Confessions of a Polygamous Husband

The Life and Times of a Groom and His Two Brides

My wives and I lead pretty normal lives, but what about the child brides, the lost boys, the welfare frauds? Simply put, this kind of polygamy is rare and getting rarer.

Karen, 64, is a retired biology teacher who I met in the pre-arthritic days of competition ballroom dance. Lisa, 49, and I met at an accordion festival. Karen and I had talked at length about expanding our household, and Lisa was the sister she always wanted to have.

I’m a writer, 62, and an ex-teacher. I keep a blog about our family and polygamy at polygamynow.blogspot.com. Why? Because a lot of people find polygamy to be either fascinating or repulsive, and I’d like to show them what it's like for me.

The Life of an Everyday Polygamist

We live in a compound - white collar, high-tech, democratic, leaderless, and cooperative. We celebrate births and mourn deaths together, share large meals on occasion, and it’s small town.

Our household has a rhythm to it. Karen and Lisa have worked out who’s cooking dinner and Lisa’s sons, my stepsons, join us for dinner. Karen’s sons are grown, and I have no children of my own. Over dinner, Karen and Lisa decide who I’ll be sleeping with that night. Sex in polygamy as I know it is the same as sex in two monogamous marriages, only different. Once the novelty wears off, it’s still a shared loving experience.

They both know where I am at night, and are reasonably confident that if I ever thought of straying, I would bring her home for them to meet. You always have a built-in mediator. If I fight with Karen, Lisa steps in. If I fight with Lisa, Karen makes me make up. For some reason, Karen and Lisa never fight.

There are also economic incentives. It’s easier to buy and use large quantities. It’s easier to share cars. Karen and Lisa are the same size and share clothes. When Karen contracted breast cancer, now in remission, Lisa took daily care of her for a year. The two of them are inseparable. Their relationship with each other at times seems stronger than my relationship with either one of them.

Polygamy feels so natural to us now that it’s difficult to remember how things were. The bottom line is that polygamy isn’t about religion or sex, it’s about family.