Vicki Darger is married to Joe Darger, who is also married to Alina Darger and Val Darger. They and their 20+ children live in suburban Salt Lake City.
Many people's reaction to plural marriage could be summed up in one word: yuck. They assume the men are perverted or have a huge ego or are overly sexual. Quite the contrary: If a man has any of those characteristics, his plural relationships are not likely to last. I certainly wouldn't stay with Joe if he had any of those traits. I'm not here to be a toy for a man, nor are my sister wives. Most men don't enter this lifestyle so they can have more sex; rather, they have a sincere sense of a higher purpose. I'd rather share Joe than have a hundred men of lesser quality to myself. I consider Joe to be a monogamist. He is faithful to me, and faithful to the people I expect him to be faithful to.
I've learned during my darkest times just what a gift this lifestyle can be. After a five-year break between pregnancies, I had trouble conceiving my seventh child, and then had a miscarriage. I feared my childbearing days were over, but I finally got pregnant again.
I was extremely excited at the prospect of once more being a mother to a newborn. My relationship with Joe was at an all-time high, and my interactions with Alina and Val flowed easily. My life seemed perfect.
But something felt off right from the start of this pregnancy. My morning sickness, severe from the outset, never let up. I also was plagued by constant headaches and exhaustion. A sweltering heat wave that summer made me feel miserable. I couldn't sleep at night because I was too hot; as a result, I was too tired to get up early enough to exercise, which always made me feel better during my pregnancies. The final link in that chain of consequences was that I gained weight. And it was all Joe's fault! Joe couldn't win no matter how hard he tried to meet my emotional or physical needs.
I couldn't stand myself, but that didn't keep me from lashing out at Joe, which added to our strained interactions. Our nights together were filled with tension, and instead of taking time to talk and connect, we would tumble into bed exhausted. It didn't help that as my relationship with Joe withered, his relationship with Alina blossomed. For the first time in my life, I wondered if I had the strength and staying power necessary for plural marriage.
I was a grueling ten days overdue when labor began, and it was the roughest delivery I'd ever experienced. That rigor of delivery led to a much slower recovery than I was used to.
That's when my emotional spiral really began. I was on a crazy-train I couldn't get off. I'd go to my closet to get dressed while the baby slept and end up on the floor crying for long periods of time. Every thought and emotion I had conflicted with another. I didn't want Joe anywhere near me; I was upset when he stayed away. I knew something was wrong with me, but I was unable to accept any help or advice from my well-meaning mother, sisters, and sister wives. I wanted to get out of the house; I wanted to stay shut in so no one would see how much weight I'd gained. I wanted God's help, but I had a hard time praying.
I needed help, and I finally got it when I hit bottom and took my family's advice to seek outside assistance. I began getting vitamin B shots weekly, started exercising again, and joined a support group for women from the polygamous culture. The therapist (who was not a fundamentalist) helped me understand more fully how crippling pregnancy-related depression can be.
In the end, what got me through this rough time was the steadfast devotion of my husband and my sister wives. They never gave up on me. They saw me at my worst and still loved me. When I was unable to give my children all the attention they needed, Alina and Val were there to make sure they were cared for and loved. Joe never stopped listening or walked away, even when my criticisms stung. I came out of that experience more grateful than ever for my family and for the resilience of my relationships.
Living in a couples' world, as I call it, makes our lives harder than if we were part of a community that accepts plural marriage, such as Centennial Park in Arizona or Pinesdale in Montana. But even in those communities, there are many different approaches to relationships, just as there are in monogamy. Some women have completely separate lives from their sister wives, with very little interaction. Some live near each other, but not together. And some live just as we do, all in one house. At the personal level, there are some women who have domineering personalities that affect their relationships with their spouse and sister wives, but alpha females who dominate relationships aren't exclusively found in polygamy.
In our family, we don't have any sort of hierarchy among the wives. When Val came into our family, she instantly became a full and equal partner. We've created a marriage that is a true collaboration, which ensures that our opinions are valued, our needs met, and our lives tightly linked together.
Living the way we do, all in one house, can be stressful, no doubt about it. Did sharing a house with Alina and Val add to my struggles when I was deeply depressed? Maybe. But I also couldn't have survived that time without Val's support and understanding, or without Alina's unyielding patience, her help with my children, and her faith in me. It works for some people to live together, for some to be married, and for some to love another person of the same sex. None of those relationships is immune from the challenges we've faced in our family. But this is the lifestyle that works for me, the one I've chosen.
This post is excerpted from "Love Times Three: Our True Story of a Polygamous Marriage."
WATCH:
Engy Abdelkader: American Muslim Sister-Wives? Polygamy in the American Muslim Community
Your need to pathologise other people's lifestyle options is unfortunate. There is nothing wrong with someone having love for more than one person.
My partner is in love with two men. I am happy for her. I have the greatest respect for the other man in her life. I certainly do not feel as though there is anything wrong with anyone in our family structure. It is not about religion, it is not about having multitudes of children - it is simply about recognising that people can love more than one person and celebrating the joy that this gives to that person.
By the way, most certainly we must each live according to our own conscience, laws or no laws. We do not disagree on that.
Not in this case. Read this excerpt: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/14/love-times-three-our-true_n_962606.html "We’ve never received welfare or relied on food stamps."
if they all wore their hair the same way. They look like identical triplets.
What's with that ?
However, it's clear you haven't actually read the book, or even read the whole post. This man does not get to choose who he is with - he has to go to whatever bed he is scheduled to go to. The women make the schedule. He doesn't even have a bed or a room of his own.
BTW, Draupadi had 5 husbands. She had five sons, one by each of the 5 Pandava brothers!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/2716_PandavaDraupadifk.jpg.jpg
Too many relationships are harmed because one or the other partner discovers feelings for another person and assumes that this means they must not love their original partner. I say hogwash to that. Feelings of love are human.
Try to honestly consider this - when a second child comes into our lives, do we suddenly reduce or stop loving our first child? No, of course we don't. Love is not a single channel option. Institutions that date back to ancient times seem to want us to think of marriage in that fashion, particularly the Greco-Roman model of woman-ownership.
But modern society does not need to be so profoundly limited in its scope.
I have never been happier - and no, we do not see ourselves as sharing a wife. The word sharing simply does not apply - that implies some level of ownership. We have the same woman in our lives and that gives us a common bond, which is a positive.
And please, try and avoid the apparent need to express power positionings regarding the doling out of approval or disapproval regarding other people's lifestyles. Is that necessary?
Many people seem to think multiple partner relationships are all about sex. Yes, partners have sex - but let's face it, it is normal for marriage partners to have sexual relationships - dualistically arranged or poly. It is a constant thing about humans. Just because there are more than two people in a partnership doesn't mean the whole thing is based on sex though.
Love and support are constant. My partner discovered her capacity to love more than one man by surprise - not through religion. There is way too much justification of this lifestyle based on religious for my liking, as none of us have strong religious attitudes (quite the opposite for a couple of us in fact). It is about humans being humans. Interestingly, she has encouraged me and the other man in her life to consider the possibility that we too might have the capacity to love more than one person. Neither of us have acted upon this, but it is something that we are open to.
What the F?
If somebody had 20+ cats, they'd be called mentally ill, a "hoarder".
Connect the dots.
What conclusion should I draw about her having so many cats and her amazing life accomplishments?
I wonder, though, if plural wives like Vicki feel compelled to keep having one baby after another in order to stay relevant in the marriage. The sentence "I had trouble conceiving my seventh child" kind of ran into a brick wall for me- what, you haven't fulfilled your duty with SIX?
It also occurred to me that this won't likely get a sympathetic reaction from women who've had great difficulty conceiving ONE.
I think you have taken on a marriage with extra stresses - many extra stresses. I hope you continue to find support from those OUTSIDE the plural community to strengthen yourself and enable you to continue to be in touch with who you are and cope during the different phases of life as we age and our family dynamics change. I am so glad you did so when you were suffering from depression, because I know of many women in plural marriages (and traditional marriages) that do not get help for themselves and things do not end as positively.
With sister wives, there is a built-in support system that is strong, stable, and more available than any other friend or relative usually would ever be. Sometimes you don't actually need a man - you need another woman.
I do realize that monogamous relationships are done for religious reasons, and that you meet the challenges they present as changes to strengthen character and refine good qualities like love and generosity and forgiveness. But those are very high expectations to put on oneself! : ) I am very glad you are happy - that is what counts!!
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Those aren't the only two possibilities. What about a third: have Joe to yourself. And is sharing Joe your choice, or Joe's?
To those who say consenting adults should be able to live as they want, I say the husband is the only consenting adult in this group. The three wives are adults who were indoctrinated by their religion. They had no other choice but to live this way.
The husband was cheating on her with the first, and she accepted. What woman with 6 children thinks she has options?
"have a hundred men of lesser qualify to myself" - You CAN'T have a hundred men to yourself and you know it....
But I must say I'm not as botherd about not having children as some women. I really don't think this is about sex- it's about family. Because I saw this in my husband's family from Palestine.