I devoted a month to the Open Polygamy that is part of the Fundamentalist Mormon lifestyle. The modern Latter Day Saints no longer support the polygamy of the founders of their church. Many of the women who accept being co-wives have grown up in families in which their own mother was a "sister wife." When this lifestyle became the subject of reality television series, the world got a glimpse into the possibilities. Was it better when it came to child care? Could any of the women expect to ever have the man to herself? What about sexuality?
Recently it came to light that the Sister Wives reality TV show's star Christine, who was the third wife of Cody Brown, left him and the arrangement after 25 years of it. This Daily Mail article is one of a few that came out in that publication recently about the situation.
DAILY MAIL - SISTER WIVES- CHRISTINE LEFT - ROBYN 4th WIFE PREVAILS by Tracy Wright and Christine Rendon
The reason I focused on this example of an alternative lifestyle for MISTRESS MANIFESTO here is that we are exploring the lives of Mistresses who are often known to the Wives. When a wife knows her husband has an ongoing relationship with another person, she often accepts that this is so, preferring to keep her marriage. Sometimes she prevails and sometimes she doesn't.
Sometimes a person is not naturally monogamous. I recently met a man who told me that when he first met the woman who has been consistent in his life for near 50 years, meeting her when he was 16, he told her he could not be faithful. She said it would not bother her if he had other women. He told me that he had sex with other women along with being alcoholic and that when he quit drinking over 30 years ago, he stopped sleeping with other women. For other men who were not addicted or promiscuous, men who married and never thought they would, cheating is something else - a desire to love more than one person perhaps - or perhaps to move on out of the marriage or - well, there is no one reason.
While some people have Open Marriages in which one or both partners at various times also have other relationships. others are scandalized by their partner being sexually involved with someone else and see it as the reason for divorce.
I say relationship because while the stereotype is that it's "just" an affair, or only about sex, many of the couples who are -one or both- are married to someone else legally - do have significant and ongoing involvement with each other. So while the Sister-Wives - Open Polygamy lifestyle is one in which everything is in the Open, Mistresses are often thought of as secret clandestine relationships - taboo - just plain wrong.
DO YOU HAVE A PARTNER WHO HAS ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP?
