I was born into a polygamist religion, my grandfather and great grandfather were bodyguards of Joseph Smith in the Mormon religion.
My father had been excommunicated, he loved and believed in polygamy but never had more than my mother as a wife.
Dad was a lumberjack and when I was about four he had a fatal accident, his head was broken and his heart stopped beating for about thirty minutes. When his heart started again it seemed a miracle, he was in a coma for months. When he finally woke up he suffered headaches and was often violent, mom protected him through this while having fifteen living children. We were feral kids, this was I think when I was happy.

I met my husband two weeks before marrying him.
I had seen him for the first time a few weeks before at church, for some reason he impressed me.
When my grandfather came to my workplace and said I was asked by God to marry him I was shocked and felt lucky that he was young and good looking, not already having other wives, also he was getting an education.

I was afraid that he would reject me, I was plain with physical and health problems.
Now I look back and realize that he could not say no, at this time in our religion if a man was told to marry and refused he would receive no more wives, especially if he was looking for his first wife.

I met him once before leaving the little town I grew up in, he was kind and much more affectionate than I expected or actually wanted.
I responded simply because he treated me as though I was attractive and I gave myself the right to trust him because I knew he deserved a pretty wife and living polygamy he would get one. I created in my mind what I wanted him to be, that he did not live up to this was quite disillusioning.

It took 28 years of marriage, two more wives and a total of 16 children before I divorced him.

During my marriage we accomplished good and bad things.
We Bucked hay, built fences, supported sometimes as many as 50 people living with us, raised horses, chickens, rabbits cows and basically ran a farm.
We killed and packaged our meat, milked cows and for quite awhile made everything from this farm.
Our clothing was from thrift stores or sewn, including underwear and shoes.

During this time we also built from the ground up, because of his education and the help of our children from the time they could work, a mufti million dollar business, this business is still manufacturing worldwide.
Our children have accomplished many things and are educated.
Also our grand children are choosing their professions and getting their education.

The thing that I am often most thankful for, was our family giving up the religion, allowing most of our children although damaged, by the example of multi moms always fighting and a father whom was never wrong, they are making better lives for their families. Some were married the same way I was and no one has a perfect marriage, some have failed and all take work.

The bad things in my marriage were very bad, Forced sex, physical and emotional abuse which lasted through most of my 28 years of marriage. This also caused our children to fend for themselves often, waiting for the adults to stop the fighting.
As the years have passed we experienced unexpected hurtles, drug abuse, the surprise of having a gay child, and the joy this was, and pain when we lost him. We still are missing one child and her children, they are somewhere out there.

When I finally divorced my husband and another wife left, our children were able to decide their own fates and I am proud of them and my grandchildren.

People do bad things, often things they would never have thought they would and sometimes spend the rest of their lives denying and telling untruths to maintain the actions and the lie.

As we get old it seems that we are absolved of some crimes simply by the reluctance of family to look at the truth.

Sometimes the truth does more damage than repair.

Today the religion is looked at as a cult, and stories are constantly seen on TV, most have truth and fiction so mixed that the people telling what they experienced seem to also not be sure of the difference, although many use the media to gain attention or money by writing about this.

Looking back, the bad things have to be put aside and I am thankful for my children and proud of them all.
The Media seems to want only the bad of this life style, although I would never support living it, there are people that seem to think it works and some people try hard to do it right.
I cannot judge, I fully believed and even years after leaving it I am still in some ways finding myself again.