Sisters

I already said on my facebook fanpage that the experience of first wives will not be the same as the experience of second wives, and neither of the two will share the same experience as the third wife. Wives coming in after #3 tend to share similar experiences, and the FINAL wife will have her own experience.
In order for Wife-to-wife (W2W) interactions to be positive, all of the wives must understand that they aren’t having the same experience, and they should TRY to put themselves in the other wifes’ shoes and think of the type of behavior THEY would like out of someone in their place.
It’s called empathy. A level of understanding between two people.
Alot of the time that’s where the issues come in. We come into these relationships (and it happens in monogamy all the time!) and we want to continue to be an individual, dwelling in the same time and space as another individual or set of individuals.
So when it comes to benefiting the unit, we are mainly focused on self and what WE are getting from the unit, and not on what others aren’t getting.

First wives have to remember that a new wife coming in is going to need to be able to create her own place in the family. That means you can’t expect them to come in and be EXACTLY how *you’d* planned for them to be. No — you HAVE to make allowances for her to have her own flavor, do things her own way. You have to be flexible to change…because adding someone to a family is a BIG change no matter HOW that person is added.
(Women that can’t do this probably need their own house/space)
The second wife is the first wife to be added to the already-existing unit. She’s like a guinea pig (UNFORTUNATELY and for lack of a better word at this moment, lol). It’s almost guaranteed that MOST mistakes will be made here, by all parties involved. This is the first time there were two wives, this is the first time the husband has had two wives. Often this is the first time the two women have openly “shared” the same man (hate that term), and so the entire thing is very new and very different for everyone involved. This wife has to remember that the existing wife is opening up her family and possibly her home to her. She should show herself to be a friend to the existing wife, by seeing the needs of the existing unit, and helping in whatever capacity she can.

After the second wife, every wife added on after her tends to have it easier (I’m going off of what I HEAR from a NUMBER of polygynous families from ALL walks of life — Islam, Hebrew Israelites, Mormons, pagans, Christians, etc. what I’m saying is almost universal here if people are doing their best to be “good” people, which the AVERAGE person is trying to be).
There ARE times where a family adds on alot of wives in a short time-period. This is a significantly harder situation — the kinks will not have been ironed out, lol, and so all these people are coming in without a solid base to hold on to…

All should understand that insecurities and sometimes even ugly, ugly jealousies may come up. It may all be misunderstandings, but that’s what communication is for.
I’m a strong believer in communicating; all of the relationships that do well have immense communication, truth and honesty. So even when it comes to these W2W issues, it’s fruitful to address it as soon as possible. It is WRONG to let things fester if they are in ANY way going to affect your interactions with each other, or by extension, the unit itself.

Every wife has to understand that other wives are not going to be cardboard cut-outs with no personality and no “ways” to contend with. They aren’t going to be how you are about things and they aren’t going to handle things the way you do. They are flesh and blood human beings, just like you, who, for the most part (– and I say that because there are WICKED people in this world and if you haven’t learned THAT while following this blog I’onno what else to tell you) deserve a peaceful, loving and happy home, where they are allowed to bring their characteristics to the table to blend in and mix with the other family members, to create something beautiful and successful.
This is why the title of that book is SO poignant — ‘We Want for Our Sisters what We Want for Ourselves’.
That’s so very important in polygyny.
If you don’t keep that phrase in the forefront of your mind doing this, problems will rear their ugly heads everywhere.