“Yes. Alec has another wife.”
The warmth of a continual stream of tears roll down my face as we walked. I could tell Dari was sorry about the situation. In a soft reassuring voice, she said, “Hold your head up, and stop crying.” She said, “Everything will be alright.” I really did hope so. I had no other choice.
Dari said, “I should have come to the hotel to see you.” I said, “No. It’s okay.” Her mother had just passed away and was buried just yesterday. It never crossed my mind that she would come to the hotel to see me. If anything, I’d think she wondered why I didn’t come back to the house to visit with them. Well, she knows why now.
Dari said, “Ana, call me when you get back so we can talk.” I said, “I will.”
Back home to NY, Alec, his mom and I went.
Sometime later in the month, Alec and I were away again. This time it was with his family and in Pennsylvania. Remember, I said Alec and I used to travel a lot. We traveled often. This time Alec’s mom and his great niece had an adjoining hotel room to Alec and me.
One of the evenings when we were there, I was on my laptop, planning an upcoming vacation for Alec and me. He was lying in the bed and was reading a magazine. I was happy at the moment, and was totally engrossed in the arrangements that I was making. Oh, how I love vacations. They are so heavenly. When suddenly, Alec said something that made my temperature rise, and my blood boil. I flipped a lid.
He said, “What about your sister-in-faith?” What? No he didn’t (go there).
I shouted, “What about her?” How could he have thought to mention her to me?
Alec either didn’t notice the apparent change in my tone or he just chose to ignore it because he continued and went ahead to tell me about Carolyn’s need for a vacation, too. He said either she takes one too or he’ll have to make up the days with her. I was now so angry that I didn’t care that his family was in the adjoining room. Screaming, I said,
“I can’t believe we are here, planning our vacation, and you have the nerve to talk to me about that stupid *itch!”
Needless to say, nothing more was said between the two of us that evening. We called it a night and went to sleep.
On to the next day in our journey. We are back at home, and our marriage is back on a schedule. I can tell you that settling into polygamy is awkward. As the world turned, our marriage turned, rotating on a schedule. It was still three nights with me and then three nights with her. It went back and forth, round and around. That was how Carolyn and I shared Alec.
My life had become a revolving door. Sometimes I anticipated it while at other times, it hit me as being something foreign that I had to do but didn’t know how to. I had lost complete control of my life, and it was in a fast forward, downward spiral. Who has a marriage on a schedule? Or, I should say, who has a marriage on a schedule beside Carolyn, Alec and me?
Every now and again, Carolyn’s name would come up when I was with Alec. It wasn’t just from him. Sometimes I would mention her. While at other times, he would. One evening while he and I were having a pleasant conversation, he informed me that he would be away on a business trip for a few days.
He was scheduled to be with Carolyn for the next three nights. Now, I understood that he’d be on a business trip for three days following his time with Carolyn. Because of this and per our marital arrangement with regard to the schedule of three nights here and three nights there, I surmised that upon his return from the business trip, he’d be with me for the three nights.
To my astonishment, the date he said that he’d come home to me was nine days later. It just didn’t add up. I rolled around the information in my head and juggled the figures; three days with Carolyn; three days on the business trip, and then back to me.
Whichever way I rolled it in my head, Alec should be at our home six days later. It’s possible he made a mistake. I didn’t express that thought out loud, but I decided to ask him straight just to make sure we were on the same page.
“Are you telling me that I lose my days because you will be on a business trip when you’re scheduled to be with me?”
“Yes.” Now, why did he have to go and say that? I so wished that he had a different answer. This was a horror show. Just moments ago I was calm, but that calm was now replaced by something else. I totally lost it on Alec and that’s putting it mildly. I freaked right the hell out. I exploded. I said,
“No.”
I said, “It’s not my fault that you have to go on a business trip or that the time of the trip coincides with when you’re supposed to be with me.” I rightly wasn’t finished with him just yet. I said, “After the business trip, you come back here for three days.” Alec didn’t give any response, so I went right on with my monologue and kept yelling.
I said, “Are you crazy?” I was beginning to think that something was seriously wrong with him.
He said he didn’t know. He didn’t say he didn’t know whether or not he was crazy. He said he simply didn’t know how the whole schedule worked. He seemed very sincere when he said it.
Well, I didn’t care if he was sincere or not. Neither did I want to be burdened with what he did or didn’t understand. It was not my fault that we were in this situation in which we had to schedule our marriage, and I told him just as much.
I said, “If you can’t figure out a simple schedule, you shouldn’t be in polygamy.”
He said, “I didn’t try to take your days deliberately, Ana. I just didn’t know how it was supposed to work.” He said, “I went online to see if I could find out, but there wasn’t a whole lot of information out there about it.”
Was his answer supposed to make this better? If it was, it definitely wasn’t working. I was too through with dealing with all the nonsense. It was totally ridiculous to me.
I said, “Well, yeah, that’s because there aren’t a whole lot of people out there engaging in polygamy and getting saddled with drawing up schedules!” “It’s why there isn’t a lot of information out there about it,” I said.
Why didn’t Carolyn stand up for what was right? Was she stupid or crazy too? She should have known enough that he should be back with me after the business trip. Maybe she knew but thought Alec’s ignorance was bliss for her, because she benefited from it.
Alec wasn’t going to just let the issue of outlining the schedule die. When he returned from his business trip, he asked me to communicate with Carolyn and make the schedule.
I guess living polygamy was becoming more complicated than he had imagined. Even though I wasn’t very happy with Alec right about now, I could see how making a schedule for Carolyn and me, in addition to planning other events in his life had become overwhelming for him.
I struggle to find the right words to describe what I thought when he asked me to prepare his schedule. I needed time to process what he had asked of me. He was very reasonable and seemed to have taken my feelings into consideration. He apparently realized that he needed help, which is why he wanted Carolyn and me to communicate with each other about the problem.
“Just tell me where to be and I’ll be there, Ana.” Well, I was not in a mood to be reasonable with him. The idea was ludicrous, and I had no intention of going along with it.
“No! I’m not going to do it.” How did Alec think it was feasibly possibly? How exactly was I supposed to do this? More importantly, why should I have to deal with making his schedule? I didn’t ask for this lifestyle. He did. Therefore, he can deal with the attending issues that come with it.
I’ve never spoken with Carolyn. I certainly don’t like polygamy, and I never had the intention of ever living it. He wanted to live in a polygamous marriage, so he should be able to make the schedule. In fact, Alec asking me to do it was simply bizarre. I wonder if he ever once thought about what he’s putting me through or is it all about him?
Before Alec married Carolyn, he and I used to watch the HBO Original Series, “Big Love,” together on TV. The three wives in the series used to sit at a table and fig
ure out the husband’s (Bill’s) schedule. Maybe that was where Alec got the idea and was thinking of implementing it with him, Carolyn and me. He, Carolyn and I are real life. He must have gotten lost in his imagination to think that I would do anything with Carolyn.
Carolyn and I were contrasting women, and we both led separate lives. We have different wants, needs, and desires. Maybe we could have worked around the differences in our personalities, if we liked each other. But we didn’t. Rather, we despised each other. Thus, I wonder how two women who are so opposed to polygamy can come together in harmony and make a workable schedule as Alec asked.
Living in a polygamous marriage on a schedule was terribly exhausting and psychologically draining for me. To begin with, I never wanted it. I had never asked for it. That didn’t seem to make any difference because here I was, a part of a lifestyle that I never wanted, but it was forced on me, nonetheless.
Living polygamy went somewhat like this for me:
Alec comes home on the first day of my three days. When he arrives home, I don’t appear happy to see him. It’s not that I am not pleased to see him, but a range of other opposing emotions usually take precedence. It means, when he comes home, I act somewhat cold, bitter, angry and aloof towards him. It’s all quite natural, not staged in the least.
On the second day, the story changes a bit, and I begin to relax with Alec. Alec and I settle in and get nice and cozy with each other. The sense of knowing and familiarity returns. After all, we had been doing familiar for over five years. Actually, we begin to have fun on the second day. It’s as though I’m in love all over again.
It takes a downward turn on the third day. The coziness of the second day becomes a distant memory, and I become sad. Maybe as a self-protective mechanism, I distance myself from Alec on the third day. On the third day I realize that it would be our last evening together before he revolves back to me. He leaves for work the next morning, not to return for three days.
Becoming familiar with Alec one day, really getting to know him the next, and then having to say goodbye to him after the third, while tearful, shaking uncontrollably, and upset brought me heartache. It was disturbing. Yet, it became my routine. It was excruciatingly painful, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Think about it. To say goodbye to someone whom you love is tough on a normal day. I had to do it regularly, without any end in sight. I couldn’t get beyond seeing that it was to be my life.
That wasn’t even the worst of it. It was most awful when my days overlapped with Carolyn’s. You couldn’t imagine. For instance, if Carolyn’s last night happened to be on a Saturday, he’d leave her to come to me late Sunday afternoon. On the days when that happened, my imagination got the best of me.
I kept thinking and wondering, did he have sex with her that morning or that afternoon before he came home to me? Thinking about him having sex with Carolyn was agonizing and nauseating. It was extreme torture. No woman wants to envision her husband having sex with another woman. No matter how hard I tried to rid myself of the awful thoughts, I couldn’t.
On days like it, Satan always had a jolly good time with me. One could say that Satan set up shop in my head. I imagined Carolyn and Alec having a relaxing late Saturday night soiree together. The pictures in my head had them wrapped up in each other’s arms while watching TV.
Another popular one was of them having brunch together on Sunday. Did he have sex with her right before he left her? I remember what I did with him during my Saturdays and Sunday mornings and early afternoons. How do you think I came up with the scenario?
The pain from those thoughts that I couldn’t control was unbearable. The thought of living that routine repeatedly was going to destroy me, if I didn’t find a way to cope with it better. It wasn’t just something that existed in my head. It was real to me.
My vivid imagination saw Alec in his pjs or naked, climbing into bed with Carolyn. It was something that he had shared only with me for the last five years. Suddenly, it was a way of life that another woman was privy to with Alec. No woman wants to imagine her husband in bed with another woman. The thoughts of it continually plagued me.
The next Saturday was the beginning of my three days with Alec. Alec came home early in the morning, around nine o’clock, from Carolyn’s place. Never in a million years had I expected him to be home so early. The normal thing was for him to come home after a day at work or come home later in the afternoon if it was a weekend. Coming home early in the morning was out of character for him. I was happy he had arrived so soon. I was pleasantly surprised.
I later learned that apparently it wasn’t going to be the routine. The next Saturday that Alec was supposed to come home to me, he didn’t come home in the morning. I was up, prepared and waiting for him. I had thought it would be the same as the other Saturday that he arrived early.
I watched the clock, and I practically followed the advancement of time. Morning came and passed without me hearing a word from him. The early afternoon was ushered in and it was the same, Alec hadn’t gotten in touch with me.
I called his cell phone, but it went directly into voice mail. I kept calling, calling, and calling him. After I had been calling him for a while, and it kept on going to voice mail, I was furious. From that moment on, my voice mail messages to Alec, of course, were mean, hateful and nasty. I paced the floor. I was on edge and anxious. I wanted to strangle him.
He came home that evening around six o’clock. I was angry at him when he got here, so I didn’t talk to him for hours. Alec was also angry with me. He was angry that I totally ignored him and wouldn’t respond to him. I couldn’t understand why he cared that I didn’t talk with him. I’m sure he spoke with Carolyn all day. What’s the need to talk with me?
In fairness to Alec, he and I hadn’t discussed what time he’d change shifts, so to speak. I had only assumed that because he came home earlier on a Saturday, he would do it again. Now that he hadn’t, I was anything, but nice.
What I was putting myself through was going to drive me mad. I was far from calm. My expectations had put me in a frenzy. I wish I hadn’t put a burden on myself by expecting Alec at a certain time. Just because he had done it before didn’t mean he’d do it again. Anyhow, the same as always, we gradually found a way past it and talked to each other again.
Whenever Alec was with Carolyn, I constantly thought of the two of them and what they may be doing as a couple. Nothing that anyone said in an effort to make me feel better and not think of the two of them made a difference. It was as though their words of encouragement went into one ear and came out the other. It wasn’t registering.
It seemed as though I was a shell of my former self. It was difficult even for me to believe that I was once a very lively, happy person. I was a cheerful person who usually was in high spirits. I was always smiling and upbeat. I’m more of a reserved, refined kind of person but even with that, I used to have good times with the few, very close friends whom I had. What happened to that fabulous woman? Nowadays, I was hard pressed to find her.
My dearest and most precious friends were my wali Ali, his wife, and their family. We had been together, conducting business, learning Islam, and going through trials and tribulations for over twenty years. They were my family, in their own right.
Ali tried to help me accept polygamy and to stay focused on God. I respect Ali a great deal. I value what he says, and I listen to him most of the time. As with a lot of things in my life, my relationship with Ali changed too. It wasn’t that I didn’t respect Ali any longer. I still did.
The difference was that now when Ali spoke, it seemed as though I wasn’t there. My body was there, but I wasn’t. I was some place else far away and in a fog. I could hear his voice echoing in my ears, but I didn’t hear his words.
I barely smiled anymore. I managed to smile only when I was expected to. Greeting someone was a time that warranted a smile. Other than it, my smiling days were fading.
Joy deserted me, and I had none
to speak of. Sadness became my constant companion, embracing me in its emptiness and not letting go. I simply wasn’t myself, and I didn’t know how to go about finding me again.
It saddened me to see that Ali was sad as well. He once mentioned to me that when I hurt, he hurts. In all the years of our friendship and all the storms that we had weathered together, it was the first time that he was unable to help me.
Does Anyone Care About Me?
Sometimes to keep my mind busy while I was at work, I’d telephone my mom; one of my sisters; Alec’s mom or his cousin Dari and speak with one of them for a while. The problem arose in that when I mentioned my polygamous marriage, I’d get upset and my body underwent a rapid change. It was the strangest thing.
I was upset to the point that my voice changed, and I didn’t sound at all like myself. It was as though another voice took over. It wasn’t something that I set out to do intentionally. It just happened on its own. I had no control over when and how it happened. It was hard for me to get my words out, but, surprisingly, I didn’t cry. Everything was all bottled and tangled up inside of me. I thought, who is this person speaking?
I made a conscious effort to remain calm every time I spoke to anyone about Alec’s marriage to Carolyn. But somehow, no matter what my intentions were or how hard I tried, the other voice always emerged. I knew others detected it, as well. My mom noticed because she’d say, “I know you’re upset, Ana.” “I can hear it in your voice.”
As to be expected, my mom was upset about what Alec had done. A mother knows her children, and she knew the effect that it was having on me. She’d say from time to time,
“Alec’s going to pay for what he’s done to you.” “He’s committing adultery.”
My mom is a Christian and doesn’t believe in polygamy. Even though my mom was of the opinion that Alec was wrong and was hurting me in the process, she was still cordial to him and treated him kindly. She didn’t change how she communicated with him, neither did she show any dislike for him. She didn’t bend over backwards thought to pretend that nothing had happened. She was even-keeled when she was around him.
The Silent Tears of Polygamy Page 8
