50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Page 46

  I took my doctor’s advice and began hiking and playing more. A friend and I started taking line-dance lessons on Wednesday and Friday nights at a club in Salt Lake. No matter how busy and crazy life became, I could count on those fun times as exercise and healthy outlets away from stress.

  Another big stress relief was my son Jake’s change of heart. He was going through a divorce and wanted to talk. He said he never did really understand why he was so angry with me. He just was. It meant more than the whole world to have him back in my life again!

  Mark sensed my change of heart. I was keeping busy, breathing and rapidly letting go. When he became himself for a few minutes, he asked me to forgive the stupid things he’d said and done. Another time, he promised to make things right. He’d get off Diane’s insurance and get on mine as soon as possible. He said he was sure it was the best thing for both of us—it made sense we should be partners in everything.

  I wanted to be shot to the moon! I was proud I didn’t fall back in his line again. I made a pact with myself to be kind no matter what. I continued to move in my own space and direction and didn’t expect for one minute he’d keep that promise either.

  Aside from the feelings flying around everyone, I enjoyed our son Jack’s marriage to Norma and Jared’s daughter. At the wedding, I was single. I took off my shoes, danced up a storm, laughed and visited with friends and loved ones. While Diane was busy lining up her children, Mark, and herself for family pictures, I listened to my friends’ dismayed comments. Through the whole evening Mark never said one word to me. It was as if we didn’t exist to each other. It seemed everyone with even the slightest negative emotion covered them well, for our kid’s joyous occasion.

  Near the end of August, during a Friday-night line-dancing lesson, my friend and I sat with a few ladies we were getting acquainted with between dances.

  “Would any of you ladies like a rose?” We looked up to see a beautiful, dark-complexioned young woman holding a bucket full of long-stemmed red roses.

  “How much are they?” my friends and I asked in unison.

  “Just three dollars each,” she replied.

  All of us told her no thanks.

  “Here, I’d like to buy four of them,” a man said as he approached her, holding out some cash.

  While we continued to gab, the young woman pulled out four roses and handed one to each of us. “That man over there said to tell you” —she shifted her shoulder in the man’s direction— “that these are for you beautiful ladies.”

  We turned and mouthed a thank you to the man, who was by then sitting across the room, watching us as we made our way back to the dance floor. His wink aimed in my direction made me blush a little, but I ignored him.

  I had met Tom once before. About three weeks earlier he asked me to dance. “Only once,” I told him. “I’m married, and we girls have a rule of thumb—‘If you don’t want anything going on, you won’t dance more than once with the same man.’” He and I visited a little while, as I fumbled around a two-step I barely knew how to do. On the way back to my table, Sam told me to let him know if I were to ever be single.

  Even before Mark’s attack about the rose sitting on my windowsill, I wondered why he even came to our house any more. All it did was stir things up inside us, until both of us felt like we might gag. He looked at me like a forlorn puppy begging to be loved. I wouldn’t talk to Mark about anything. I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

  Enough is enough! I reminded myself every time I wanted him to understand how he’d messed us up—how he should fix things and love me more than Diane’s feelings and Norma’s “friendship from God.”

  Ever conditioned to live with heartache and ill treatment, my ego would implore—for hell sakes, Kristyn, you have seven kids together and a bunch of beautiful grandchildren! You two practically grew up together and have been through the pits of hell and in the realms of heaven with each other. With all the insanity, a tiny thread of the unraveling umbilical cord still remained.

  *****

  I looked in the rearview mirror at the lines left on my face by the past few years. Why in the world did I tell Tom after dance lessons I’d meet him for dinner? This is really stupid!

  I blotted my tears with a tissue. Can I really go home with him just to, once and for all sever the cord binding me to Mark? What a mistake that would be. How sleazy I would feel! And what if Mark did decide to make everything right?

  My word, Kristyn, you are thinking crazy thoughts again! My head shouted. You know things won’t change. Just sleep with the guy! Then you won’t ever be able to go back for more crap from Mark!

  My cell phone rang. It was Mark’s number. My heart began to leap out of my chest.

  “Can we talk right now?” he asked in his deep, kind voice.

  “I’m in West Valley at the mall,” I told him. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Will you come home right now? I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Elation filled my mind when I called Tom to cancel my dinner date with him. On my way home, I had to jerk my lead foot off the gas pedal a few times. I hoped beyond hope Mark would tell me he was sorry for getting so freaked out about the single red rose, for calling me a cheat and a liar. In total lunacy I pictured another romantic reunion. I imagined he’d be telling me he now realized Norma was controlling him. He’d promise to completely end his relationship with her so we could at last work things out without her interference. The itty-bitty thread of umbilical cord was pathetically tuned in and hopeful. By the time I pulled into our driveway, I’d already created a “happily ever after” scenario in my head.

  The glum look on Mark’s face sliced my crazy hopes in two. I plopped myself down on the opposite end of our sofa and faced him. “What’s up?” I asked pleasantly.

  “I need to know why you lied to me about the rose,” he said.

  “We’ve already been through this, Mark. Is this really what you called me home for?”

  “I know you lied to me about it, and I want to know why!” he demanded.

  “I told you a young lady who was selling roses gave one to four of us women. I didn’t tell you a guy paid for them because there was no reason to. It had no meaning other than it was a beautiful rose!”

  “You brought it home. You put it in a vase in our window. So it must have meant something to you!”

  “Oh my gosh Mark! It’s just a rose. Is this really what you called me all the way home to talk about, again? Why? So you can beat me up for not throwing it in the stranger’s face or in the garbage can? I should have known you wanted to shout at me some more. I shouldn’t have driven all the way home to subject myself to your madness again.”

  “I’m sorry, Sophia. I can’t deal with the idea of another man giving you flowers. That’s been my joy, my way of showing you love and appreciation.”

  I didn’t say anything. How long had it been since Mark brought me flowers or showed me any love and appreciation, other than as a conflict resolution? I wanted to be the one to run out, slam the door, and fuck him off like he’d done to me so many times that year. I never wanted to speak to him again! But I just sat there and wondered why. What on earth was I waiting for—to be physically beat up this time?

  Mark moved across the couch, closer to me, and started his apologies yet again, for not being there for me, for yelling so much, for saying such terrible things—things he never really meant at all.

  “Norma told me not to ever yell at you again,” he said. “I promise no matter how pissed off or angry I feel. I won’t take it out on you or yell at you ever again.”

  With that insolent proclamation, he again declared to whom his heart and loyalties belonged. His pledge of willpower hadn’t come from his own desires and determination. Neither had his affront come from my endless appeals, of begging him to stop raging because he loved and cared enough to quit hurting me so damn much. After all this time, with all he’d done, and said in Nor
ma language; this promised had also been requisitioned by her!

  I just sat there, waiting.

  This is the insanity we were talking about, my soul interjected.

  I know, I said, but maybe, just maybe this time?

  My ego’s words to my soul made me feel embarrassed and noxious. I’d listened to those same words from women in abusive relationships who went back again and again, hoping and dreaming, “If only he would . . . If only I could make him understand . . . Maybe this time . . .” And there I was waiting—waiting for what?

  You do know how to end this marriage, and stop this insanity. My soul directed. I listened and obeyed.

  “Mark,” I finally said after a few minutes of dead silence. “It’s been nearly two months since you told me you’d take yourself off of Diane’s insurance and get on mine. You swore you would do something to help solidify our marriage.” I could see his anger rising in the color of his cheeks. “Then you said you would be sure to tell me when you did, so you wouldn’t accuse me again of being a nag if I asked. But you didn’t keep that commitment, either. You didn’t even have enough respect to tell me you didn’t keep—”

  He cut me off. “That’s because I knew you wouldn’t put me on your insurance! And after you did you’d divorce me and cut me off of it anyway. That’s why I didn’t take myself off Diane’s fucking insurance plan in the first place! At least I can trust her!”

  YOU finally did it! My soul applauded, just as my whole being literally felt the last strand of addiction snap in two.

  “It’s alright, Mark,” I calmly said. “I knew clear back then, you would dismiss me, and another promise you made. And it’s all okay, because you are the one who chose not to love me enough to make us work. I’ve done the best I could possibly do to keep my promises to you. I have no more hope and nothing more to give to us.” I got up on one knee, leaned in close to his face, and proclaimed, “Enough is enough. I am through waiting!”

  I calmly walked out our back door and drove away. I—Sophia, me, Kristyn—didn’t even cry! I started to cross the railroad tracks going farther up our foothills but stopped right on top of them. I looked in both directions. The runaway train had egged me off and on from my birth and throughout fifty years in polygamy had finally derailed! It could no longer haul me off to hell or run over me while I tried to jump it. Nor could its toxic exhaust stifle me in that waiting station. I finally got enough courage to pull the switch and end the insanity. It no longer frightened or tempted me. I no longer needed to run away from anything or anyone. I drove straight across—another gigantic step toward a new life.

  At one of Mother Earth’s hallowed spaces, I dropped to the warmth of her ground and basked in her glorious sunshine. There I contemplated my fifty years in polygamy—my fifty years full of sorrow and joy.

  With all my heart and soul, I used to sing the LDS hymn “How Firm the Foundation.” Yet in all I had written and so much more, I knew the foundation I was raised on never was firm from the very beginning. It started with too many cracks and flaws. With each newly discovered truth, the few fragmented and remaining pieces were also turning into dust.

  I thought of the many women who confided their torments while living polygamy—women young and old, who still believe and live that lifestyle because they have to—otherwise they surely wouldn’t. There are far too many so-called happy women who’ve been abandoned in more ways than one, living in loneliness, poverty, seclusion, fear, and torment. Most “happy,” sacrificing women pray every day of their lives to the God I grew up with, to make them more tolerant, submissive, sweet martyrs for His gospel. Like me, those Stepford Wives put on their smiley faces and exude happy looking righteousness all over the world.

  Like most polygamists, I really believed I was happy in trying to live God’s commandments. However, the tiniest glimpses of genuine truth and love I’d begun to see, after I wanted to die, let me know I wasn’t happy. Happiness certainly wasn’t the hell playing out all around me in the name of sacrifice, in exchange for a “someday,” an “if,” or a “when.”

  I was born into a religious belief, with oppressive rituals. The beliefs of seven generations held me fast. As time went forward the imps who used to chase, torment, and threaten Mom and me with guilt and shame just up and quit coming around anymore. My soul told me they never did exist. They were only there because I was told, and then believed they were there. They were created by a religion that dominates and buries souls with fear; threats of demise and bribes of eternity.

  In truth my deep, dark depressions were there to get my attention because I was too busy wallowing in the upbringing of my ego to honor my soul, who was screaming, Wake, up Kristyn—Sophia girl—and all you other beautiful women out there who believe you have to live that delusional, crazy-making, male-ego-devised scheme!

  We were told to ignore our soul’s whisperings, our heartaches, moods, and warnings. We were told those promptings were evil. We should fast and pray those feelings away! We were to pray more, for love, understanding and the courage to be happy in our “blinded bliss”!

  As I gradually dismissed each demeaning dogma of my old religion, I embraced more genuine love for myself and others. Every day since, I have found more divine happiness than I ever dreamed possible! With my awakening I am better able to deal with the sorrows and trials of this life as well. I know I am out of the hell I’d chosen to experience. And I will carry those life lessons with me in my eternal progress.

  CHAPTER 49

  What Happened Next

  2002–2013

  I wish I could say the next several years of my life went smoothly. Though I was happier and more content in many ways, my soul knew I had a few more arduous years before the calm.

  A few dates with a few guys for a few months, and then I reluctantly had a steady. Happy was a gentle, round-faced, professional dancer. We started dancing (or tried to) a few times in November. By January we found ourselves, as well as others, considering us “partners.”

  I always loved dancing. The Allred Group stomps were the highlight of my life. So when I started dancing twice a week in the summer of 2002, it became my sanity. In line dancing, I could add my own spins, twists, and turns. Besides, I’d never been very good at following anyone’s lead. But once Happy taught me several partner dances, I wanted to dance more and more.

  Unfortunately, the time I spent dancing with him, as well as teaching and being with my family and friends didn’t entirely squelch my feelings for Mark. On January 6, 2003, I wrote in my journal: “I’ve been having a tough time the last five or six days. I keep thinking of Mark. I miss him and wish we could have made things work. I dreamed of him twice in the past few days. The energy between us was warm and fuzzy.” But as always, one has to give up on wishes that aren’t meant to be.

  In the spring I took my son Keith, who was nearly sixteen, and moved into a tiny, two-bedroom apartment in Draper, leaving our big, finally finished house fully occupied with eighteen-year-old Anne, our oldest son Jake, his two children, and several of our kids’ friends. Mark moved back in as well.

  Sure enough, Norma received another “vision” to spiritually nullify her marriage to Jared. According to him, her spirit guide told her she’d been married to her “teacher” long enough. Now it was her turn to be his teacher. In Jared’s eyes, Norma was a true saint and goddess, because no matter how devastated she said she was to have to leave him, she had the courage to honor her convictions. He claimed she would take upon herself a “cloak” of celibacy, and moved forward without him.

  To afford my apartment, I returned my leased car and started driving an ancient Toyota Tercell. It had no heat, no air conditioning, and no working windows. It was a rusty dull gray, just like a tin can. I thought I’d gone so far backwards in life, I cried for nearly three days. But as I put my things away and made the small apartment a home for Keith and me, I rejoiced in my quiet serenity.

  From there, Mark and I had a semi-cordial relationship, unless his do-
good friends egged him on again. In another one of those bizarre moods of his, he swore he’d never give me “one single penny of alimony.” He’d quit work and sue me for support if he had to.

  I said, “You don’t have to worry, Mark. I don’t want one single penny from you ever again. You know I’ve already been and will continue to be fair with you, no matter how you treat me.”

  In July 2003, right before our legal divorce was final, an old friend asked me to stay with her in California so I could meet her brother, Bart. After a few long visits at their parents’ home where he was living again, and after a dancing date, Bart and I decided we wanted to see each other again.

  Happy was a good man with good intentions. He cared deeply for me, but I always felt like his consolation prize rather than the number-ten gals he was always checking out, and the one he still seemed to be waiting for. He was also embarrassed by my newfound joy for life—what I called my wild natural highs. He didn’t want me to discuss my polygamous past with him or his friends either. With those issues and his lack of interest in my family and grandchildren, our Friday dance dates and sleepovers came to an end after eight months.

  In September, Mark and I drove to the Salt Lake County courthouse to see our appointed judge. He asked if we were in agreement with me in a tiny apartment and him in the huge house, and within a few minutes he proclaimed our thirty-three-and-a-half-year legal marriage was over.

  Mark and I couldn’t speak most of the way home for fear we might break down. In so many ways, it seemed like such an unnecessary divorce. The only thing he said was, “Two people who love each other as much as we do should have been able to make it through hell and all the way back.”

  All I could say was “It’s obvious our love was not enough.”

  *****

  Bart rolled out the red carpet. We talked a million hours on the phone. He drove all night to surprise me. We spent the night and the next morning together before he drove all the way back to the Bay Area to get to work in time. In October he surprised me with a five-day trip to Hawaii, after we’d already spent a few days and nights at the luxurious Benbo Inn, in Northern California. He lavished me with love, laughter, and gifts.