classylady

The Church allows a widower to be sealed to more than one wife. Would that be considered serial polygamy, lol? And divorced couples don't necessarily get their sealing cancelled unless the woman remarries and is sealed to her subsequent husband/s. Even, women are able to be sealed by proxy to all husbands that she has had during her lifetime once she is dead. So, is polygamy still part of the Church?
 
If polygamy is reinstated, and my husband took another wife, it would be very difficult for me to feel that I'm number one in his life. I would question his devotion to me. Many marriages fail because the wife doesn't feel she is number one in her husband's life. And that is a "need" that most women require in their marriage. And what about the 2nd wife?  How does she feel like she is number one in her husband's life. These are basic needs that women need in a marriage.  A wife needs emotional security just as she needs financial security.
 
And then of course, there are these questions. What if the husband had a favorite wife? What if he negatively compares one wife over the other? What if finances were strained because of the subsequent wife? How do you have transparency in a marriage when there is more than one wife? How do wives have their privacy if their husband repeats back to the other what is going on with the other wife? And, honesty is required in marriage. Is the husband going to lie if his wife asks questions about what is going on with his relationship with the other wife? How does a husband meet the emotional needs of each wife, especially if the need is exclusivity? Isn't that what marriage is? We promise to be exclusive to one another. I think many men forget how important that is to a woman.
 
All these questions would come into play with polygamy. In reading my great-grandmother's journals these were questions that were buried. Polygamy was hard. It would still be hard if reinstated today. But, if required it could be done. To quote my great grandmother, who was a second wife, and her mother was a third wife "I am grateful that as a heritage it seemed easy for me to accept and live happily in polygamy as one of my father's numerous posterity. And I leave my testimony as to its power in developing Christian ideals of unselfishness and its marvelous experiencing of live and deep consideration of the feelings of others, which we must all learn if we obtain Eternal Salvation."

I'm glad your wife had the sense to get you to the hospital.  Please keep us updated.

I always wear a white shirt and a tie with my suit. I personally have done this since returning home from my mission. My final interview with Mission President he challenged me to maintain a missionary image upon my return home. I accepted the challenge and have done so ever since. This is my choice.

The Church allows a widower to be sealed to more than one wife. Would that be considered serial polygamy, lol? And divorced couples don't necessarily get their sealing cancelled unless the woman remarries and is sealed to her subsequent husband/s. Even, women are able to be sealed by proxy to all husbands that she has had during her lifetime once she is dead. So, is polygamy still part of the Church?
 
If polygamy is reinstated, and my husband took another wife, it would be very difficult for me to feel that I'm number one in his life. I would question his devotion to me. Many marriages fail because the wife doesn't feel she is number one in her husband's life. And that is a "need" that most women require in their marriage. And what about the 2nd wife?  How does she feel like she is number one in her husband's life. These are basic needs that women need in a marriage.  A wife needs emotional security just as she needs financial security.
 
And then of course, there are these questions. What if the husband had a favorite wife? What if he negatively compares one wife over the other? What if finances were strained because of the subsequent wife? How do you have transparency in a marriage when there is more than one wife? How do wives have their privacy if their husband repeats back to the other what is going on with the other wife? And, honesty is required in marriage. Is the husband going to lie if his wife asks questions about what is going on with his relationship with the other wife? How does a husband meet the emotional needs of each wife, especially if the need is exclusivity? Isn't that what marriage is? We promise to be exclusive to one another. I think many men forget how important that is to a woman.
 
All these questions would come into play with polygamy. In reading my great-grandmother's journals these were questions that were buried. Polygamy was hard. It would still be hard if reinstated today. But, if required it could be done. To quote my great grandmother, who was a second wife, and her mother was a third wife "I am grateful that as a heritage it seemed easy for me to accept and live happily in polygamy as one of my father's numerous posterity. And I leave my testimony as to its power in developing Christian ideals of unselfishness and its marvelous experiencing of live and deep consideration of the feelings of others, which we must all learn if we obtain Eternal Salvation."

My great-grandmother was not "given" to her husband.  My great-grandfather met his second wife, and courted her. My great-grandmother insisted that she meet the first wife, and that they had a good relationship before she would consent to marry my great grandfather.
 
My great-great grandfather, when he married his third wife (my 2nd great grandmother), also met her at some point, courted her, and then married her. I do believe though, that my great grandfather's would have needed permission from the First Presidency to be sealed to subsequent wives.

The Church allows a widower to be sealed to more than one wife. Would that be considered serial polygamy, lol? And divorced couples don't necessarily get their sealing cancelled unless the woman remarries and is sealed to her subsequent husband/s. Even, women are able to be sealed by proxy to all husbands that she has had during her lifetime once she is dead. So, is polygamy still part of the Church?
 
If polygamy is reinstated, and my husband took another wife, it would be very difficult for me to feel that I'm number one in his life. I would question his devotion to me. Many marriages fail because the wife doesn't feel she is number one in her husband's life. And that is a "need" that most women require in their marriage. And what about the 2nd wife?  How does she feel like she is number one in her husband's life. These are basic needs that women need in a marriage.  A wife needs emotional security just as she needs financial security.
 
And then of course, there are these questions. What if the husband had a favorite wife? What if he negatively compares one wife over the other? What if finances were strained because of the subsequent wife? How do you have transparency in a marriage when there is more than one wife? How do wives have their privacy if their husband repeats back to the other what is going on with the other wife? And, honesty is required in marriage. Is the husband going to lie if his wife asks questions about what is going on with his relationship with the other wife? How does a husband meet the emotional needs of each wife, especially if the need is exclusivity? Isn't that what marriage is? We promise to be exclusive to one another. I think many men forget how important that is to a woman.
 
All these questions would come into play with polygamy. In reading my great-grandmother's journals these were questions that were buried. Polygamy was hard. It would still be hard if reinstated today. But, if required it could be done. To quote my great grandmother, who was a second wife, and her mother was a third wife "I am grateful that as a heritage it seemed easy for me to accept and live happily in polygamy as one of my father's numerous posterity. And I leave my testimony as to its power in developing Christian ideals of unselfishness and its marvelous experiencing of live and deep consideration of the feelings of others, which we must all learn if we obtain Eternal Salvation."

Well, I'm pretty sure nobody except Omega said not to marry the girl.
 
What you should do is: Accept it. He doesn't owe you anything. Anything you do will exacerbate the situation and make it worse. Do not force your wife to take sides, just take sides with her. If you have made your feelings about her father clear in the past, stop it. It's not worth it. It won't hurt him. It will only hurt her and you.
 
You have asked for money, he's said 'No'. Now, the ball's in your court. You can either:
A) Start a big family row that will taint what is supposed to be the happiest day  of your lives. You still won't get the money, but at least your Father-in-Law will have made everybody miserable. So that's something.
B) Accept it and move on, showing love and support for your wife.
 
It's up to you.

I'm concerned about the meanness of the father to the daughter in this situation.  Who cares who is paying for the wedding stuff?
 
Pay for the wedding as you can (I personally would feel guilty with parents dipping into their anniversary money, but it happens), focus on YOUR marriage.
 
But yes, be prepared for underlying issues.
 
What I would suggest that, as a husband, you follow IC's advice and be the man of the house and protect your wife from her father, if need be.

I would say disagreements are a normal part of a relationship. However, the way people chooses to express those disagreements can or cannot be considered normal.

Why would they act like that?  Are they just plain evil?
 
Or could they be deliberately shutting you out because they got very attached to your husband's ex, were sorry to lose her, and consider that there's no point in getting to know and love you since there's a good chance your husband won't be able to hold on to you and your kids any better than he was able to hold onto his ex?
 
The armchair pop-psychologist in me thinks that what your in-laws are doing is a self-defense mechanism, and you've got two ways of dealing with it.  The first is to be as difficult as possible (or just plain cut them out of your lives), so that there's no chance of their getting attached to you (and therefore, disappointed) the way they got attached to the ex.
 
The second way is to grin and bear their slights, love them anyways, and show them day by day that your relationship with your husband is rock-solid and that he won't lose you the way he lost the ex.  Maybe they'll come around eventually, and maybe they won't . . . but I rather suspect your husband will love you all the more for taking this course of action, and would be willing to reciprocate by sticking up for you more vocally.

I'm just one cute cookie.  What more can I say?  

Going to Nauvoo this weekend.....:)

Jenn you know I love ya....but one thing is to keep things like that off of facebook.  It just exacerbates the issue.

It is your husband's stewardship/responsibility to defend you and champion you to his family and friends. You and your husband need to have a talk. You need to let him know how you feel. If you have already done this, you need to have another talk, and let him know again what is happening with you and how you feel. He needs to see that his relationship to you is the one that needs to be championed. He needs to let his parents know that you are his wife, and you are here to stay. He needs to let his parents know that he accepts your children, just as you have accepted his children. If his parents refuse to accept you and your children, learn to disengage and let it go. Many second wives go through this. You are not alone.
 
As to what to do now that you have "told them off," you have several options.  You can pretend it never happened, and go on as before. You can apologize, and say something along these lines, "I'm sorry. I love you. You are _____'s parents. My feelings have been hurt because I feel you disregard me and my children. If I didn't care for you so much, it wouldn't hurt. I  love my husband. I will do anything for him and his children. I was hoping we could be a family that cares for one another." Anyway, these are just a few things that might smooth over the situation. Your husband should be saying something along those lines too. He needs to let his parents know that you are number one in his life, that your children and his children are all family.
 
Remarriage is hard. Especially if there are children involved. If you search on the internet "remarriage" you will get all sorts of articles and similar experiences from others who are experiencing what you're going through. There's lots of articles on step-parenting too. If you can get through these first five to seven years in a remarriage, then second marriages actually become less likely than a first marriage to end in divorce. Good luck!  <Hugs>

I don't think being a people-pleaser is a personality flaw. I often act the same as you. The only time I would see it as a flaw, is if I'm lying and generally not behaving with integrity. For example, if a friend is bashing the church, I'm not going to agree with my friend. I will defend the church.  But, if it's something as benign as what to do for a girl's evening out, I usually don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, and will go along with what she wants to do. I'm just happy to get out of the house and actually doing something.

I don't think being a people-pleaser is a personality flaw. I often act the same as you. The only time I would see it as a flaw, is if I'm lying and generally not behaving with integrity. For example, if a friend is bashing the church, I'm not going to agree with my friend. I will defend the church.  But, if it's something as benign as what to do for a girl's evening out, I usually don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, and will go along with what she wants to do. I'm just happy to get out of the house and actually doing something.

Your future FIL is setting the terms for the wedding.  It's only a one-day, one-time thing.  Yes, it's a big thing, but a successful wedding is one where both the bride and groom show up, and they say "I do" or "yes".
 
Your concern should more be focused on how your bride-to-be feels about her father and how your relationship with him will be AFTER the wedding.  
 
If you maintain an expectant attitude towards him... and he fails to meet up to those expectations... then he will constantly disappoint you.
 
He is who he is.  Accept that, and accept him for who he is.
 
There is nothing to say to him... but you had better invite him to the reception anyways, or you'll really pay for it later.

Hi, Apex!
 
Your wife knows what your father-in-law is like. Don't bad-mouth him. Don't speak badly of him. Let her.
 
He is not obligated to pay for anything. He does not owe you that. Just accept that your wedding will be difficult, support your wife and tell her how much you love her.
 
If you bad mouth her father, even if you're right, it will make your wife feel bad. It will not make him feel bad. It will accomplish nothing but make your wife even more stressed out. Do not talk to the father-in-law. It will only make things worse between you and him.
 
Let it go. I'm sorry he won't help. That's a shame.

I sometimes ask myself what is fair in this life? Being born into luxury vs. being born into poverty: Is that fair? Is it fair that many young men have had to fight wars and have lost their lives? Is it fair that many young girls are married off to much older men?  Is it fair to be sold as a slave? Is it fair that in some countries the young children are malnourished and/or starving? Is it fair that many are born without ever learning of Christ vs. those who are born into Christian homes? Is it fair that old and young alike have their lives cut short by poor health, disease, accidents, wars, etc. Is it fair that children have been kidnapped from their homes by nefarious, evil pedophiles and then tortured?
 
I don't think life is fair. But, I do know that Heavenly Father will make it right. Sometimes, death may be the best blessing of all. And, for those of us who have to slog away at life, fighting Lucifer, enduring to the end, I know that Heavenly Father is mindful of our hurts, pain, grief, joy, and our service to our fellow man.

Hello!
 
I wanted to let you know that I know how you feel. I very directly have experience with panic attacks and anxiety. Now, thanks to the wonders of modern medication, my anxiety is under control.
 
But for years, I had issues with 'Night Terrors' - Waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, heart racing. In fact, I once went 7 days without sleep because I'd start to feel fear the moment I closed my eyes. I was okay during the day, except that I'd get irritable and confrontational when my anxiety levels started to rise.
 
I guess that'd be a 'Fight or Flight' thing. I chose fight.
 
I also understand how hard it can be to talk about. I was pretty much a stalwart guy. Very few people would have guessed I struggled with anxiety. I grew up in a military household, so I had good posture. I joked with people. I was a bit of a social butterfly. I was always worried someone would think that my anxiety was 'All that I was'. I'd stop being the funny, generally empathetic, fun to be around guy and be 'That guy with anxiety'. I didn't want to be defined by a single thing, so I didn't share that with anyone up until about a few years ago when I started to get more confident.
 
I tell  you this just so you know that I can absolutely see where you're coming from, and so you understand that I understand how despairing it can be to suffer from anxiety - How it feels like an insurmountable mountain and how you just want to crawl under the covers some days and not come out. And because of this, I want you to know absolutely that what I'm about to tell you is true.
 
You're not really mad at your Bishop.
 
You're feeling lost and lonely and afraid. Your Bishop did something against your wishes in an attempt to help you. This has let you latch on to that as a means to push him away and the church, because the church is very hard for someone with anxiety. You feel betrayed and angry, yes, but that makes it easier to push him away because it's so hard to confront things.
 
You don't have to be afraid. The church is here to help. You're loved and you're not alone. Lemme know if you want to talk. I really do get it. 

My guess is that by working with other adoption agencies, but still working for LDS parents, and as JAG said, hopefully still subsidizing them, they'll have a much broader pool of children placed into LDS homes.

If they've only been able to get 2-300 birth mothers per year to place their children through LDSFS in the last few years, then I would guess that they figure they're exposing their client base of potential adoptive parents (the size of which they expect to remain more or less the same) to a much wider pool of children from which to adopt.
 
It'll be interesting to see if they still offer some sort of subsidy to the adoptive parents' costs, though.  Most outside agencies charge two or three times what LDSFS does.

My dad would occasionally bake but the only thing that he really knew how to bake was matrimonial cake (aka date cake). I remember him telling me the secret for making a successful cake was to make sure the date mixture did not touch the side of the pan.
 
My dad was more of a home body, but really enjoyed it when we had company, when people would come to our house to visit and socialize. But there were a couple of places in town that he would always like to visit for an outing.  Al Oeming's Game Farm (doesn't exist anymore) and Storyland Valley Zoo (now known as the Valley Zoo). My dad worked for the Parks and Rec Dept for the city and he planted flower beds in Laurier Park, which was right next door to the Valley Zoo. So there were those occasions when we could also admire his handy work.
 
M. 

My dad was "Mr. Mom". He did the cooking and the cleaning, the chauffeuring to activities, took us kids to the library, the park, on hikes, read us bedtime stories with silly voices, made the cupcakes we took to school on our birthdays, I remember him teaching me how to hand wash a drinking glass so it wouldn't break when I was about 8 or so. And all this when he was only home 3 days out of the week because his job was 2.5 hours from where we lived. He also looked a lot like Christopher Reeve, so we sometimes called him Superman. He'd earned it.

My Dad wasn't active until the last 1-2 yrs of his life...he passed in 1992. He never missed work and always went to work when he was sick or even if he had back pain.