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

  In April, Mark and I didn’t celebrate our thirty-second anniversary. He said he couldn’t. He was too busy remodeling Norma’s kitchen along with all her other projects and requests. “It's no big deal—we can celebrate it later when we have more time and money,” he told me nonchalantly.

  I didn’t even try to debate it with him. If he didn’t care enough to make some time for us, I didn’t want to make it happen. I buried myself in a tubful of hot water, and allowed myself to lament.

  When Mark and I were communicating, we decided it would be best to sell our dream house and buy a smaller home—one we could keep up with and pay for. Since our bills were still unpaid and our debts were beyond belief, we agreed selling would be the best way to go. I’d already maxed out my credit cards to keep us afloat, and something had to be done before we lost the house completely. We knew there was no way anyone would want to buy our junkyard for anywhere near what we needed. Something had to be done about the back half-acre that was still an eyesore and an embarrassment. Over the years, I’d laboriously cleared portions of it off for the planned little playhouse, swing-set areas, sandboxes, gardens… Those areas were nowhere to be seen. They’d done nothing more than serve as more open spaces for “Mark and sons, family, and friends” to pile more rubbish, scraps, batteries, and broken-down “good for someday” refuse and masonry equipment.

  Mark’s brother in-law, our knight in shining armor, came to our rescue. He drove down our long driveway and hauled his bulldozer off of his glistening gold trailer. He’d driven all the way up from St. George (in southern Utah) just to help conquer our junkyard battlefield.

  It took him three long days to rip out the elm forest that had taken over like weeds. With his front-loader, he got rid of four or five dump-truck loads of garbage and completely leveled the back half of our land. Watching twenty years of rubbish disappear brought me to tears. I was overwhelmed with hope, gratitude and relief.

  Mark and I owed our hero more than a king’s ransom. But he knew we didn’t have it, nor did he expect it. After his hard work and expensive labor there was a good chance someone would want to purchase our place, which now had endless possibilities.

  When Mark came home and saw his battlefield had been overthrown, he was livid. He wanted the blocks, the cans, the old wheelbarrows, and the junk trees. He felt beaten and wounded. I had taken his brother-in-law up on his offer to help without consulting him first.

  I made the decision. It was planned and set in motion before Mark could balk and refuse the offer. I knew from 29 years of past experiences, and Mark’s “someday” dreams and promises, the property would never be cleaned up and turned into the wonderland we always talked about. It was the complete opposite. It got worse by the day! We would never have money to hire it to be done. Mark was also too proud to accept any offers of help. He was at least a hundred times angrier with me that time, than when I accidentally mutilated the large lilac bush in our back yard.

  As time passed, it was more obvious the months and years Mark had been spending with his new family was creating a total stranger out of him. His thoughts, words, and actions were their thoughts, words, and actions. His unpredictable rages toward me began to scare me, and created ever more mistrust for Norma’s claimed good intentions. Things Mark had loved and appreciated and things he complimented me for, were now twisted and contorted into me being a selfish, conniving, manipulative bitch—all expelled from Mark’s mouth like projectile vomit.

  Right from the start, Norma started telling me those things. “Oh, you’re not so perfect. You were mean and conniving . . . Diane said . . . and I know . . .” Openly as well as behind my back, Norma ridiculed me—and others. She complained about my cooking, my friends, my life, my feelings, my inabilities, and even (assumed by her) my thoughts and intentions. She’d often snicker along with the cutting remarks she tried to make sound like ongoing jokes. “Yeah, Sophia might not know who or where she is . . . but I love her so much!”

  One apparently scissor-happy day I cut Mark’s hair way too short. Norma convinced everyone, including Mark, I did it because I was mad at him. “That haircut was to punish him,” she claimed. Of course, not one single word I said to the contrary mattered. If Norma said I was mad, I was. She knew how to twist each tiny flaw, simple mistake, thought, action, good intention, misunderstanding, or decision I made so it could become Mark’s battering ram. And each one served to bolster his reasons to continually break his promises to me.

  *****

  I finished my early childhood class assignments and my student teaching. I went through several interviews and kept on with my life. Within a few weeks, a secretary in the Jordan School District office, called to ask if I would take on a long-term substitute position for a kindergarten teacher who was having pregnancy problems. I excitedly agreed.

  While I was filling out forms, I asked why they hired me over the phone out of 250 applicants, especially without requiring an interview with the principal. The receptionist told me, “We looked through all the applications to find someone with a lot of early childhood experience. You had the most by far. We were also impressed with your high interview and test scores, but mostly because the kindergarten teacher liked your teaching philoSophias.”

  I took all of that as some of the nicest compliments I’d ever received, as well as a gift from my higher power. I was ecstatic about my first job as a certified elementary schoolteacher.

  In June, I proudly walked across the stage with all those young women and men I’d attended college with. At the very young age of forty-nine, I could finally lay claim to a Bachelor of Science degree in early childhood development and elementary education. Even better, I maintained my 4.0 GPA and graduated Summa Cum Laude!

  Near the end of June, I was offered two teaching jobs within a fifteen-minute period. I was purple and pink all over to have been hired by one of my children’s previous principals, who worked at a school close to home.

  CHAPTER 48

  Enough Is Enough

  July–August 2002

  Though there was little evidence Mark and I would be able to work things out, I clung on to one single strand of hope as if my very life depended on it. But even with coaxing and pleading, he could no longer convince me Norma wasn’t leading and behind his every word and action.

  I was elated when I was filling out health insurance forms and realized my two youngest children and Mark could be covered as well. Along with my teaching job came health security; one my children and I had hardly ever known.

  “No!” Mark said. “You know I’ve already got good coverage under Diane’s insurance and she is generous enough under the circumstances to keep it that way. I can’t go off of her insurance without her wanting to know why.”

  “Of course she is happy with it like this,” I told him. “Norma says she will do anything plausible, hoping when I’m completely out of the picture you'll return to her and live happily ever after! Nearly once a month you promise me after one of our knock-down drag-out fights you desperately want our love and marriage. You tell me there’s no reason we can’t work things out if I’ll be patient with you in letting Diane down easily—the right way. It’s been nearly a year since you said you divorced her, and you’ve been working so hard to let her down easy. It’s been eight months since you asked me to come back to you. Still I have absolutely nothing to go on. Now is your chance to be honest with me, to do just one thing to show me you are serious about you and me, more than just a bunch of words and promises you haven’t kept. Diane doesn’t have to know if you don’t want her to. You and Norma have that down pat. Or you can be honest with her, which I’d prefer. You can explain Sophia’s insurance coverage will be better, so you’re going to give it a try. Come on, Mark. After all, you can be insured with me, your divorced, still legal wife, or with your divorced common-law wife. You’ll have to let me know while the district has open enrollment. I think we only have one month. I’ll find out and let you know for sure.”

  Ma
rk said he’d think it over. He said he didn’t see why it couldn't work. I was very excited but had my reservations. Of course he’d mull it over with his best friend, Norma. Even so, I got my hopes up. I wanted us to be together like he said we would be. I asked him for a favor because it was the only solid, tangible move on his part that would prove any loyalty to me.

  I had one teachers’ meeting after another. In all the years I raised my seven children, I was intimidated by most of their teachers. It was always my intention to thank them for all their hard work and for their abilities to teach a million differing personalities. I thought I knew, being a teacher involved way more than educating students, but I found, actually making that happen was a completely different world. There was no end in sight: trying to acquire materials; make what I couldn’t afford; set up my classroom; label books, desks, scissors, play equipment; decide routines, lessons, transitions; make charts, copies, bulletin boards; plan lessons… Indeed, I had no idea what teachers had to go through! I felt bad when I began to understand the appreciation my children’s teachers surely deserved from me and never received. Teaching younger grades and the preparation time was (and is) much like planning and setting up for a huge conference every day for years with no end in sight. My time crunch and mega stress level were literally eating me alive.

  In addition to all the pressure, Rosamond Elementary School was being remodeled, so we had to move all of our supplies and things to Riverton High School where the children would attend classes for three weeks before we got the privilege and joy of moving everything back to the elementary school to start again.

  A few weeks before school started near the end of July, my guts started violently convulsing. The nausea was so intense I couldn’t eat but a tiny bit at a time or it wouldn’t stay down. It felt like the worst case of flu I’d ever had. Still, I couldn’t stop working, and I practically couldn’t stop crying. I was afraid I might have a nervous breakdown if I slowed down at all. Besides all the school meetings and preparations, I unwisely volunteered to sew my soon-to-be daughter-in-law’s wedding dress, and there were still a million more things to do. Without any emotional or physical support, my body was rebelling.

  From the sidewalk, I watched hundreds of children exit the buses and cars in front of the high school on their first day of school. I didn’t see how I could possibly stay, but I couldn’t leave my first-graders with a substitute on their first day of school, either. Yet I knew it would also be a true miracle if the pain in my guts didn’t cause me to faint right there in front of everyone. I’d be so embarrassed. I forced the tears to stay behind my eyes and my body to endure until I could go home.

  When I could no longer bear the pain, I rushed to the nearest bathroom. My blood-covered panties let me know my bowels were in worse condition than I ever imagined. Throughout the day I continued to layer paper towels between my slacks, panties, and me. Miraculously, with remarkable patience and kindness to my first-grade children, I finished a day that literally felt like ten.

  Mark was lying on the bed when I got home. He wasn’t feeling well either. I wanted to crash next to him and have him wrap his arms around me and make everything all right for both of us while we slept for three solid days and nights.

  I changed, put a pad on my underwear, and slid underneath the sheet next to Mark. He turned over on one elbow and asked me how my first day went. My heart raced while I wondered where to begin, when even talking was cumbersome. As I started to tell him about the months of overwhelming stress and of my day of physical agony, the tears I’d forced inside poured from my eyes. “My stomach and abdomen hurt so bad, I think something isn’t right inside of me. I’d better go to a doctor to find out what’s wrong.”

  “What’s the matter now?” Mark griped.

  I tried to ignore his cold, frustrated tone and began to explain, I was bleeding from my bowels and thought my body was paying me back for pushing it so long and hard.

  Mark jolted back and sat up on his the side of the bed. “What in the hell are you talking about, Sophia? You’ve got life easy right now! You’ve got a house, a good job and friends—you’ve got about every fucking thing you ever wished for, and now you’re bitching and complaining! What in the hell is this about? What didn’t I do now?”

  He stood up, leaned his torso over me, and shouted some more. “You know what, So-ph-ia? You’re just throwing another pouting tantrum to get your own way! This is about the insurance, huh? I didn’t get back to you, so now you’re throwing yourself a pity party! Norma warned me if you didn’t get your way, you’d pout and sulk about it! Well, I’m fucking tired of placating you and giving in to your demands and your shit!”

  Mark stormed out of our room. I found my way through blinding tears to the door. Behind the steering wheel, I sat and sobbed a billion more tears. When I could breathe and see again, I drove myself to the Sandy City Instacare.

  In our entire marriage, it had never been so clear Mark and I were a lost cause. The man on my bed next to me—the man who was raging at me—certainly wasn’t the man who claimed to love, adore, and honor me. Nor was he the man who kept saying he wanted us to live happily ever after. He wasn’t the man I’d fallen so deeply in love with nearly twelve years previously, and he certainly wasn’t the man I’d honeymooned with a few years later. That man no longer existed.

  The doctor wanted me to go right to the hospital. He said there was way too much blood for this to be a minor situation. I assured him, aside from the pain, most of my uncontrollable tears were emotional trauma.

  “That’s the reason you need to get some bed rest,” he said. “Get away from home and life’s stresses for a while. Go to the hospital. They’ll do the appropriate tests and make you have peace and quiet for a few days.”

  “There’s no way I can take time now.” I told him. “I’ve got two more days of teaching—then I can take a break over the weekend.”

  The doctor grudgingly handed me a few prescriptions to fill, along with orders for bed rest and a colonoscopy, then he warned. “You really should check yourself in to the hospital. I’m really worried about you.”

  I still couldn’t understand or justify Mark’s violent and atrocious conduct. His cruelty cut me to the core. In my codeine stupor, I sobbed and worried. How could I make it through two more days of teaching before the weekend? At least I have some pain meditation. I can’t possibly take time to rest. I have a million things to get done. Will my new insurance cover all the doctor bills and tests? Where is Lyle? I wish he could come and take me away for a while. He might if I called him—if he doesn’t have someone else in his life by now. Why didn’t I listen to him in the first place?

  As usual, there was no communication between Mark and me, only avoidance and sorrow. Why, I wondered, couldn’t he see what was going on in his mind? Treating me with such hostility should bring him to his senses. But Norma had changed his mind again. He believed and touted her maxim: “You have to let Sophia go so she can spread her butterfly wings and fly away. If she returns to you, she will truly be yours. If not, she was never yours in the first place.” What happened to her previous assertion; Mark and I were “twin rays” and belonged together forever? By then, it was obvious Norma’s proclaimed friendship from God was the catalyst of his pushing Diane and me out of the nest and replacing us with her. With all of Norma’s manipulation going on, Mark must have felt the need to literally shove me out of his life, off a virtual cliff, and hope my “butterfly wings” would carry me away, before I crashed in despair.

  You know, don’t you, Kristyn? You know the real meaning of insanity? I heard my soul say to me. Do I have to spell it out for you?

  Yes, I do know, I said. I just don’t understand how Mark can treat me so horribly and not see what’s going on. What did I ever do to deserve this kind of treatment?

  You don’t, Kristyn! That’s just it. You don’t deserve any of this, my soul maintained. Can’t you see what you are doing? You are begging and fighting for a nonexistent cause�
�for your children, for your posterity, and for dreams that aren’t meant to be.

  You are right! I concede, I said firmly to my soul. I’ve done everything I can possibly do to make this marriage work. I’ve kept every promise I made to him before I came home from Cedar City last December. I’ve trusted in him and his godforsaken promises way beyond reason.

  I’d gone back to him at least seven times after his insidious behaviors toward me. Yes, that was totally crazy. Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results was truly the definition of my insanity.

  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I haven’t listened and honored you, I told my soul, my heart, and my aching guts. I’ve got to let go and move on with my life. I will. I’ll do the best I can to leave.

  From the previous December to August my “runaway train” had taken off many times. When things were tough, it beckoned me to jump on board and head for sanity and serenity somewhere far away from Mark’s cabal of influence. Sometimes it moved tauntingly slow, and sometimes faster, depending on the journey. But at the “waiting station,” when it was at a complete stop, I’d given my all.

  *****

  The doctor handed me a few pictures of my colon. There were several caved-in pockets full of tiny, bright red and white pustules.

  “It’s no wonder you’ve been bleeding so profusely,” she said. “You’ll have diverticulitis forever, Kristyn. All we can do is treat the symptoms. Watch what you eat and take your medication. Read this pamphlet. It will tell you what foods to eat and what foods to avoid. Oh, yeah, and avoid stress! It triggers these little blastulas to act up all over again.”

  “No, I won’t have it the rest of my life,” I said under my breath. “I’ll take care of me. I’ll move on. I’ll be happy and healthy. I know I can heal this too.”