unique here in your situation. I know that it is painful, but you will be connected. Wait him out. It could be awhile. Keep working on yourself and your personal happiness without him.

[2Lady]

I will almost certainly sit at home safe, but if I were to put myself in harm's way it would definitely be for reasons far bigger than ourselves. And he would understand why I would do that, because we both did it before and supported and even encouraged eachother in that. That's why there could always be that question in his mind as to what I am up to. I'm not trying to get a reaction as I don't actually want one nor do I expect one. I just want him to think.

Unlike a lot of MLCers, he's doing this for a clear reason. Taking another wife was but one of several options we had to solve a problem that WE BOTH faced, but he felt the other options would simply not offer as much a guarantee as another wife. The reason he felt the other options wouldn't work actually had to do with problems he has in his relationships with others, not me. He sort of looked at it simply as acquiring a "tool" (his own words) to solve a problem, but of course it is much more than that but then he only realized that after the fact what he had gotten himself into.

The thing is at this point, I think he wouldn't be happy getting rid of either one of us, nor do we want to be dumped. I think we will complement eachother in many ways and I do feel he has given a lot of thought in choosing someone that could get along with me and I do feel she and I can get along independent of our relationship with him.

The crisis now is more an issue of his lack of self-confidence in being able to balance the two of us, rather than an issue of not wanting one of us or even knowing what he wants. He can have both of us if he handles it right so it has the potential to be a net gain for him.

A secondary issue is her unreasonable demands, which she even admitted to him were unfair to me, but that didn't stop her from making them. And in his insecurity about finding a second wife to accept him because he worried no one would, he acquiesced to those demands at least in the beginning and that is exacerbating the situation because he knows it is unfair to me and that sooner or later he is going to make her face reality and so he has a lot of guilt.

I'm just not convinced we have so many hidden demons that produced this situation as much as the situation itself is creating them. So while I will give him his space, I'm also going to do so with the assumption that he has chosen both of us and that I have to continue to expect a future with him but adapt to the changed circumstances. We have some unfinished projects at home and the first thing I will do is get him to work with me on completing them. I'm not in a wait and see mode.

[2Lady]

During our last call, in the middle of talking about something unrelated, my husband suddenly had a trigger that reminded him of the reason (a fear) that he took another wife. And he blurted out, "We need [the reason]." Now, on the one hand he truly does believe he is doing this for OUR benefit and it showed me he really cares about me, on the other hand, it's more likely to be for his benefit and less guaranteed to be for my benefit, simply because of the way certain things are that we can't control. Also, his reason is sort of like an insurance policy, we may need it, we may never need it, but we have to pay for it regardless. And so I said, "We may or we may not need it." And he got annoyed at that, as if it was me criticizing his choice. But I simply was stating a fact and I explained that to him and we quickly got back to the original topic of our conversation.

But this made me feel depressed today. He really feels he is doing the right thing for both of us and wants me to appreciate that. But his fear of the future was so overwhelming that he was never willing to consider the possibility of not marrying. He gave me a choice of staying or divorce. I certainly feel more secure with him than I ever would have with a divorce. But I would have felt more secure if he hadn't married. In fact, it had taken me many years to feel secure about certain things and I had finally reached that point a few months before BD and now I am back where I was before. In the end, what he has done may actually make me more secure than if he hadn't married, BUT I won't know that for sure for many years down the line and so I am stuck living with uncertainty.

We are in a situation where we both may benefit, neither of us benefits, or only he benefits and maybe I even lose. And while I am afraid for the future, it's clear his fear is much greater than mine at the moment and I got used to this uncertainty before whereas he at least at the moment needs this to feel secure. He's at least not in any state to listen to reason or alternatives and so I think I just need to be patient and give him time to be ready to face the reality that I don't feel secure and to figure out what he can do to change that.

[2Lady]

I left out a word in the first sentence, it should have been "my husband had a trigger that"

[job]

I have made the editorial changes.

[2Lady]

Thanks.

There's one other thing that is nagging at me now too. The other wife lied to her family about me in order to get them to agree to the marriage. She knew the truth, so it's not that my husband hid it from her, but she made out our relationship to be a lot more "casual" and "part-time" than it is. She was able to pull it off because there just happen to be a lot of such relationships in the community and the people generally don't respect the wives that much in those kinds of relationships, but ours isn't and never was one of those kinds of relationships. She did this from her own mind and my husband only found out about it later, although he has let it slide for now because it would create problems for her to force her to tell the truth. The fact that I am away at the moment only serves to make the lie seem more the truth. He does seem a bit afraid of me meeting them too as he wanted me to hide away when they came to visit but I put my foot down about that and he relented completely, but sooner or later I will meet them and there is no way I will allow this lie to continue because it could have bad consequences for me in the future. I just know that doing so either will make her look bad or she might even tell them that my husband lied to her about us to begin with and try to pin the blame for the lie on him rather than admit it was her idea. I just can't be responsible for other people's lies when they make me look like less than a respectable wife. I can imagine things her family might say in a conversation with me that I could use to open the topic that would allow me to casually let the truth be known. And I'll play stupid that I knew she lied. And let the chips fall where they may because I have to protect my own reputation first.

[MrBond]

2Lady,

After going over all of your posts again, I can't help but point out that you spend ALOT of time mindreading his actions. You deny that you do, but you actually lay out whole scenarios as to how he might react if you do certain actions, etc. The bottomline is that you really can't predict with any certainty how he is going to behave or act. He may fall in love with his new bride and push you to the side. What is your primary purpose for being here? Do you want to save your M to him alone? Do you want to learn how to co-exist with his new W? What do YOU want out of the relationship and what are the steps you're taking to achieve that? Your list of goals and how to achieve them.

[2Lady]

It's not so much mind reading as I actually do have a lot of insight into what he is thinking because he has always been a completely open and honest person with me as he trusts me more than anyone, whether his thoughts are good or bad (even about me!), so I actually do understand what is motivating him. He couldn't get away with lying to me either because I know what the look in his eyes is when he does and he knows that too. And he has always been a bit like an MLCer, positive attitude for a few days and then negative the next few, so in that regard I can read him pretty well. What is different is before he would not have ACTED on his feelings, but now he is acting as if there is no time to waste for anything without thinking through the consequences or how he might feel the next day that would change what he wants to do.

Sometimes it's actually very scary how well I have been able to read him through this whole thing and even anticipate his next moves. One morning I was feeling quite down about his behavior and in my mind I thought of how he was treating me using a rather obscure metaphor. That night, he used that exact same metaphor to describe me! Even though I had never heard him use it before. That's how well I know his thinking. This has happened multiple times through the process. I CAN read his mind and I have even told him I know exactly what you are going to do before you do it. And I have.

And also realize I am not putting all the details on here because I don't want to be indentifiable in the future. For example, I have not put the primary reason for the marriage, as it is known to everyone who knows us. So it may seem like I am just mind reading but in some cases I am basing my comments on what he has said.

With regards to the other wife, I feel comfortable about the relationship I will have with her. I am angry at her about some of her thinking but still I respect her as I would want her to respect me and will do my best to make her feel welcome. She seems to have a calm personality so that is a good thing. She actually is the least of my concerns at this point. We're both in for the rollercoaster ride and my husband is the driver, not her.

At this point, probably my biggest concern is for my husband to be able to deal with having two wives. We have had talks about how he views our respective roles and how he expects to interact with her vs. me. What we have not and he refuses to really discuss yet is the day-to-day living logistics, or at least not in a way that satisfies me. He's made some vague and contradictory statements. He simply refuses to be pinned down at this point. I think because he probably hasn't thought it out that far. When he does think about it, he panics. And I think he is doing the exact same thing with her because sometimes he will get all worried especially about she and I getting along and I tell him don't worry it will be fine etc. and he will say, "wow, she said exactly the same thing to me!" in a very incredulous way because he can't believe we react to him saying the same thing in exactly the same way. Moreover, when she and I talked we both agreed that he is really afraid about being married to two. He won't come out and say it to either one of us but it is pretty obvious.

And based on what he has told me about his expectations from her he is headed full-speed ahead into repeating a lot of the mistakes he made with me in the beginning. He has learned to be a better man in our marriage and those problems are long ago resolved between us and we have gotten along great for years now, but maybe she will put up with it better than I did. That's basically what he has told her, that he wants her to put up with him when he is in a bad mood and he has gone out of his way to be an ass. And at least for now, she says she will. That was one of his main criteria in choosing her, but that is just starting out from such a negative, that it just does not seem a good foundation for a happy marriage. There's other things I see that are also repeats of the negatives of our early days, but I won't bore you with them. But that's between the two of them and not my business.

It only concerns me to the extent that I worry that any stress he has from his relationship could spill over into ours. But I am reasonably hopeful it won't as long as the stress is not due to something about me. Because I have watched him for years after having a fight with me and being very angry at me, pick up his phone and have a totally happy and normal conversation with everyone else. So he can compartmentalize stuff like that pretty well.

I've told him he should consider it like a company. He's the boss and we are the two employees. We each have our strengths. I'm more like the one helping him with the planning and the decisionmaking and the management as that is what I am really good at and she will be the one doing more of the implementation.

My long term goal is to have a better marriage than before. High expectations I know but that is what motivates me. He keeps telling me nothing will change and he will be the same husband he has always been forever. But I tell him look it has changed and it will change and we can make it better. I try to show him a really positive attitude even if he isn't feeling it.

We have discussed weaknesses in our marriage, areas where she can step in and take responsibilities off my head, areas that have been a source of tension for us and that we actually both agree are not the best use of my time as it is more beneficial my time be spent on other things. Some seemingly trivial things but they are daily and so having one less annoyance a day can only be good. Whether she will be able to handle those things as well as he expects, time will tell. But she will be the one who holds the responsibility for them so at least I won't be the one to take the blame anymore.

I also don't want to be the reason their marriage would fail because of meddling on my part, but it could fail simply for reasons that have nothing to do with me or that are due to her own inability to handle having to share him. At one point, I don't remember when exactly in the whole process, he told me he thought the marriage with her had a 50-50 chance of succeeding. Kind of alarming to invest so much effort with such grim hopes but whatever. I've seen statistics, not sure if the source is reliable or not, that 70% of marriages to second wives in the country we live in end in divorce. And I told him that. First wives I think are more likely to bail from the outset when the man wants to marry another. They just won't even stay around to try it. If we stick it out though, our chances of surviving are pretty good.

If he does leave her, well that will be his choice. I will never tell him to do it because chances are if I made such a demand I would the one who would get booted and vice versa if she did, but if he were to come to me for advice I would cautiously help him analyze the situation, but not suggest what he do. She is the means to an end, and end that we both want although for different reasons, not the end herself, so that complicates things. He might not be entirely satisfied with her as a wife but because he still needs the end result, he might put up with it.

But my more immediate goal is just to do my best to ensure that he gets comfortable with having the two of us in his life. From time to time he feels he "can't" handle being married to two yet he knows that is what he has committed to. I feel sorry for him because really he is the kind of person I expected if he ever left me it would be to actually live ALONE, but I think it is a chance for him to grow and be more responsible and if he can actually handle it I will really respect him for it. I'm not putting a lot of pressure and expectations on him at the beginning although I have made my longer term expectations firm and clear and have told him the sooner the better. That's the truth. On the other hand, he has always had a tendency to declare in no uncertain terms that he is going to shirk some really big responsibility and refuse to do it but then when time comes to actually do it, he does it happily and without complaining as if he never made the previous declaration. We both agree and he is proud of the fact that he always does the right thing in the end so maybe that is what will happen with this and I have been putting myself through more stress than necessary. One of the first things I plan to do when I get home is to work on a project that I have had planned that also could serve as a man cave for him when he needs a place to escape from both of us.

I asked him at one point whether he would agree that he had a lot to learn about handling two wives and that he would make mistakes in the beginning. And he said yes. And I asked him if it would be ok if I told him in a polite way when he was making a mistake and how he could correct it, and he said Yes.

I've been learning a lot in this forum and reading DB and plan to get DR as well. I've already started to implement some changes and so far it is going ok. I feel a lot of confidence because I have done so much research and reading for months now not just here but other sites about polygamy, MLC, even polyamory sites and getting an idea what works, what doesn't, what sort of challenges are ahead and it's like I have prepared myself for a disaster with extra water and food and blankets, etc. and am prepared to use them and wait for the cleanup and recovery later. And the other wife, well, God help her because she is getting herself involved with an MLCer and is very young and has no experience in the world of marriage. From everything I have seen, as difficult as this is for me now, I am glad I am not in her shoes and much prefer my own.

I've written a lot but I just want to say one last thing and that is that perhaps the biggest difference between my situation and those of others here is that in the others whose spouses are having affairs is that they ultimately have to choose between one or the other. And the whole assumption is that they can't get through the MLC without choosing and that neither party will accept anything less than a full monogamous commitment. Ours is the opposite. The measure of success theoretically is keeping both and making both happy. And that is actually part of what is making me feel like I am searching and searching and not coming to a conclusions, I simply can't find anything at all about what to expect when you combine MLC with polygamy. I've read that it is often the cause of polygamy, but nothing more than that. So I really feel I am looking into a black hole to some extent. He's followed the MLC script so far, but at some point, he either has to dump one of us or write his own script.

[job]

I want to wish you well on your journey.