A Tale of Two Houses, Part 1

One of the greatest changes that occurred in our family was that we split up into two houses. After eleven years of living in the same house, we divided up the family. I still have mixed feelings about it.

This is how it went down:

Most plural families we know live in separate houses. But this is something that we were always against. I can't tell you how many families I know where the children barely consider their siblings from a different mother their actual brother or sister.

Imagine that you are a man with five wives. Each one lives in a separate house on different ends of town. Your twenty children are interspersed between these five houses. Your children barely see each other, so they don't develop that bond between each other that family should have. When they see their siblings, it's more like seeing their cousins.

On top of that, the husband must divide his time between these households. That means that the wives don't see him every day. That means that the children are raised without their father, for the most part.

This scenario is typical in Mormon plural marriage. And it was not something that I wanted for my family.

I wanted the children from both wives to grow up together as brothers and sisters. Moreover, I wanted to see my children every night and spend time with them.

I was fortunate enough that Martha and Temple both felt the same way. So we have lived in the same dwelling for eleven years.

Sadly, that dwelling is a trailer (as has been shown on TV). We have made do the best that we can with what we have. With only three bedrooms, the wives each had their own room with the children interspersed in between.

For years, this worked for us - especially since we only had a few, small children when we entered the Principle. But small children soon become teenagers, and teens definitely take up more room. I began to receive complaints from my wives about the cramped space - mainly in the cooking and cleaning area. The kitchen and dining room were too small to accommodate all of us. And I had two wives with very different ideas of keeping house.

My father once advised me that - to keep fairness - I should be the one to create cleaning schedules. But I always felt that my wives are big girls and can arrange their own schedule. They don't need me to monitor them, to become their taskmaster, and treat them like children. No, not for me!

And yet, the housekeeping was a big source of tension. In fact, it was THE biggest source of contention in my family.

Martha and Temple had always got along. They still do. But for the first time in my marriage, their relationship was becoming strained. They argued more. They complained more about who was supposed to do cooking or cleanup, whose kids got into what snacks, which kid made which mess. It was becoming bothersome.

So we prayed for larger space. Literally. We offered a prayer to God, and asked Him to grant us larger and better living arrangements. We were amazed at how quickly we were answered.

If any of you saw the show we did on History Channel, you might remember that we did part of the filming up on the hill next to our house, and our neighbor came up and started shouting at us, demanding that we leave?

Well, those neighbors left. They vacated their homes and sold their property. They sold the property and moved out of state.

Meanwhile, we got to know the new property owners - a very nice couple, who also live out of state. Because they live out of state, they are not always on their property to take care of things. As a result, they experienced a series of burglaries.

We live in a very rural part of Arizona. There are plenty of meth labs, and, along with that, plenty of meth addicts who raid empty houses. (The largest real estate market in our region are secondary homes.)

Our neighbors had several houses on their property, and someone kicked in the door and stole virtually everything, including a brand new washer and dryer. They became concerned about more burglaries, and so they asked if we would actually move into one of their houses in exchange for keeping an eye on the place, watering the trees, etc.

It was obviously a very good deal. We went up to look at the house. It was kind of a wreck, and needed alot of work. There were three bedrooms - not very big, just like in our trailer. But there was a large living space. Fairly big kitchen and dining room, and a big living room.

BOTH wives immediately started to campaign to move into the house. Not only that, my extended family started politicing about which wife should move into the house.

My father taught me something about plural marriage a long time ago. He said, "At some point, you will have to make a decision that will make one, or both, wives mad at you. In this case, you must make the choice that is fair."

Tune in tomorrow, and I will tell you what I did. In the meantime, ask yourself: what would you do??