After my trip to Chicago to visit Abby (who is such a lovely person and so kind) I decided to take her advice on something. I called the bishop from our old ward. I've gone back to church. It's hard. There are stares and whispers behind my back. Everyone looks at me with either pity or mild disgust, maybe distrust. But I'm trying. I'm hanging in there.

I told Bill that if I couldn't be number one, be THE wife then it was over. I can't live with him wanting a fourth wife. Weber Gaming...gambling! It's just so wrong and goes against everything I thought we as a whole believed in. He actually wanted me to take a seat on the board for Weber. No. Just no. I can't do that. Yet again trying to pit me against Margene or Nicki. He promised her Weber (and she can have it, really) and now wants me to oversee that too?

I've all ready been accused of making her my baby machine, I'm getting called names for that too. She wants Weber and those 'normal' people, fine. She can throw all the dinner parties she likes with them. Maybe this Ana woman can be her babysitter. I won't even get into her 'calling' of being a surrogate for the neighbors.

We've moved out of the house. I'm using the monthly allowance from Bill's paycheck to rent a two bedroom apartment. It's small and the girls are sharing a room, but it's not bad. Sarah's boyfriend, Scott, helped us move some of the furniture over. Cindy has actually started calling me on the phone. She wants to have lunch next week.

I've talked to the principle of the school I subbed at last year and it looks like I may have another subbing job come late fall. I'm glad, though it's going to make finishing my own classes harder. It's a job though and better than having to rely on Bill. He's not pleased, of course. He's giving me the silent treatment when we are around each other. And he has Benny wanting to stay with them.

Ben is breaking my heart. I make him stay with me on the weekends at least. He has to sleep here. I'm not going to lose my son over this. I won't. Sarah's much happier though, we talk now. More than we have been. She's not ready to go back to church with me, but at least she smiles now.

I'm worried about Teenie. She misses her brothers. I took her with me when I went back for some things, thought that playing with Wayne for a while would cheer her up. Margene was clueless as usual and chattering away about nonsense. Nicki? She's acting angry but I know she's hurt. If I'm being honest, I miss her. We've been through a lot together. I don't miss Margene at all, I've never had anything in common with her beyond sharing a husband.

Oh this is such a mess. I'm sorry to whomever has read through all of this. I'm trying to figure out where I am and where I need to go. How to best get there. I want to be the me that I was before I got sick. That it has to be me without Bill still scares me. I love him. I miss him, but I think I miss the him from before I was sick more than I miss who he is now.

http://www.shadeclothing.com/

Sometimes I really enjoy shopping on line.

If he thinks he is adding a fourth wife, ooooh!

She'll sleep in the basement and she is NOT getting any of my nights.

She can have Margie's nights since Margie likes to poach on my time. And if Margene's is so willing to have a fourth wife, she can sleep in HER basement.

I know I said I wasn't mad this time, but oh I am so angry at her. She slept with him on my night. In front of the open window too, according to Nikki. Not to mention we all have to HEAR her with him. Then she won't back me up when I put my foot down? No, she even goes and tattles on us to Bill. She is such a child. I'm married to a child.

Bill wants his 'me time' and that's going to take away time from the children too, you'd think Margene would at least care about that. These kids need to spend time with him, I think Ben's problems have made that crystal clear.

That's it. I'm making Margie come shopping with me tomorrow.

I was looking through our calendar, making some notes and adjustments to the schedule (I'm not getting into that again, it just makes me so gosh darned angry) and I realized something.

It's been five years. Five years. I've reached that one big milestone of being cancer free for five years. They say that's when you are considered cured. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm happy of course, to be healthy. I think maybe this is part of why I've felt this push lately to be...more. Go back to school. Make changes. Stop fooling myself about Bill.

[locked from everyone save Abby]

I don't feel like I'm free from cancer though, which makes it hard to celebrate. Physically, I'm fine. The doctors did their job and removed every last bit of it. My uterus, my ovaries are gone and the disease too. I came to terms with that, I think, when Nikki had Wayne. I don't get to make any more babies with my husband.

But this life, this marriage...The Principle. Polygamy. It's like cancer too, one that is eating my soul. It destroyed my marriage to Bill. My relationship with my mother and sister. My church. My happiness. Now I've realized what it's starting to do to my babies.

Benny, maybe I should just call him Ben now, he's not a baby. He's sixteen. And oh my gosh, how he broke my heart this week. He's been having sex with his girlfriend. Sex. He's sixteen. He doesn't know what he's doing. His spiritual center, his purity. Chastity...gone. I cried. I sat in the bathroom and cried as I heard him tell his father that he's a deviant. My baby boy. He feels dirty and wrong and hurt. I don't know how to tell him he's not.

I blamed Bill for this. He's our priesthood holder in this family. Our spiritual leader. It's his job to instill the RIGHT beliefs in our children. He didn't uphold his promise to us, to me, that he'd do this when we had to leave LDS. I trusted him with my babies. And now this has happened. And I let it. I'm just as much to blame as Bill, maybe more because I don't believe in what we are doing.

The Bishop from our old church came to see me about Ben. I hated to sit there and lie to the man I used to trust with everything. I told him things were fine. That I'm inactive because we haven't found the right church in Sandy. If I told him the truth I'd be excommunicated. I'd deserve it, but I couldn't bear it. So I lied. Again. I've become such a good liar in the last five years and it hurts me almost as much as anything else does. The Bishop told me I was welcome to come back to the church, I had a place there. I can't tell you how much I wanted to go with him.

Oh...I know this must all seem muddled and crazy but it's all tied together. Ben, the Bishop, Bill. We had to talk to Benny about the visit, about putting us all at risk of being caught. Bill had to talk to him about sex. About sin. And my Ben, my brave, tender-hearted baby, he thought he could fix this all by getting married. At sixteen. He doesn't even know what marriage is but he thinks he does. He wanted to marry the girl and save his soul. Then he said if she's not the one for him, it was okay. He'd just get a second wife later when he found someone he loves more than the first one.

That's how he see . His mother is someone his father didn't love enough so he brought home another wife. He doesn't know, he doesn't understand any of this. The Principle his father believes in, he hasn't taught his son anything about it. It's just sex to him. Is that all it is to Bill too?

I feel like I'm in a nightmare I can't wake up from. I have to wake up.

[/locked]

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to make it official, but it's been five years. It's sort of liberating.

What have I done?

I can't sleep tonight. Bill was supposed to be here but Margie is having a tough time with the morning sickness this evening and the boys are a handful. I said he should go help her out. Ben volunteered, but I just am not comfortable with him sleeping somewhere other than his own bed.

So I'm awake and Teeny is sprawled across my bed. I'm going to miss it once she's too old to do that. She always has been my affectionate one. The cuddler.

I've been sorting through photographs and trying to put them into albums. I thought these might be fun to share...

( The old me... )

My thoughts are so scattered right now. I keep thinking about before, how happy and easy life was. And I can't stop thinking about the complicated mess that we are dealing with right now...I thought the pictures would cheer me up. Somehow I feel more sad. And lonely.

I think Bill wants a fourth wife.

I think our family has just grown by another member.

From: Barb@HenricksonHomePlus.com
To: Abby Dubenko <alockhart@ccgh.com>
Date: June 12, 2007
Subject: Catching Up

Abby,

I know it's not proper letter etiquette, but I just cannot address something as "Dear Abby" to you. How are you, sweetie? I feel like a louse for not keeping in better touch with you. I've just been so...

Distracted, maybe? I've been swimming a lot, developed a love of crossword puzzles and Bill says it's depression. Everyone else thinks I'm just acting nutty.

I think...I think maybe I want to go back to school, a Masters Program. In social work. Is that crazy, at my age? I'm 43. But I need a change. Something for me. Am I nutty?

Barb

I had uterine cancer seven years ago and it metastasized. A radical hysterectomy and brutal doses of chemotherapy still left me feeling, and believing, that I was going to die. I had to let another woman into my life, into my family. I had to because I could no longer take care of my children, run my household and be a wife to my husband. I couldn’t even care for myself in the beginning.

I had conversations with God, with Death. I bargained. Let my family be all right. Let this younger, blonde woman love them and care for them all as if they were her own. Let my husband find love and solace again. Let all of that be and I’d meet the Father with a feeling of peace.

Here’s the funny, maybe ironic, thing: I obviously didn’t die. I got better. Recovered. But I think that God was listening to me back then anyway. Those conversations, the bargains I offered to make. How do I know this? I got everything I asked for. My family is all right. Nikki Grant does love my children and Bill found love again. With her and now with Margie.

The only thing I didn’t get was the feeling of peace in my soul. Maybe I asked for too much. Or was it not enough?

She was running late and couldn’t find her necklace. Again. Last time Bill had returned it to her without anyone noticing. This time? Maybe she wouldn’t be so lucky. With a sigh she stood and brushed off the knees of her slacks. Ran a hand down the length of the bedspread on the freshly made hotel bed. Why she felt the need to make the bed after their midday romp was beyond her. Habit most likely. You have an untidy bed; you make it.


Dinner with the whole family. Smiling and passing the potatoes and jello around the table. What did Ben do at school today? Wade? Margie told everyone that Lester said his first words. Nikki complaining that she needs a larger monthly budget. Kids chattering and trying to hide the fact that they aren’t eating their vegetables, not an easy feat when you have three mothers watching you. Afterwards, doing the dishes she said good night to Bill, to Nikki. Watched as they walked across the backyards into Nikki’s house. It was her night with him. What was Margie saying about Oprah? Barb just nodded distractedly.


She’s in bed, alone. The house is quiet, perhaps a little bit too much so. Then the phone rang. Without saying anything she picked up the receiver and smiled. It was Bill. Their whispered conversation made her feel naughty and seductive. Riske and bold. Special. He was hers again, all hers and she didn’t have to share him with the other two. Not when they cheated like this. She was getting all the extra time and attention she deserved. She had him first.


It had to end. It was wrong, a lie. She wasn’t entitled to the sneaking around, wasn't above the other two women. She had agreed to this, the lifestyle. The Way. This is how things were supposed to be, God’s plan for his people. She told herself these things as she thought about how to tell her husband that they had to end their affair. Told herself that this is what she believed in her heart of hearts to be true.

But it wasn’t. And that’s where the guilt came from. She felt like Margie and Nikki stole her husband from her. Took away her right to be loved, special and sacred in his eyes. It made her feel selfish for wanting these things back. Wanting him all to herself. She was guilty of wanting a monogamous relationship with her husband. The realization was enough to make her soul ache some days.

One man, one woman.

One man, two women.

One man, three women.

For me, marriage keeps evolving. I grew up believing that marriage was between a man and a woman. A sacred commitment between to people full of love for each other willingness to devote the rest of their lives to that commitment. I had just that for nearly a decade. One man, Bill Henrickson, was entirely mine. No one else could lay claim to him, call him husband. I loved him; he loved me. We were enough for each other.

Then things happened. Changed. I got sick and we realized that I might not survive the cancer and even if I did, there would be no more children for us. Our three would be it for Bill. I’m not really sure when or how he finally managed to convince me that marrying Nikki was the right thing to do. I loved her for what she did for me, taking care of not only myself but my family, my children and even my husband. Bill, I think, loved her in an entirely different way and for different reasons. I’m not sure if that really matters any more, or if it even mattered back then, the point is that it wasn’t simply Bill taking on another wife, it was me too. I married Nikki just as Bill did. She married us both. Our commitment was a three-way devotion.

And again when Margene became part of our family, our commitment to each other grew once more to include a fourth spouse. Another wife for Bill, a sister-wife for Nikki and I. The three of us may all essentially share one man, but we have a bond between us too. We have the same give and take, the compromises that any marriage between a single man and a single woman faces. We bicker, we make up. Stress over finances, struggle with the question of having another child. In some ways it’s no different. Just larger.

Word Count 332

Strawberry milkshakes. They just make everything easier to swallow. Really, and I’m not making a bad pun here. Milkshakes after a disagreement, some bad news or just ugly reality smacking you in the face really can make things seem a bit better. Nikki and I have shared more than a few of them. It’s a guilty pleasure because I don’t even think about bringing enough home for everyone. I just park the car and sit there and drink it.

Expensive fabric. I sew, I find it relaxing and rewarding to create something with my own two hands. Everything from costumes for school plays to a tailored business suit for myself. If I have a pattern I can sew it. I even own my own dress form. But that’s not really a guilty pleasure. It’s the fabric. Splurging unnecessarily for the higher thread count, the satin finish or just the newer pattern. Sometimes I just tell myself I really do deserve it, throw caution to the wind and plunk down the cash.

Teaching. It’s my biggest guilty pleasure, it really is. Why or maybe how? Because I don’t just do it for the students. Of course I love my boys and girls, love being in the classroom and seeing the joy on their little faces as they learn something new. But I do it for me, for what I get out of it. My sense of identity outside of marriage. I’m not just the Boss Lady (Oh I really do not like being called that) I’m Mrs. Henrickson and I teach. It’s a career and it’s mine. It’s me. The one thing I do not have to share with everyone else in the family.

Barb Henrickson
Big Love
283 words

I’ve done a lot of things for love. I married for love, had three beautiful babies because of that love. I teach because I love it. I have always tried to Choose the Right because of my love for God and the LDS church. Love and loyalty have always guided my decisions I think.

There’s not much I won’t do for it. Kill, obviously that’s something I won’t do for love. Beyond that? I think I’ve done everything else in the name of that all-powerful emotion. I’ve lied, coveted, adultered…all for love. And I’m sure that surprises the heck out of everyone to know that, but it’s true.

Because I love my husband and my children I agreed to a new lifestyle seven years ago when I was sick with uterine cancer. I agreed to plural marriage because I wanted my family taken care of when I was gone. Then I did what no one expected. I survived. And still we, the three of us were married. I was sharing my husband of over a decade with another woman. No matter my gratitude to Nikki for being there for me, for them all, when I was at my sickest I can’t help but be jealous of the time, love and tenderness my husband gives to her. Even now I say my husband instead of ours. He was mine first, that should mean something special.

Because I love my husband and Nikki, all of our children too, I agreed when it was decided to bring another sister wife into the family. Margene. Now there’s four of us in this marriage and two more children, a third on the way. And I, in my need for more of my husband’s love, had an affair with the man I have been married to for the past seventeen years. I needed to be special again, to be the one with the most love.

Love has made me lie, cheat and steal. Who knows what else I might do for it.

Barb Henrickson
Big Love
336 words

South of us, about an hour’s drive in good traffic, there’s a place called Juniper Creek. A place. I say that like it’s a vacation destination or a scenic stopover. It’s not. Certainly not. No, it’s a compound. More like a dog pound in some ways, especially if you happen to be a woman or young girl.

I can’t stand that place. Just being there makes me feel dirty and not just physically. It makes my soul feel unclean. A bunch of power hungry old men taking advantage of young girls, some as young as fourteen, fifteen years old. Keeping all of their wives ignorant and largely uneducated. Isolated from the rest of the world. Even the young boys pay a price for being there, growing up in Juniper Creek. And done in the name of God.

It hurts my heart knowing that my husband grew up in that place. It wasn’t until we met in college, until he joined LDS, that he realized Juniper Creek was not the way that Mormons were supposed to live. That wasn’t the way to do God’s work. Corruption and abuse have nothing to do with the Heavenly Father.

Barb Henrickson
Big Love
195 Words

[locked from muses as this is a guarded part of her life]

The Mormon Church's banning of polygamy, I’d change that
and the views and stigma attached to the practice.
Why? Because I’m tired of my family having to hide
who we are. I’m tired of the innocent white lies we
tell, the not so innocent lies we are forced to
perpetuate. The fear of discovery and of being
further ostracized by our community.

Already we are forced into this strange sort of
seclusion right in the middle of the city. We don’t
make friends with neighbors, with those who don’t
practice The Way. Our children have to be taught not
to talk about the fact that they have three mothers,
many siblings and one father. We force them to
deceive their friends and it’s simply heartbreaking to
try and raise them to be good Mormons, practice God’s
way and then tell them to lie about who they are.

And my family, my mother and sister who don’t
understand the choices I made. My mother who won’t
speak to me or let me in her house, my sister who
wants to take my children from me. They judge what
they don’t understand. I miss them. If I could
change the way that polygamy is viewed, I’d have them
back in my life, in my children’s lives.


Application Prompt Repsonse
Word count: 214

Oh my heck, what little girl doesn’t dream of getting
married? Having children and keeping a beautiful
home? I think I started planning my wedding when I
was five years old and acted it out with dolls. By
the time I met Bill, I don’t think there was any
question of how I wanted to be married, or to whom.

And then the children came. My children. Sarah, Ben
and then much later, Tancy. Motherhood was and is
everything I’d dreamed it would be. Rewarding,
heartbreaking at times, difficult but always, always,
worth the sacrifices.

Our family unit was complete. I had my husband and
three children. I even had the prospect of a
promising career ahead of me. Substitute teaching in
elementary education. I had the home I wanted, the
family and the career. I was an active member in LDS
and loved my life completely.

It’s changed now, in a lot of ways…certainly different
from the dream I had as a little girl, but I still
love it.

Application Prompt Response
Word Count 170