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

  I was appalled by his hostility toward me and the accusations that spewed from his mouth. He shot out of bed and stuffed some things into his carryall bag, then walked out the bedroom door and slammed it. Soon, I heard his truck door open and slam shut. The engine revved up and gravel flung across the driveway.

  I cried all through the night and into the wee hours of the morning. Mark had slammed the door on my heart again. What, I wondered, were his anger and deception really about? Why did he say he wanted us if he couldn’t and wouldn’t honor even one of his renewed commitments?

  Maybe Lyle was right about what he told me last fall. “Mark can’t see yer feelin’s past his nose cuz his ego and his dick’s doin’ the thinkin’ when it comes to Norma!”

  Mark had loved Norma when she was a teenager, and it was blatantly clear he loved her now. Men who were having affairs were known to flip out. Also, some men who were once nice to first, and previous wives had also become crazy and abusive to them after taking another wife. Two of my close friends had gone through that very thing. Their husbands had sudden outbursts, made terrible accusations and behaved outrageously—particularly when a woman tried to confront or question her husband about his conduct. It had become clear; even if Mark wasn’t having intercourse with Norma’s body, he certainly was with her mind. So what in the hell was I still doing there in their way?

  The day after Christmas, my puffy, red eyelids drooped so much I could hardly see. Mark was right about one thing he said the night before. I wouldn’t have gone to Diane’s house even if she had invited me. I had no doubt I wasn’t welcome there. She hadn’t been welcomed in my home either. At least I didn’t show up uninvited. I chose to respect Diane’s wishes, and that was the only truth in Mark’s five-minute-long tirade.

  Christmas Day and night, Mark set the precedents for the next year. I began to realize with every aspect of my being it didn’t matter what I felt, said, or did. A force much more powerful than Mark or me, had already invaded our aspirations of reconciliation. It was obvious neither one of us was wise enough or courageous enough to wrangle with “Gods” persuasive control, and fight for our marriage.

  CHAPTER 47

  Places in Hell

  January–June 2002

  Throwing a huge New Year’s party for my grandchildren was the best way to avoid the feelings and conflicts hounding me. It didn’t surprise me, Mark stopped by to see what was going on. He said he had a few more of his things to pack, and he’d be back in the morning to at last haul the rest of Amy’s boxes over to her house.

  I was sure this was just the introduction to another apology. The next day, in anticipation, I canceled my morning hike with Racine and waited for Mark’s arrival. By 3:00 when he still didn’t show up, I ran a few errands and returned in haste, hoping we could spend some time together. When I got home he said he wasn’t feeling good. He slept until nearly seven, and then hurried off to another appointment he said was none of my business.

  Mark returned after midnight. He asked if he could climb in bed with me and talk. He apologized again for his bouts of anger and his ongoing absence. My insides felt twisted and tangled while he explained or dismissed his behaviors and choices with almost the exact same words Norma had used the previous day. Obviously they’d already discussed his fight with me in detail.

  Norma begged me to meet her for lunch so she could “explain a few things and make them clear.” I was still pathetically gullible and people-pleasing, and I wanted her to understand where I was coming from. So I showed up. She declared she knew and understood all of the difficulties and issues between Mark, Diane and me. She also claimed to be extremely keen about the particulars and the personalities of everyone involved, including our children. Norma said she and her siblings had gone through her mom and dad’s divorce when she was a child, and had to suffer through Callie’s (her ex-sister-wife’s) divorce from Jared, nearly twenty years ago. Therefore, Norma said, “Its best to keep Diane and all of your kids in the dark concerning his decision to keep you in his life, while choosing to divorce her. It will kill her if she finds out he wants you to stay with him, when he has tried so hard to make it clear to her he is through with their marriage.”

  I sighed. “Norma, I told you when you first talked to me about keeping your death a secret from Diane and Jared, and I’ve told Mark a zillion times: truth to me is always better than lying under the guise of protecting someone. I would rather have the opportunity to make a decision based on truth rather than to deal with lies I might find out about later on. If Mark wanted to stay with Diane and not me, I would want him to tell me. That way I could move on, go through the pain, get over it and live in truth.”

  “It’s not that I don’t try to get her to wake up,” Norma said. “I tell Diane or at least hint to her a little at a time, Mark won’t be coming back to her and she needs to take care of herself and move on. But Diane refuses to hear it because she wants to believe Mark will come back to her once he gets over you. She doesn’t want to know the truth. Believe me, she couldn’t handle it. We need to go slow and protect her and the kids from finding out about Mark’s feelings, or it will break all of their hearts.”

  “I can understand both of you—all of us—wanting to protect Diane from her pain, and I certainly don’t want to hurt our kids either. However, all of the cover-ups remind me of nothing more than the same old ‘plural marriage lies’ polygamist men regurgitate and their wives agonize over. Husbands, I’m sure, have to lie to one or more of his wives to keep out of trouble with the others. They make up stories to save face, appease each one, and avoid unwanted pain. Such are the normal idiosyncrasies of plural marriage. Each wife hears the same old stories from him. She believes she’s the most loved and adored while the other wives are the troublemakers and selfish ones. And she, in most cases, wants to believe his defensive fabrications. She goes on trying to keep sweet for the sake of survival and to be in harmony with her husband.”

  It didn’t matter I disagreed with Mark and Norma’s choice to mislead Diane, or about any of their decisions. Just how long, I wondered, would they continue that duplicity? Would it ever end? It would probably never make a difference in Diane’s heart. All three of us were sure Diane would never be able to accept Mark and me together without her.

  So, at lunch on the first day of 2002, Norma adamantly claimed her authority as a marriage counselor. She knew the ins and outs—everything plausible and even impossible—when it came to living and ending polygamous relationships. She had already been, and was still very busy endorsing her own advice for the supposed good of everyone involved.

  Mark fumbled around his words while he tried to express all of Norma’s strong opinions in his own words. I tried to stay tuned in as he continued to explain in a variety of ways his misconduct was all due to his level of stress; his worries about the kids; Diane’s feelings and mine, which were more than he could handle; his inability to make ends meet; and the sad fact he just couldn’t be with me as much as he’d like to be.

  My thoughts had returned to Norma’s sermon the day before when I wanted to reach across the table and slap her face. The ridiculous explanations she used to justify Mark’s mistreatment of and cruelty to me, made me sick. “He’s just weary of trying to protect Diane’s feelings while trying to work things out with you,” she said. And now, on my bed, Mark was repeating the same justifications as to why it was okay to treat me like garbage while he was so concerned about protecting Diane.

  “But more than anything,” he said after a while, “I want you and me to be together forever! I want us to work out. Please wait for me, Sophia. Don’t hop on that runaway train again. Wait for me to finish things up with Diane, in the right way, so I won’t have to hurt her more than I already have. She can’t know I’m with you, or that I want to stay married to you. It would tear her apart.”

  “I know it will hurt her,” I told him. “But how can you expect our marriage to work if you’re hardly ever with me, and you’re cussing ang
ry about made-up crap when you are here?”

  “I don’t know how to do all of this,” Mark replied. “I just know I want to grow old with you. Norma always says we’re ‘twin rays’ and you and I should be together forever.”

  Like most totally insecure, addicted to abuse, crazed women in unstable relationships, I melted. Mark’s words of love and passion, of grief and longing, found their way into my dream world. Again, we conversed for hours about our long-term goals: a smaller home out in the country, retirement, visits from our kids and grandchildren. We made new vows and commitments to each other, and I fell back into his arms to stay, hope, and wait.

  When Mark granted me fragments of his leftover time, I made every effort to be with him. While his time became less and less our time, I filled my life to the brim with my on-line class, student teaching, dancing, family and friends. I determined I’d do anything to be happy, healthy, and strong while I waited for him to “finish things up with Diane in the right way.” Near the end of February, I was amazed when Norma decided Mark could stay with me for four nights in a row before I left for Oregon. How will they hide this one from Diane? I wondered.

  My brother, James, bought me a “getaway” ticket to visit him and his wife. They took me everywhere. We compared our perceptions of being raised in the same household with the same two parents, under the duress of Dad’s other wives. For the first time in my life, I heard an in-depth version of the pieces of hell, only a polygamist husband knows. My heart ached as James recalled his past marriage to his three wives.

  “From the outside, everyone thought things in my family were great. All of us put on a good front so no one, not even you, would know how bad things really were. But my wives fought like cats and dogs,” James said. “They didn’t want to live together and were seldom happy. The very people I loved the most had little or no love for each other. The more tension there was at home, the more I wanted to run away and leave.”

  Tears filled his eyes. “And you know what, Kristyn? No matter what I did, no matter how hard I prayed or how many meetings I attended, or how hard I tried to be a good priesthood leader and to do everything right, nothing ever worked. Not one of us was really happy. If I wasn’t doing what they thought I should do, they’d fume for days. No matter how many hours I worked, no matter how much money I made, or how much time I did or didn’t spend with someone, there was never enough of me or my money to go around! Someone was always pissed, jealous, and wanting to leave. And most of the time,” James almost shouted, “I was so damn depressed I could hardly function! I felt like such a failure, I wanted to be out of that lifestyle or die. Sometimes I truly envied the dead.”

  James’s remorse shifted through my guts like an auger with razor blades. In his feelings and words, I saw a lot of resemblance to Mark’s life with Diane and me. I always knew Mark needed and deserved his freedom from that kind of craziness. Diane and I were both insecure and needy women. We wanted his devotion to God, his love, and his attention. In many ways, Mark, as a good man, brought up to believe he had to live polygamy, was just as unsatisfied, tormented, and full of grief as we were. My sister-wife and I felt and watched him flee the scene over and over again. He too had been depressed, angry, and dying. James’s words keenly extended my perspective of a male polygamist’s torment. It brought to my awareness much more than my own sorrows and woes.

  Mark and I were still “together” when I got home—at least in heart and spirit. Nothing had changed in the six days I’d been gone. Every day, all day and most nights—aside from his job—he was gone. He continued to work for, travel with, and mingle with Norma, Jared, and their children. He made himself readily available to comfort and soothe Norma’s broken heart any time she fretted over her advancing death. If her spirit guide were right, she had less than a year to live. If her spirit guide were wrong, Norma would surely come up with another explanation to explain Mark’s spiritually required friendship and devotion to her.

  In between all of the drama, I was sure I’d made a mistake trying to be in Mark’s life without Diane as his wife, and with Norma running the show. But he guaranteed me it wouldn’t be long before things would be resolved.

  “If I take things slow, Diane will be secure enough that we can soon be open about our relationship,” he said.

  Though somewhere in my soul I believed our efforts were in vain, I clung tightly to his promises and forgave his continual distance and neglect.

  Through March, while he stayed in our daughter’s basement, Mark and I acted like lovers on the make. We got together whenever, wherever, and however we could. In private, we enjoyed our delicious conjugal visits immensely. In public, around those we knew, we were back to acting as if we were divorced. We immensely enjoyed those times of lovemaking, with no fighting and no disapproval.

  Whenever I saw Jared, he’d tell me how much he appreciated Mark’s validation of his stories and his wisdom. Mark assured me of his appreciation for Jared as well.

  “They love me, Sophia. They are the friends I’ve never had before.”

  He was absolutely right. I certainly didn’t want to complain about him having friends. For as long as I’d known Mark, I had longed for him to have the gift of true friendship. He deserved loyal friends who would honor and love him. Norma and Jared filled his empty cup and his ego to the brim. In their eyes, he was near perfection. No matter what he ever did or didn’t do, he was and would always be justified.

  Still, I couldn’t understand why he continued to spend so much time with them and away from me, and why he was so deceitful about it. I’d plead with Mark to explain things to me.

  “If you want our marriage to work out, why do you lie and keep secrets from me? Why am I excluded from ninety-eight percent of your life and time? It would be easier to wait with even twenty percent of your time. Instead, the only time we get alone is if you want sex. Why do you let Norma run your life and make our decisions?”

  Asking for any clarification didn’t work. It made Mark angry and defensive. I forced myself to ignore my concerns and disapproval and kept on keeping on with my own life.

  The few times Norma decided I could be invited to join her, Jared, and Mark, she reminded me of the importance of not letting Diane know we were all together, especially that I was with them.

  “She’s too jealous, and all it will do is cause trouble,” Norma would say. But within minutes she would boast again of her skill at eluding Diane in any way she wished to.

  “She never knows what I’m up to unless I want her to know,” Norma bragged. “I’ve told my kids exactly what they should and shouldn’t say whenever Diane calls the house. They’ve gotten really good at it. You just watch.” Norma laughed. “She’ll call while we’re sitting here eating. She calls me several times during the weekend to check up on me.”

  This was just exactly as I surmised. Norma admitted Diane never knew about their outings, yet she and Mark continued to exclude me. With that factual information (verified by Mark) I knew I could no longer trust any of their contrived reasons to constantly exclude me.

  Finally I asked Mark, “What does your secret life with Norma have to do with making things easier or better for Diane? And how does your whole life being consumed by Norma, help you, Diane, or me? None of this is right, and you know it, Mark!”

  As usual, he accused me of being nothing but a selfish, jealous bitch again. He raged at me as if I were a crazy lunatic while he defended Norma. “Nothing she is doing or saying is wrong. She loves you Sophia. She would never do anything to hurt you.”

  But each time Mark launched his pile of toxic refuse at me, slammed the door, and left me covered in his vile debris, it was more evident why he said such mean things. And whose words were really coming out of his mouth? That was not Mark’s vernacular. It hadn’t been in years. He began to eat, think, breathe, and speak “Norma.” He doled out her exact words and phrases every time I saw him.

  Between his new gobbledygook, new perceptions, abusive accusations,
and my pain and tears, we couldn’t tolerate each other anymore. We’d fight; he would disappear. Then he’d come back anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks later to repeat his worn out, old apologies. When we were alone, he’d tell me he never really meant the terrible things he said. He knew I wouldn’t do and be all the horrible things he accused me of when he was raging mad. As always, he promised to be loyal and more attentive. And as always, I forgave him. We’d make up, have sex, and fall in love with the idea of being in love, and with the idea of living the rest of our lives in bliss. Then we were fighting again.

  My student teaching, planning, and assignments and job hunting kept me away from social activities and friends. I was and felt so alone! The serenity prayer became my constant mantra during those four long months. I nurtured myself as best as I could with nutritious food, exercise, meditation, and breathing. But beyond and above all, I told myself as often as possible, “Don’t ever expect anything from anyone anymore, ever again! Take life one day at a time, and take care of yourself, Kristyn! No one else will or should.”

  It seemed each one of our kids, as well as Diane’s had a different take on the bombshell that had been dropped in their pathways. They were used to years and years of the old familiar polygamous lifestyle—of their parents hanging in there through thick and thin. But according to some, Aunt Kris—oops, I mean Sophia—had blown it to smithereens.

  My son Jake hadn’t talked to me since the last part of November unless he had to. I never heard from Diane’s kids. On the other hand, the rest of my children seemed to keep on loving all of us while they made an effort to stay in the middle ground and not take sides. I told them I hoped they would never feel they had to choose between us.