Polygamy 411

Constant, continuous thoughts of Alex and Carolinah occupied my mind. Nothing anyone said mattered. I used to be a very content person most of the time, high spirited, always smiling and upbeat.  I used to have good times with the few, very, very close friends that I had. (I am more of a reserved personality type.) My most dear and precious friends were my Wali, his wife and family.  We’d been together conducting business, learning Islam, going through trials and tribulations together for over twenty years.

My Wali tried to help me accept polygamy and stay focused on Allah.  I valued what he said and listened to him most of the time, but now when he spoke, it seemed like I wasn’t there. I just heard a voice and words.  I barely even smiled anymore, only when expected to, usually when greeting someone. I didn’t feel any joy…just severe sadness. I definitely wasn’t myself. It was sad to see My Wali sad. He said when I hurt he hurt.  It seemed like it was the first time he couldn’t  help me.

When I was at work, I’d speak with my mom on the phone, my sister, Alex’s mother or one of his other relatives and as soon as I mentioned my polygamous situation my voice changed.  I didn’t sound like me. It sounded like another voice took over. It all happened naturally.  I couldn’t control it. I had difficulty getting words out. I didn’t cry. I felt like-who is this person speaking (referring to myself)?  I tried to remain calm every time I spoke with someone about my polygamous marriage, but this other voice always emerged. The recipient on the other line could all the time tell. My mom always said, “I know you are upset. I can hear it in your voice.”

My co-workers had to notice a difference in me. They overheard my conversations; I’m sure. Although I was pretty certain they didn’t know I was a party to polygamy, they probably thought Alex was having an affair. I cared somewhat about my co-workers hearing my conversation; I didn’t care enough to stop having them. 

One time I stopped over my sister’s house.  I thought I had my emotions all under control. I thought I could do it…I brought up the topic of Alex and Carolinah.  As I began to talk about it, almost immediately, I busted into tears. I apologized. “I’m sorry”, I said.  I was so embarrassed, so humiliated. 

Another time I was home in the evening. Alex was not there. He was with Carolinah. I was on the phone talking with my sister. I was so upset.  She came right over. She lived only minutes away.  I was extremely distraught, couldn’t stop crying. I said, “I don’t even want to live anymore.”  My sister immediately called my Wali. He drove, speeding, twenty mile to my home. It seemed like he had arrived within ten minutes. I had calmed down significantly by then. The three of us went for a short drive to get take-out coffee. I waited in the car.  Things seemed OK now. They took me home and they left. 

When I spoke with my Wali the next day, he said last night he thought it was all over for me. It wasn’t the last time something like this happened to me.

Evidently Alex realized by now his transition from monogamy to polygamy was not going to be as easy as he had thought. Every night, once the schedule took effect, I called Alex on his cell phone when he was at Carolinah’s house. 

One night I called hysterically, pleading for him to come home.  Alex phoned me the next morning from his work.  I couldn’t go to work that day, as I had just stayed up the entire night sobbing and upset. My eyes were awfully swollen. I looked a wreck. Alex said he was just calling to make sure I was OK.  As soon as I heard Alex’s voice on the phone, I became hysterical.  I screamed, ”No. I’m not OK. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.  I can’t function.  I can’t even go to work.”  I continued to scream, “How could you do this to me?  Didn’t you care about me?  Didn’t you care?”  My voice drifted off faintly as I murmured, “You didn’t even care about me.”  I heard Alex, suddenly, emotionally breakdown on the phone and he hung up.  I was in a state of exhaustion at this point, so it was easy for me to drift off to sleep.

My calls to Alex during his nights with Carolinah went from pitiful to hateful. That is what I did every night on her nights. I left terrible, profane, abusive messages for Alex. He always answered the phone and spoke with me until my conversation went from being cordial to offensive.  He’d always hang up at that point and let my messages go into voice mail.

A couple times, when Alex arrived home the next morning as scheduled, he said I had made him feel so bad while he was gone. He said he started to come home a couple nights.  One night he said he told Carolinah I wasn’t handling things well at all and she said, “Well, maybe you should go to her.”

I, eventually, no longer had an obsessive compulsive need to call Alex while he was with Carolinah.  Alex said he preferred to have heard from me, as at least that way he knew I was OK.  He said he worried about me whether I called or not and he lost sleep.

I had lost focus on Allah SWT, during those many nights, and had placed my focus on a human being, a human being who couldn’t help me and had become the source of my problems. All help comes from Allah. Human beings will leave you, but Allah promises us that He remembers those who remember Him.

I guess you’re wondering how Carolinah, initially, adjusted to polygamy-our (her, Alex and my) new way of life…I certainly wondered! 

Somehow or another, the conversation came up between Alex and me.  He said Carolinah was upset, or angry.  I can’t remember his exact words.  I knew Carolinah and I both were distressed. Whose fault was it?  Alex advised me that he was upset, as he had hurt the two people he cared about the most. 

I asked Alex what reason Carolinah had to be displeased?  He said she kept saying, “I thought it was OK.  I thought it was OK.”  She told him that she knew how she’d feel if it happened to her.  I asked, “Didn’t she ask you how I felt before you did it (married her)?”  He said, yes and he told her that he didn’t care.  That is what he told me.  I remember his exact words…”I said I don’t care” were his exact words.  (I’m still disturbed about what he said, as I write it.)

Nonetheless, I insisted she should be alright with polygamy, as she knew you already had a wife when she agreed to marry you.  He said she said similar about me.  She said I was Muslim for all those years and it should be easy for me. 

I just didn’t get it.  I wasn’t polygamous for all those years.  I just couldn’t equate how being Muslim for twenty years was the same as my husband telling me that he was going to adopt the lifestyle of polygamy and I was going to have to live it within a few weeks. Did she really think it was that simple?

My next question was how Alex could even entertain Carolinah’s attempt to rationalize her position, knowing that I was staunch in my position against polygamy when I met him.  He knew we discussed my distaste for polygamy numerous times before and during our marriage. 

Needless to say, Carolinah saying it should be easy for me and me saying it should be easy for her went on, it seemed like, forever. She kept debating it with Alex and I kept debating it with him.  She kept saying she “thought it was OK,” meaning she thought I didn’t mind.

During my intial conversation with Alex about the ”blame game”, he said, “I thought you were a Believer.”  He was referencing me.  Alex had just said a mouth full -a “Believer”.  I began to think about being a ”Believer” in Islam and what a “Believer” was.

Allah SWT said we must accept the whole book (Quran) or we are no better than an Unbeliever.  Allah didn’t say we had to live polygamy… but, do we have a choice to hate it, if we are Believers?  Does accepting polygamy in Islam-not necessarily living it, but accepting it, encompass wanting for your brother what you want for yourself?

I pray Allah SWT increases my faith and truly let me want for my brother what I want for myself…Sharing is good!

Alex came home one day and asked me to forgive him.  After he married Carolinah, on a few occasions he asked me to forgive him.  I don’t know exactly what he asked forgiveness for.  Was it forgiveness for marrying Carolinah, for hurting me, or both?  I never asked Alex for clarification.  Maybe I didn’t ask what he meant, as I didn’t seriously consider what he was asking.

How could I forgive Alex for hurting me when I constantly felt the pain that his marriage to Carolinah caused me?  Can I forgive Alex for marrying Carolinah when he is still married to her and me? 

I felt that Alex at least had a little bit of compassion in his heart each time he asked me to forgive him.  Sometimes, subtly, I’d verbally throw things at Alex, referencing what he had done…polygamy.  I’d throw in little jabs.  He responded saying, “You won’t forgive me.” 

I don’t think a day has gone by (in the last two years plus months) that I haven’t thought about polygamy-my life.  Nothing takes those thoughts from me, the fact that my husband is married to another woman and me.

Vacations don’t help. Additional monies that Alex pays towards expenses don’t help. I thought the more monies I demanded from Alex, the more miserable he’d be and the happier I’d be.  It, however, didn’t work that way.  The money didn’t matter. I thought the more upset and hurt Alex was, the better I’d feel.  Nothing made a difference.   

What Alex says to me doesn’t erase the pain or my constant thoughts about living polygamy.  What he does don’t help very much. The pain and the thoughts still exist. 

I question whether Alex has anything to ask me to forgive him for.  Allah made polygamy permissible.  So, if Alex practices polygamy, why should I have a problem with him about it?  I had to learn and I am still trying to accept that whether Alex practices polygamy “correctly” or not is between him and Allah and his accountability is to Allah. 

Can I forgive Alex?  Has Alex wronged me?  I know certainly, first and foremost, Alex should concern himself with Allah’s forgiveness of him. 

The pain of living polygamy and the thoughts of it all, unquestionably, lessens, considerably, each day, as I pray and remember Allah.

On one of those unusual occasions when Alex and I had a civil conversation about his marriage to Carolinah, one late evening, he said Carolinah worried a lot that he might leave her. He said, “She thinks I’m going to leave her.” He said he promised her that he would never leave her.  He said he promised her that he would never leave her, and would never stop giving her money. That totally freaked me out…

I asked Alex how he possibly could promise Carolinah something like that when only Allah SWT knows the future.  I advised him that Muslims aren’t supposed to make promises in Islam, as we don’t know what Allah has decreed for us for tomorrow. We could make our intentions, but not promises. I advised Alex that, furthermore, he had made unlawful what Allah had made lawful. Divorce is permissible in Islam. 

Another time, Alex and I had a heated argument. I told Alex that if he couldn’t afford to take care of both Carolinah and me that he should divorce her.  He forcefully said he would never do that.  It was alarming to me that he made the statement so passionately and with such certainty.  He said, “I would NEVER do that!”  I thought again… How could anyone be so certain about what would happen in the future?

Alex’s statements made me wonder just how much he loved Carolinah and me. I remembered Alex told me, before he married Carolinah, that he had made it clear to her that he was not going to divorce me.  He said he told her that if she was marrying him thinking that he would divorce me, it was not going to happen.  

I considered how insecure and needy Carolinah must have been to ask Alex or any man to make a promise to her like that. Would she really want Alex to stay with her under any condition and circumstance?

The first vacation that Alex and I took after he married Carolinah was very, very nice.  We talked with each other more and enjoyed each other more than any vacation that we had taken before.  The excursions and activities took a back seat.

What was terribly different though, in a not good way at all, was the deep sadness that I felt. I don’t remember smiling or being joyfully happy at anytime during that vacation.  I was noticeably solemn. There was numbness in me.

During that getaway, I wasn’t feeling any joy or pain.  I didn’t too much react to anything Alex said about him and Carolinah, except a couple times.  I was extremely depressed.

Daily, throughout the day, tears rolled down my face in streams, without a single muscle in my face moving…streams of tears without any reason, while dining out, waiting for a car, while Alex and I were just alone together.  It didn’t matter where or when. 

It didn’t matter to me that Alex and I were away at an exotic place.  It didn’t matter that Alex and I were away from a life back home that I hadn’t chosen for me-polygamy.  I was suffering silent sorrow.

It was as though my soul was sad…

I still continued, in a state of hysteria, to reach out to Alex on days that weren’t my turn. I know you’re probably thinking that what I was doing  was “messed up.”   You are right.  I just did it and kept doing it.  Although sincerely distraught, I knew, in the back of my mind, exactly what I was doing.

Alex came over in an effort to calm me down a couple of times on Carolinah’s days.  I tried to explain to Alex that where he slept nights, with reference to Carolinah and I, counted and that he could see both Carolinah and me on each other’s days.  Alex chose to differ.  

Nonetheless, one of those not my turn days, Alex came over to comfort me.  He said, “I’ll divorce her if you want me to, but I’ll hate you!”  What?  Now, what was that supposed to mean?  He’ll divorce her, but he’ll hate me.  Well why on earth would I want to be married to and live with someone who hates me?  That’s bazaar.  I don’t even know what the statement means.  

Needless to say, I wasn’t going to be a part and parcel of that.  I wasn’t going to be part of the decision making process with Alex on whether or not he should divorce Carolinah.  I don’t even think that Alex divorcing Carolinah would or could be of any benefit to his and my marriage. Our marriage has been turned upside down and twisted around so much; it can’t be straightened out, not by Carolinah, Alex, or me.

Allah SWT is The Doer of what He wills.  Therefore, I must continue to live life and go where Allah takes me.

My best friend said that I would become a slave to Alex, if I asked him to divorce Carolinah.  I would become subservient to Alex, trying to make him happy and keep him happy.  The non-verbal or verbal threat of returning to Carolinah or going to someone else would become a tool for Alex to keep me submissive to him.

If anyone reading this post can interpret Alex’s statement -”I’ll divorce her, but I’ll hate you”- I kindly ask you to share the meaning with me.

When men consider engaging in polygamy, do they consider where everyone is going to live?

Alex does not like living in the state in which we live. For him, it’s too expensive and blah, blah, blah…but, I’ve lived here all my life and I like it here. I am not concerned about the expense. Allah SWT always provides. Alex, however, periodically brought up the subject; where are we going to live (ten years from now or whenever)?  My mind doesn’t go that far into the future. I agreed with Alex that if I were to stop working, I’d live wherever Alex wanted to go, particularly if it would be nearer his work.  The agreement was in the Islamic contract that Alex never signed.

One day Alex and I were away again overnight. He asked me, “Where do you want to live?”  He said, “I keep asking you and asking you where you want to live.”  I asked him if Carolinah would be going with us.  He said, “Yes, of course. What do you think?”  There is just no end to the freaked out things Alex keeps asking of me. I said, “I’m not going anywhere with you and that woman.”   

I asked Alex what I was supposed to do in a STRANGE STATE, with no family or friends there, while he laid up somewhere with Carolinah, or was on a business trip.  I asked if he thought I was supposed to sit on a sofa, look at the walls, and imagine what he and Carolinah were doing, or while they were curled up someplace in each other’s arms watching TV?  How selfish is that?  He was going to be with one of us each night, while Carolinah and I spent half our time alone.

Like in the ”Meet and Teach” that I posted previously, the pestering questions from Alex kept coming at me.  I told Alex, point blank, once and for all, I was not going anyplace with him and that woman.  I told him to move anywhere and anyplace he liked with Carolinah and he could come and visit me and, of course, continue to pay the household expenses. 

So where is Alex going to go?  I don’t know….

Sometimes women say they are receptive to polygamy, and want to be an additional wife.  They haven’t eliminated the option completely (saying no way, no how, is the easy part).   But what happens when a woman actually becomes the other wife and emotions kick in.  What happens when she really begins to know the husband - like turns to love; there’s passion, desire….or maybe the other way around…like, dislike, loathe….?

Once people become intimate, usually, a bond begins to form.  You begin not to like sharing.  Jealousy, envy, rancor and all those base feelings begin to rise, maybe even overpower you.

Those emotions weren’t strong before, as you didn’t know the husband.  You weren’t that involved.  How many people in general take the traditional wedding vows, saying they promise to love each other for the rest of their lives and till death do they part?  It probably feels that way when the persons are making the promise.

I think it is more difficult to be the first wife of a husband when you are involved in polygamy. The bond of love and intimacy has already been established and negative, base emotions already have been ignited somewhere, somehow in the marriage.  The additional wife enters the marriage in the “honeymoon stage” and then she gets a quick dose of reality once she starts bonding with the husband.  I wanted Carolinah to get that reality check sooner than later.

I asked Alex when I was going to meet Carolinah.  He responded something like: She don’t want to meet you,  don’t want to see you, don’t want to hear you, don’t want to know you exist.  According to Alex, Carolinah said, “I’m not ready for her yet.”  That infuriated me.  She had the audacity to encroach upon my marriage, plan and plot a relationship with my husband behind my back, and basically said I had to like it.  I don’t think so.  So, I decided to make my presence known… and felt.

The non-Muslim holidays that came soon after Alex married Carolinah were easy for me to take. Alex was with me those days, as scheduled.  I had become used to Alex and me being off work and home together those days, although we didn’t celebrate.

I don’t think Carolinah much cared about Alex not being with her those days, as I gathered from Alex it was customary for her to work non-Muslim “holidays”.  Furthermore, it allowed her to continue to celebrate those days with her non-Muslim family. You need to keep in mind Carolinah had just taken Shahada a couple of months or so before she married Alex and had non-Muslim children (a teenage child and an adult child) living at home.

“Valentine’s Day”, more so than other non-Muslim holidays, is difficult to ignore. You can’t close your eyes to the flowers, candies, cards etc advertised in the stores, TV, and everywhere you go. It is the special day that you are supposed to be with the special person that you love.  

The first Valentine’s Day, two months after Alex married Carolinah, was very difficult for me.  I had already sunk into a mood of deep melancholy.  I was very, very sad.  I didn’t even consider trying to go to work that day. The feeling of sadness was too overwhelming for me. I was unable to do anything.  I stayed in bed all morning. I just laid there.  Thinking about it now, I can only remember my feelings, not my thoughts. I don’t think I had any.

Mid morning, without any notice, without it even occurring to me that it was a possibility, Alex came over.  He said, “I knew you didn’t go to work.”  He seemed sad as well.  He lethargically looked through his closet in the bedroom, as though he had come there to get something.  I asked if he could be with me.  He said, “Yes. You’re my wife, right?”  He stayed a few hours and then had to leave.  It was nice.