The Silent Tears of Polygamy

by Robin Johnson

  Although my mom kept her game face on when she was with Alec and me, I’m pretty sure that she reacted differently about Alec when she was with my sisters or others. I’m almost certain that my mom and my sisters had a lot to say about it when Alec and I weren’t around them, and I’m almost certain that none of it was nice.

  My middle sister, Charlotte was the one who was the most vocal about the situation. She didn’t bite her tongue when it came to expressing her feelings and thoughts about anything. She simply said it exactly the way that it was to her. It was a good thing that she didn’t meet up with Alec when he first became polygamous. She would have had a thing or two to tell him. It would be enough to make his head spin.

  She’s the type of person who would unapologetically get in his face about it. Charlotte and I had different temperaments. I liked that she spoke her mind. It was one thing that I loved about my sister the most. When dealing with Charlotte, you could be sure that there were no holds barred. She was straightforward.

  Although my mom and my sisters weren’t Muslim, they were always there for me. I could count on them to fake being understanding and caring even if they weren’t.

  One can always count on the unexpected to happen. Although I had moved on from my recent encounter with Asiya (Alec’s ex-wife), I was soon to find out that it wasn’t the last between us. One day Alec came home, and he let me know that he had spoken with Asiya, which isn’t uncommon. He stated that Asiya said, “I feel bad about how I treated Ana.”

  “She is a very nice person,” Asiya said.

  Personally, I didn’t have any ill feelings towards Asiya. I held no grudge against her. I now knew that she was okay with me, too, so I decided to call her on the Eid (the Muslim holiday). I telephoned her to wish her a “Happy Eid.” She returned the greeting and was very pleasant to me throughout the call.

  Of course, somehow, our conversation steadily shifted focus, and we got to talking about Carolyn. Asiya had a lot to say about the current situation, and she went ahead to say it. She said,

  “Alec is committing adultery.” She said, “Alec, Carolyn and you would be living as a family if he was truly married to her.”

  She proceeded to let me know exactly what she thought of the matter. As far as she was concerned, in an ideal situation, Carolyn and I would live near each other, communicate well with each other and would even babysit each other’s children, if we had any. As we weren’t doing any of it, and instead we were doing the exact opposite, she was convinced that Alec’s marriage to Carolyn was not a real one.

  I couldn’t refute what she had said. I thought the same, and it seemed to be the sentiments shared by all Muslims who knew of the situation. The marriage just didn’t seem right from an Islamic perspective. Islam is what polygamy should be about based on my knowledge of Islam.

  According to Asiya, I would have consented to Alec’s marriage before it took place. There, we had a difference of opinion, although I didn’t voice it. A husband doesn’t have to get his wife’s permission before he becomes polygamous. It’s not a prerequisite.

  It is expected that the husband would consult with his wife about it, knowing it would be a lifestyle change for her. Her life as she knew it would be entirely different, so he owed her that much. He needs to discuss it with her. Permission, on the other hand, isn’t required.

  Even though I agree that Alec didn’t need my permission before he married Carolyn, I knew something was amiss about the way that Alec, Carolyn and I were living. I had never lived a polygamous lifestyle before, but the way that we were living didn’t feel at all like what I thought it should be.

  I mentioned earlier that my wali, his family and I are best friends. We love one another and take care of one another. I imagined a polygamous family would be the same. I envisioned that we would consider one another as family, and we’d be there for one another as much as we possibly could. To the contrary, Carolyn appeared to me to be Alec’s mistress.

  Alec’s mom and I had a wonderful relationship. Alec’s sister had died several years ago. When he and I got married, his mom unofficially adopted me as her daughter. I was more of a daughter to her than a daughter-in-law. We had a beautiful relationship.

  During this time, she was sincerely worried about me and said it to me a number of times. She said that she didn’t approve of what Alec had done. She said she doesn’t believe in “sharing a bed.” That’s how she worded it. She said she dealt with a ‘cheating’ husband, which was why she divorced. Alec had gone right ahead and done just that. He shared a bed with someone whom his mom didn’t view as his wife, so he was wrong in her book.

  Alec’s mom was a Christian the same as mine, and she thought as my mom did. She used to get annoyed with me when I spoke of Carolyn as being Alec’s wife. She would say, “She’s not his wife.” “Why do you call her that?” I didn’t reply. I wanted to be correct from an Islamic perspective, although there was no Islam in what I was involved in.

  His mom let me know that Alec had come to her and wanted to talk about Carolyn. She let me know the answer that she had given him right back, which was that she didn’t want to talk about Carolyn. She furthermore let him know that Carolyn was not welcomed in her home. I don’t know if she was trying to reassure me, but she said it to me often.

  She said that Alec had humiliated himself by being with Carolyn at the same time that he was married to me. I never doubted her sincerity when she spoke with me about it. She was a proud woman who commanded respect in the social arena. She was in the public eye a lot. She has a doctorate degree and is well known in the community. She let me know that she expected more from Alec than what he was now mixed up in.

  I noticed that his mom was concerned when I appeared sad. For instance, if Alec left the room and was on the phone while we were at her house, she’d worry about the effect it had on me. She knew I assumed that he was on the telephone with Carolyn. She’d give me that stare that I’ve seen before that let me know she was disturbed. It made me sad to see her sad.

  I never doubted that she’d keep her word, and there was no indication that Alec ever took Carolyn there. She mentioned that Carolyn had come to the home once, and Carolyn had gone upstairs with Alec to see his niece. His mom said that they left without him bringing Carolyn in to see her.

  I doubt that Alec’s niece, Kayla took a liking to Carolyn. Kayla is very particular about befriending someone. She strongly dislikes Asiya and doesn’t hesitate to lets her know it. When I first met Kayla, she was a bit intimidating. She scrutinized me and sized me up well before she opened up to me and embraced me as family.

  I liked that his mom was supportive of me. She tried to be fair and didn’t just side with Alec because he was her son. She did her best to get through to me and to console me.

  She said that sometimes people get themselves into a situation that they have a difficult time getting out of. It kind of led me to believe that she thought that Alec had made a mistake, and he realized it but was in a bind and didn’t have a way to get out of it. She said, “Don’t get me wrong. I love my son.” I think she didn’t want me to get the wrong impression from her speaking out against him. I totally understood where she was coming from. I didn’t doubt that she loved her son.

  My colleagues must have noticed a change in me as well. I’m sure they could hear some of my telephone conversations. Although they didn’t know I was in a polygamous marriage, they probably thought that Alec was having an affair.

  I cared that my co-workers most likely were listening to my conversations. I’m a very private person the same as many people. I, nonetheless, didn’t care enough to stop talking on the phone while I was at work. I would love to keep my private life private, but I had to speak about it to someone. There was an urgency, and I couldn’t wait until I got home to talk with someone about it. I was in a desperate state of being.

  One early evening, after I left work, I stopped by my younger sister Elouise’s house to chat with her for a short while. I thought that
I had my emotions under control, so I brought up the topic of Alec and Carolyn. I thought I could do it, but who was I kidding?

  Soon after I brought it up and talked about it, I broke down and burst into tears. It wasn’t my intention when I had decided to stop at Elouise’s house. I didn’t need a shoulder to cry on. I just wanted to have dialogue about it; I suppose.

  I had hoped to have a nice time with my sister before going home, but it didn’t go the way that I had planned. I kept apologizing and telling her that I was sorry for becoming so emotional. I was thoroughly embarrassed and humiliated. I was downright mortified.

  My sister tried to comfort me as best that she could. She isn’t a very affectionate person. I know I must have put her in an awkward position. She said to me that she wishes she could be emotional the way that I was. She has a hard time showing emotions. I said to myself, is she for real? She wouldn’t want to be an emotional wreck, if she knew what it was like. Anyhow, I pulled myself together and when I was calm enough, I left and drove home.

  Another time, I was home alone in the evening. Alec was with Carolyn. I called my sister Elouise on the phone, and she realized that I was extremely upset. She came right over. She, fortunately, lives only minutes away from me.

  I was terribly distraught and couldn’t stop crying. I was hysterical and I said, “I don’t want to live anymore.” Understandably, I must have scared her when I said that, because she immediately called my wali. Ali drove at lightning speed to my house.

  When he arrived, I had calmed down significantly. He, my sister and I went for a short drive to a nearby coffee shop to get coffee. I waited in the car while they went in. Things seemed okay and on an even keel. That was until my wali approached the car, carrying the coffee. He peered through the window at me with such a sad look on his face that had a close semblance to pity.

  I must have appeared pathetic for Ali to look at me in that way, and it made me sad all over again. A dam suddenly ruptured within me, and I immediately burst into tears all over again. I lost complete control and was wailing.

  They drove me home. Of course they both would have to get back home to their families eventually. I couldn’t expect them to make life all about me. They stayed until I was stable enough for them to leave.

  I spoke to my wali the next morning, and I was a whole lot calmer now, so it was possible for him to have a lucid conversation with me. He said, “I thought it was all over for you last night.” “I thought you had a nervous breakdown.” He stated that he was so worried to the point that he couldn’t sleep last night.

  Alec must have realized by now that the transition from monogamy to polygamy wasn’t going to be easy unlike what he had thought. Even though sometimes I wasn’t doing it maliciously, every night that he was with Carolyn, I’d call him on his cell phone. One night I called him, and I was hysterical. I pleaded with him to come home. He didn’t.

  He called me at home the next morning from work. I had stayed home from work that day, knowing I’d be unable to function there. I had been up the whole night sobbing, and was despondent. As a direct result of my endless tears, my eyes were heavy. They were puffy and were awfully swollen. I was a wreck, generally. At least, I was thinking clearly and knew there was no way that I could have gone to work looking the way that I did.

  Alec said he was just calling to make sure that I was okay. Sometimes when Alec talked to me now, I just couldn’t believe that he was saying what I was hearing him say. Was he kidding? I had sounded so not okay when I had called him last night. What did he think? that by some miracle, I was now fine? Well, I was not okay. Just hearing his voice made me hysterical again.

  “No!” I said. “I’m not okay. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t function. I can’t even go to work.”

  “How could you do this to me?” “Didn’t you care about me?” “Didn’t you care?”

  “You didn’t even care about me,” I said softly and in a faint, fading voice.

  Suddenly and quietly, Alec sobbed and gently hung up the phone. Shouting and crying took all my energy, and I was terribly exhausted by now. I couldn’t have stayed awake even if I had tried. Now, it was so easy for me to drift off to sleep. That was a good thing. Even if it was just for a few hours, I got to escape from this madness that was all of a sudden my life.

  My calls to Alec during the nights that he was with Carolyn went from being pitiful to hateful. I called every night on her nights. I didn’t just call. I left terrible, profane, abusive messages for Alec. He always answered and spoke with me until my conversation went from being cordial to offensive. At that point, he would then hang up and let my messages go into voice mail.

  That didn’t stop me, nor did it slow me down. I left message, after message, after message, until I got tired and eventually heavy-eyed enough to drift off to sleep.

  A couple of times when Alec arrived home to me, he said that I had made him feel so bad while he was gone. He said he started to come home to me a couple of nights and one night he had said to Carolyn, “Ana isn’t handling things well at all.” According to him, she said, “Well, maybe you should go to her then.”

  I could only imagine what she would have gone through, if he had taken her for her word. Had he left her to come to me, only God knows how she would have reacted.

  With time, I no longer had an obsessive compulsive need to call Alec while he was with Carolyn. It was simply too tiring, and it drained me. On the nights that he didn’t hear from me, he’d tell me that he had wanted to hear from me and would have preferred it. He said, at least that way he’d know I was okay. He said he worried about me if I called him or not, and the result was that he lost sleep.

  I had lost focus on God during those many nights. I had deviated from the path and focused on a human being who couldn’t help me and had become the source of my pain. It is inevitable that at certain points in our lives, human beings will leave us. God promises us that He remembers those who remember Him.

  I remembered Alec more than I should have and, consequently, I was being negligent in the remembrance of God. God is the only reality. God is the only One who truly matters. Remembering Alec was to my detriment, and I was behaving badly and was suffering as a result.

  Not only Alec and I were in this situation. So, how was Carolyn holding up during it all? How was she adjusting? I knew she and I both were suffering. I asked Alec how she was doing. He said that she was upset and angry. He said that he was upset about having hurt the two people whom he cared about the most.

  I asked Alec why Carolyn was displeased. I wanted to know what some of her thoughts and feelings were about being in a polygamous marriage. I wanted to know if she was suffering in it the same way that I was. He said that she kept saying, “I thought it was okay. I thought it was okay.” “I know how I’d feel if it had happened to me,” she said.

  If she knew how she would feel had it happened to her, then she should know how I am feeling and what I’m going through now. If she kept saying to him that she thought it was okay, he apparently gave her the impression that I’d be okay with it, despite knowing that I wouldn’t be. He didn’t care about any one other than himself. I said,

  “Didn’t she ask what you thought I’d feel, think and do before you did it?” Isn’t it a reasonable question that she would have asked.

  He said, “Yes. She did ask, and I said, I don’t care.” He said it to me with anger and loathing in his voice. I got the distinct feeling that Alec resented me, and that marrying Carolyn was a sort of punishment for whatever wrong he thought that I had done to him. If it was his mission to inflict pain upon me, he had accomplished it.

  I immediately became defensive in reaction to his anger. Whatever Carolyn was experiencing, she, too, deserves it. She had no right to feel anything, other than gratitude for having a husband. She knew what she was getting into before she became a part of polygamy. She agreed to it. Those were my thoughts, and I let Alec know it.

  He said, “She thought she knew.” W
ell, I wasn’t taking that victim kind of answer. I insisted that she should be alright with polygamy. She entered the marriage knowing that Alec had a wife already when she agreed to marry him. How is it that now she has a problem with him being married? According to Alec, she had said something along the same line about me. Except her point was the fact that I had been a Muslim for all those years, so she thought it should be easy for me.

  Really? I didn’t understand her thought pattern. Her conclusion was so far from reality. She was totally off base. Yes, I am Muslim. I’m also a person who had become comfortable in my marriage. I was living the American dream. I had the fairy tale. I had a husband to myself.

  Why should I naturally be okay with it when my marriage suddenly became polygamous? Whichever way I ruminated on it, I just couldn’t equate how being a Muslim for twenty years was the same as my husband suddenly telling me that he was going to be polygamous. And it wasn’t that I had a lot of time to prepare myself for this big change in lifestyle. No, it all had happened within a few weeks. Did Carolyn really think it was that simple?

  My next question was how Alec could think to entertain Carolyn’s attempt to rationalize her position. He knew that I was staunchly against polygamy when I met him. It was not a feeling that I kept to myself. I shared it with him, so he knew exactly what my thoughts and feelings were about the issue. He knew what my stance was. This was something that we had discussed many times, not only before our marriage but during our marriage.

  Alec had assured me that he didn’t want any part of polygamy for himself. It was the most important deciding factor for me to marry him. Fast forward a few years later and I’m stuck living the exact lifestyle that I didn’t want. And somehow, Carolyn thought it was okay simply because I’m a Muslim. Well, Muslims are human too.

  Nevertheless, she said it should be easy for me. I said it should be easy for her. Things deteriorated with no reasonable compromise. We debated it individually with Alec. She continued to say that she thought it was okay, and that I wouldn’t mind. Well, I do!