Gloria Ogunbadejo
This was one of the topics that chose to write itself rather than me coming up with it. I don’t think I necessarily would have come up with it myself. Mostly because as a concept it is not something I have ever really had a capacity to comprehend. Naturally, if you are faced with it, it becomes a sink, swim, fight or flight situation. As they say, you think of ways to make lemonade when life presents you with lemons. It is one thing if the situation is forced upon you and you have no say so in the matter (albeit I believe you still have some choice).
There is the other situation where you willingly choose to or are a willing participant to the arrangement. There is a part of me that doesn’t believe any woman is truly comfortable or happy in sharing the love of her husband with another woman.
Polygamy is well established and practised in many societies and religions around the world. There has been lots of research on the psychological and physiological impact of polygamy. While many of the reported results of the various researches may be somewhat subjective and not necessarily scientific, there are some conclusions one can safely draw simply based on natural human needs and responses. If you feel threatened, fearful, paranoid, sad, angry, a sense of unfairness, jealous or cheated; there are some natural human responses to these feelings that will be similar.
I was at a function celebrating International Women’s Day recently and I was privy to a rather odd gathering of women. All of them were engaged in very active and accomplished professional lives. It was a real boost to be in the midst of women who had achieved so much and appeared to be enjoying fulfilling lives. In light of all the horror stories that have been recounted of the predicament of many women, it felt good to hear stories of women doing positive things.
As the day wore on and things became more relaxed, some of the women decided to retire to a more intimate setting and as the beverages flowed, the conversation invariably degenerated. They were no longer talking about NGOs, conferences or speeches. The focus was on their relationships, the different types and the definitions of their relationships. It was certainly entertaining, but mostly an eye-opener. Below are snippets from the conversations. Enjoy!
Janice says she married her college sweetheart and she felt they were soul mates. They had planned their lives together while in school. They had similar outlooks on life. They wanted the same things. She said they were married for 15 years when the problem started. They had one child during that period. They wanted more but it didn’t happen and that was when the problems in her marriage started. It’s a familiar story. His family started putting pressure on her husband about having more children and even though Janice admits her husband resisted the pressure initially, he eventually caved in to it and started pressurising her. She said she took ‘the executive decision to pick out the woman who should have another child’ for her husband. After the woman had the child, she officially took on the role of the second wife.
I asked Janice how she reconciled herself with the arrangement and how has it worked or impacted on her marriage. She said for her the only way she could get some control over something that was out of her control was to be the one to pick the woman. She says it felt like a betrayal because she would never have abandoned husband no matter what the situation. She said it felt like a betrayal because they had a child together so it wasn’t as if they were childless and so she felt the bond between them should have been enough to overcome the pressure from the family. She added that she would never forgive him and she felt differently towards him. Bur she has learnt to deny her painful emotional and psychological feelings so she could just hold on to what she has invested in the marriage. She said she no intention of allowing someone else ‘reap what and where they have not sown.’
Janice stated that she has had a couple of affairs because she didn’t feel the marriage was special anymore and it was her own way of getting back and satisfying herself.
Bolanle said her husband had an affair a few months before they got married which she was not aware of. The result of the affair was an infant that was forced upon her a couple of years into their marriage. She found out about it through a Facebook post by the woman who was forcing her husband to face up to his responsibilities. Bolanle said, ‘I almost went mental. It was such a shock because I was newly married. I had not conceived yet and I had to cope with the fact that my husband had been seeing someone else just before we married as well as facing the result of their affair which was the child’. She said to make matters worse, he had not stopped seeing the woman even though he said he would. ‘I was devastated. I actually thought of killing myself’, she stated.
Bolanle said she gave her husband an ultimatum that she was prepared to have the child in their home if he gave up the woman. She said he was shocked at her offer because he knew she was not the type of woman to agree to something like that. She said she was advised by older female relatives that doing that would give her leverage and would be viewed as a big sacrifice on her part. She said they told her it would give her the upper hand and she could make her own demands if she was raising her husband’s child by another woman.
I asked Bolanle if it was simple as that to raise another woman’s child and how did she get over the fact that she had to share her husband that way. Bolanle said it was the worse decision she ever made because she hated the child and every time she saw the child with her husband, she felt like she was seeing the other woman with him. She added that she thought the stress was why she was yet to conceive because she has been pregnant in the past and had miscarriages so she knew she could get pregnant.
Anike was the only one of the ladies who had chosen or agreed to accept that her husband had another woman from the onset of their relationship. I asked her if she considered her marriage was a polygamous one, she said technically that was what it would be called because they both (herself and the other woman) had been married in the traditional sense and had equal access and equal rights. I thought it was quite interesting the way Anike described her marriage. It sounded very clinical. I asked her how she really felt emotionally and she said she had grown up in a polygamous family herself so she knew how it worked. She said she had always known she would probably be married in the same way and had anticipated it.
She noted that she had been prepared for it in principle but she had struggled with it when it happened. She added that she cannot get away from the images of her husband with another woman. She also said even though she knew her husband loves and treats her well, she stated that she was always “thinking that one day the love may shift and he may love the other wife more.” She said she would have to live with it because she loves her husband and cannot leave him but wish she was the only wife.
Having to share your husband with another woman may or may not be successfully achieved depending on your circumstances and individual constitution. Obviously, if it is a choice you have voluntarily made for whatever reason then you might be more able to live with it. However, if it comes as a result of you being forced to accept it through infidelity or other means, then it may have a very damaging effect on you.
Trust in a committed relationship is literarily the glue to that union and if broken, it is almost impossible to put back together. When someone you truly love betrays you, so much is taken from you from this type of betrayal. It has the potential of distorting and changing who you are forever.
Some of the research shows that many woman who have been betrayed by their husbands by having to share them with other women live with depression, anxiety, displaced anger, hostility, poor marital satisfaction, dysfunctional family life, paranoia, low self-esteem, and they may experience other mental health symptoms.
Some things that we take for granted and normalise in our society may have long-lasting harmful effects on individuals, the family unit and the community at large.
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