A Tale of Two Houses, Part 3

I heard a maxim from a polygamist years ago. Really, it was so long ago, that I really don't even remember who told it to me, but I remember what he said about his wives and housing them:

"I keep them together until they are begging to be split apart, and then I keep them apart until they are begging to be brought back together."

So suddenly, I found myself flitting between two houses. When we all lived in the same trailer, it was one thing. I didn't have a room of my own. Now it was like I didn't have a house of my own. When I got back from the fair circuit in October, I had been living out of my bags for three months. I just kind of kept living out of my bags.

It really proved to be a challenge.

I have always mentioned that the most difficult time of living plural marriage was the first year. I didn't know what I was doing, but - whatever I was doing - it seemed to always piss of one, or both, of them. I couldn't do anything right. Then after a year, it seemed to get - well, not easy - but doable.

Splitting my family up has proved to be just as challenging. I moved back to that place where I don't know what I am doing, but whatever I am doing is making a lot of people upset.

First of all - dinners. Every wife has always taken care of breakfast and lunch for her own children. And usually the girls rotate cooking nights, where they cook enough food for the entire family and we all sit down together. When Temple works during the school year, and since she is the only one in the family that has a real job, she doesn't cook dinners. Martha does the cooking. And when the school year ends, we go back to each wife trading cooking nights.

(Some of you might be wondering why I don't cook. Trust me. I wouldn't want to inflict that kind of masochism on my family.)

I always felt very strongly that having dinners together was a crucial part of maintaining unity in our family. That was one of my observations when we lived in a United Order. The sense of community, the sense of family was there when we ate our meals together in a common area. Then some women began to complain about the cooking and cleanup, and the United Order stopped eating together and ate in their separate homes. In my mind, that was the decline of the order. There was never the same sense of togetherness after that.

Based on that experience, I knew that, if I was going to hold the family together, we would need to still eat a common dinner together as one family. No matter how inconvenient, I resolved to abide by this rule.

Little did I know that my resolve would be tested...

Already, I was seeing the results of this division in my family. There is a tradition in my extended family that we have a potluck at my mother's house every Sunday. Every family is supposed to bring a dish. One Sunday, Martha made a casserole for the potluck. When Temple showed up for the potluck, one of Martha's preteen sons noticed that Temple arrived without a dish, he made a snide remark, "Where is YOUR dish?"

What this statement showed me was that - even though I was working hard to maintain our identity as ONE family - there were some in my family that were viewing us as separate.

To keep that identity, I was finding that I had to work constantly. For instance, on my nights with Temple, some of my kids with Martha would walk the 2.34 minutes between houses to come up to Temple's place to either see me or visit with Temple's kids. Temple would always get annoyed when they showed up and order them to go back to their house.

Now, I understood Temple's reasons. She is fastidious. She is squeaky-clean. She maintains order in the house in almost an OCD fashion. (Many of our arguments involve where I put my dirty clothes or discard my shoes.) Temple didn't want the kids to come into her clean house and dirty it up. That's understandable. But it started to feel like Temple never wanted the other kids over at her house.

I had to put my foot down. If I was going to be living in two separate houses, if I was going to be away from my kids 50% of the time, I needed to have an open-door policy. My kids should be able to see their dad whenever they want, no matter which house he is in. So I put my foot down with Temple about my kids coming to see me. In fact, for a while, I had to put my foot down every time the kids came over. It has improved lately. But Temple will still emit a snort whenever one of Martha's kids walks in the door.

So, dinners.... Martha would cook the dinners, and bring the food over to Temple's much larger dining room. That's where we would eat dinners together. But Temple would complain about the mess. Kids spilling food and not cleaning up after themselves. People using her dishes and then not washing them. Or if they did wash them, not washing them to her standards. And Martha started complaining about cooking food at her house, and then having to make arrangements to have that food transported to Temple's house.

So I had BOTH wives not liking the arrangement. BOTH wives wanting to have meals separate from each other. And there I am, knowing what the result will be. It makes me tremendously sad and heavy-hearted.

Yes, there are benefits to having two houses. More space. Not as much chaos. But at what price? I have to honestly say that I DO NOT LIKE having my family in two, separate houses. I dream about having the means to obtain one, large house that can accommodate all of my family.

As of this date, we still eat together. I would like to say that there is a happy ending, but plural marriage is a daily struggle. It is not all sweetness and light. It is a constant, uphill battle. Some days you win, some days you lose. I am a man who loves his family with all of his heart and only wants us to be together.

Anyway, there is much more to discuss - including more TV experiences, which I will discuss later. Have a great day!