50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Read online

  “I just couldn’t function with you gone!” He cut in. “I didn’t feel at home at our house. I didn’t have any energy or desire to take care of anything without you here. You’ve always been leaving me, Sophia! From the time we got married you’ve been looking for greener grass on the other side of the fence.”

  In many ways he was right. Living polygamy was all that was religiously necessary to Mark. From everything I’d ever been taught to believe, his attitudes and actions didn’t qualify him as my priesthood head. According to my dad’s Mormon Fundamentalist God’s rules, Mark would never be able to take me into the celestial kingdom, where I could dwell with my parents, siblings, and our children for eternity. That was certainly my number-one fear and reason for praying that God would either make him a righteous man, or let me out, so I could marry a man who could get us there. But I loved Mark! I wanted to be with him, so I begged and cried. I tried to kindly and “sweetly” sway him into “honoring” his priesthood like other “good” men in The Group.

  A man has to have at least three wives to get even his big toe into heaven. And the way things were going; Mark wasn’t going to make the grade as far as my dad, our prophet, was concerned. I had a reputation to get and keep. Everyone else our age was on their way to attaining their plural wives and their celestial kingdom. I pushed and encouraged Mark to get another wife, and when he tried, I would freak out again. So he’d stop and I’d get miffed. Then, like the “good wife” I was required to be, I’d nudge him even more, and where did we end up?

  After about twenty years of this off-and-on, of finding ourselves and doing some inner healing, I’d finally fallen in love with Mark. Then I started leaving him—a good man—because he had to honor his commitment to Diane and plural marriage, and I couldn't. There certainly was some truth in his charges against me. My compassionate, trusting heart also wanted to believe his reasons for abandoning us. What else could he do without assurance of my never-ending love and devotion?

  Accepting Mark’s justification for bombing out on all of his responsibilities and us wasn’t easy. In every thought, I tried to; but the more I thought about his excuses, the more unreasonable they were.

  The whole year I was gone, the threesome was busy dining out, working on projects together, camping, vacationing, and going on various other outings. Mark and Norma often came and went by themselves. Whenever I asked him why he didn’t have time, money, or energy for us, his reasons were never clear. His refusal to answer my questions, in it-self was deceitful. Now, his claim that he couldn’t function without me felt like a cop-out, contrived so he could continue to do whatever he wanted to do with his time, with no responsibility or accountability to his family. If his reasons were valid, why hadn’t he been honest about everything in the first place, circumventing all this confusion and anger? We had such a long list of problems; it was no wonder we were on a dead-end street going nowhere.

  I was grateful Mark didn’t ask me what he could or should do to make things better, like he’d done so many times before. We both knew it hadn’t done any good in the past. I was quite certain it wouldn’t make any difference now.

  Mark’s next words took the breath out of my lungs.

  “Sophia, as of today, I am divorcing you. I am releasing you from any and all marriage contracts or commitments we have ever made together—religious, legal, and celebratory. The only thing that will put our marriage back together is love. Our love will have to be strong enough to take us through anything and everything, or we will never make it.”

  I’m not sure why I wept so copiously. As my body was doubled over in sorrow, my soul was set free. The dent in the side of our bed when Mark sat down drew me into his hip and back. He tenderly rested his left hand on my shoulder. Then, not surprisingly, he used another of Norma’s favorite sayings to sanctify his necessity to end our marriage.

  “Sophia, you have come out of your chrysalis and turned into a beautiful butterfly. If I hold onto you, as I’d like to, you may smother and die. But if I let you go—let you fly away—and then you come back to me, you will truly be mine.”

  Then, to top it off, Mark told me he’d already divorced Diane. “But I will never go back to that marriage,” he said. “I am done with any and all of my past commitments there. I married and stayed with Diane because I believed in the religion our parents convinced us to live.” He said he’d done the best he knew how to do in caring for and loving Diane and their kids. Now that they were all over eighteen, he was through living polygamy.

  My three-and-a-half-hour drive back to Cedar seemed endless. Mark’s furious, earsplitting charges; his presentation of our past few years, both fact and fiction; and especially his abrupt end of our three-way marriage were all trifling with my sanity. One moment I was apathetic and grateful, and the next I felt sure my anguish would crush me to death. The things he had told me cut deep into my heart.

  *****

  “That is insanity from the get-go!” I complained during our long, drawn-out discussion a couple weeks later. “How can you ask me to be married to you without Diane being married to you? It would break her heart and mine! It should be the other way around, you know. She will be completely happy to have you to herself. She’d have her children, my children, and her best friend Norma, and even Jared—if he’s still in the picture—and all of our kids for family gatherings. Mark, Diane is the one who will continue to be the good wife; the one who will stay loyal to you forever. According to Norma, that would make Diane’s dreams come true! You and Diane are supposed to stay together! I am the one who’s been leaving you all those years! God only knows how many times you’ve told me you won’t ever leave her!”

  I wished Diane really knew my heart—not the stories I knew she heard. Gossip was coming back to me from several angles as well. I wanted her to understand me and the remorse I was feeling for what she was going through. If she’d talk to me, or write, or call I could tell her I always wanted her happiness and never tried to hurt her—well, other than the time with the car. I regretted not being a better friend and sister to her. I was sorry I hadn’t gone ahead and mailed the notes, letters, and cards I wrote and wanted to write to her, and didn’t because Norma told me not to send, telling me Diane didn’t want them and or to hear from me. Right then I wished I could have forced Mark to take Diane back so she, our kids, and I could stop hurting. As if I could.

  In the next few weeks of dealing with my emptiness, longing, and memories of so many wonderful days in Mark’s and my marriage, I wished we could be in each other’s arms. I wished nothing had ever gone so crazy and never again would. In those moments I wanted to plead with him to take Diane back so he could take me back, or the other way around. I’d promise him, “I’ll be good—I won’t be jealous or cry anymore! I’ll make myself be happy in our misery and not trade it for another misery, like you said.”

  However much pain I felt, nothing compared to my life’s consoling blood, flowing in abundance. The personal freedom I had embraced away from too many years of conflict helped solidify my decision to finally let go.

  My lingering pain was not so much for myself, but for everyone else: my kids, Diane and her kids, Mark, and our friends. Because of too many wounding assumptions and spiteful words, all of our hearts were aching. With time, I hoped our grief would dissipate and all of us would someday be able to heal.

  CHAPTER 44

  Leaving My Sanctuary

  2001

  Finals were tedious and simple, other than math, of course. As always, I was the last student to finish the test. Fighting tears, I told my professor I hoped his long, drawn-out test from hell wouldn’t ruin my grade point average and haunt me for the rest of my life. I’d done the best I could and hoped it would all pan out. I arranged to finish my last early childhood class through correspondence. If all went well, I’d finish that class in the next four months while I was doing my student teaching from home and I’d officially be a certified teacher.

  My apartment seemed to
cling to me for dear life, as I clung to it. Leaving my sanctuary seared my heart as would the death of a beloved pet, yet I was taking with me knowledge and self-esteem I’d never known before. I didn’t want to move back home, or be done with school, or leave my apartment. Neither did I want to cope with the wrath of my now-distant family and friends who knew little or nothing of my life and feelings. In an effort to make sense of my “soul flip,” which they called a midlife crisis, many believed the mostly mistaken rumors they’d been hearing about me.

  If I had my druthers, everyone I loved and honored, who loved and honored me, would move down to Cedar City away from crazy-making people and the big-city life.

  I decided to stay in Southern Utah for four more days just to celebrate—to honor myself with an appropriate closure to one of the most difficult yet incredible years of my life. Also, I hoped some quiet alone time would cement my decision to return to Mark, and make my transition back a bit easier. I spent time gabbing with a few friends and took some bereavement time at my favorite cliffs, caves, and trails. I left offerings of gratitude everywhere I went for Mother Nature’s generous gifts of love and healing.

  Still feeling somewhat down, I decided to head farther southwest on a day trip to Pa Tempe Hot Springs, and go to Colorado City to see my sister Lucinda, my nieces, aunt Maggie—my friend—and her kids, my cousins.

  “Lucinda is not down here anymore, Sophia,” Maggie said matter-of-factly when I first saw her. The way she sounded, I knew it must be bad news.

  “Why?” I asked. “What’s going on with my sister?”

  Maggie explained how Warren Jeffs had ousted several of the Barlow brothers, including my sister’s husband Wayne. One day in church, Warren, without warning, told them to stand up, called them sinners and told them to leave, send him their money, and repent from afar. He took all of their wives and children away from them and gave them to other men. “I’m pretty sure Warren moved Lucinda to Texas where she’s been assigned to be a caretaker to all of the children Warren has taken from their mothers.”

  I was furious. Fire from my core ran through my body until my skin tingled. I’d already been sickened by too many of Warren’s heinous crimes; now his evil really hit home.

  “How totally brainless can those men get?” I yelled. “Wayne is a stupid idiot!”

  The Barlow men were always looked up to as leaders, serving in many high-ranking capacities ever since John Y. Barlow had been the group’s prophet, in the early 50’s. They’d been mayor, bishop, and counselors, among other positions. That family line had run and shoved the whole show at the Crick for nearly a hundred years. “How can any one of those chauvinistic, outspoken men just stand by and allow sick, little, man-creep Warren to take over the whole community, kick people out of their homes, tie their family jewels in knots, prostitute their wives, steal their children and give them to a more “worthy” dad or mom? I’ve completely lost the tiny ounce of respect I had left for Wayne!” I ferociously complained.

  My uncouth response probably burned Maggie’s ears. I don’t feel at all bad about how I’d described Warren. To me, he deserved far worse, maybe even to be called “the devil in disguise.” It certainly wasn’t my intention to personally offend Maggie or her beliefs. I wasn’t sure exactly where she stood after her prophet, Rulon Jeffs, died and didn’t come back to life. The clan’s irrational claim he’d never die, created a glitch in many testimonies, including Maggie’s. Like all of us, she too had been, and still was, caught in the clutches of her religious beliefs while being torn by the myriad of injustices she’d seen and endured. For as long as I’d known her, she always wondered which of her many trials might set her free or ban her straight to hell.

  I’d started down a path that was obviously becoming more natural to me. Ever since I was old enough, I’d questioned the FLDS priesthood leaders, and now I had the audacity to place Warren in the same class as the devil.

  “Sophia!” Maggie’s voice brought me back from my thoughts. “Those men are just following his directions because they believe they’re being tested by God!” Then she threw in another obligatory rule programmed in our heads from the time of conception. “You know we’ve always been taught God will never allow the prophet to lead his people astray. God would destroy him first!”

  “Warren is nothing more than a narcissistic, egocentric, perverted man, just like Evil Ervil LeBaron!” I snapped.

  My skin crawled as I thought about how many men and women still held on to edicts that empower evil men in high positions to abuse and nullify their followers’ rights and freedoms.

  “Testing?” I asked angrily. “Testing them by morbid game playing? If their God is really testing them, it’s to see if they have balls enough to fight for their children and wives instead of letting Warren sell them into more slavery than they’ve already been in!”

  I needed to quit. It wasn’t my business to change her mind about a mad-man “prophet” who had already and would continue to pass edicts of insanity. He’d continue to gloat as thousands of generationally programmed puppets, would smile as they jumped off a cliff, just because he told them to.

  We knew of many terrible crimes that had been covered up in the FLDS and other polygamous sects. In every visit with Maggie over our forty-nine years of friendship, she had divulged many more. Now things were getting worse by the day. I couldn’t stop myself. “What else is that crazy man up to?”

  At first Maggie didn’t answer my question. I wondered if she was again striving to conform to the famous FLDS-Colorado City mantra: “Keep sweet, keep sweet, and keep sweet”…which really means; shut-up and smile about any and all maltreatment; or you’ll be severely penalized!

  Maggie verified and despised many of Warren’s father’s decisions. Now under Warren’s direction, parents were told to remove their children from the public state-funded schools, but regulated by “priesthood” authority. All of the FLDS teachers and staff members, who were the majority, were also told to quit; causing the schools to close down. The clan kept taking money sent by Arizona to fund the education of children who were no longer receiving any. Warren shut down the city zoo and parks. After one child was bitten by a dog, he ordered all of the dogs in town to be killed. Many families watched their beloved pets shot right in front of them.

  Jeffs also demanded that a monument Wayne had built and dedicated to Leroy Johnson be demolished. Leroy Johnson had been the FLDS prophet during the attempted rescue of women and children, in 1953, by the State of Arizona. John Howard Pyle, Arizona’s governor at the time, had support for his action from his state as well as from the state of Utah. The attempted rescue was also sanctioned by the LDS Church, to try to stop the human rights violations taking place among fundamentalist polygamists. Even back then, authorities knew men were breaking the laws by living polygamy; of abuses and poverty; and of young girls (some between the ages of twelve and fifteen) being trafficked and assigned to old men. In the same timeframe Warren Jeffs demanded the statue of the former prophet was idolatrous, he announced, “I am God’s anointed.” Every one of his clan had to place pictures of him in every room in their homes to remind them of Warren’s scrutiny and whom they’d really better be worshipping.

  I believe Warren knew from day one he was a charlatan. His nemeses were anyone who presented the slightest threat to “his kingdom.” Parents were not to talk to their wayward children, or any family members who’d left for any reason. They were directed to no longer converse with anyone outside their sect. Folks were discarded for not spying and ratting on anyone who disobeyed Warren’s tyrannical rules. He promised more wives or other rewards (“blessings”) for those who did his bidding—particularly if one snitched on a close family member for insubordination. The surest way to one’s demise, was to question anything Warren did or said.

  After Maggie’s oratory, I understood where her loyalties were. She still believed in plural marriage and the Book of Mormon, but would no longer follow any man who claimed authority over othe
rs. She’d already been through hellfire and brimstone. She’d suffered through too many hellacious times trying to stick up for her own rights as a “low-life” woman among “god-like” men, who’d wielded all the power from day one. When she’d asked for a release from her adulterous husband, she was counseled to give in to his demands, so he wouldn’t have to get it from other women. He got a verbal slap on the hand, continued his infidelity, and became physically and verbally abusive to her because she’d told about his nasty little secret.

  I completely understood the blinded and brainwashed women and men who continued to follow every proclamation coming from their prophet’s mouth. Like my mother, and me for a while, they too believe in the need to die miserably happy. While women live like perfect robotic Stepford Wives, their husbands and fathers can do as they please; thus a straight shot guarantee they can become Gods of their own worlds someday.

  On my drive back to Cedar City my head was inundated with chatter that wouldn’t stop. I worried about my sixty-year-old sister Lucinda and the hundreds of relatives who would continue to follow and condone all of the behaviors of their depraved, insane god, Warren Jeffs. I feared I’d never see my sister, her children, or her grandchildren ever again.

  I sang as loudly as I could and bounced and twisted to rock-n-roll tunes blasting in my ears. I listened intently to the world news, but nothing could block the stinking thinking swirling around in my head. How on earth could I go back to Mark now that I had been with Lyle? I had to talk to someone I could trust!

  At the park, I spread my car blanket across a wooden picnic table, lay down, and let the wonderful sunshine warm and comfort me while I waited for Graham. Since we first met, our friendship stayed platonic and strong, and both of us cherished that incredible camaraderie.