Confessions of a Co-Wife "Do the wives sleep together"

The response to my first "Confessions of a co-wife" blog was overwhelmingly positive. Women from all walks of life reached out with love, support, and lots of interesting questions.  It is truly a blessing to receive such loving and compassionate feedback, even from people who do not share my beliefs or views.  

One of the questions that seemed to be on many women's mind was do me and my co-wife live and/or sleep together.  Let me start by saying that there is no one way to practice Polygamy and Polygyny and the way that my family practices Polygyny may not be the same as how another family will practice Polygyny.  My family is Muslim, and in our faith it is not permissible for the wives to have a physical or romantic relationship.  I thank Allah every day that my co-wife and I have an amazing relationship, but our relationship is a friendship and a sisterhood.  We share a husband, but we are not each others wives.  

Let me be clear, I can only speak for my situation.   I am sure that no two families practice Polygyny in the same way, different people have different beliefs,  preferences,  and boundaries that dictate how they choose to live and love.  I am not a person who spends my time trying to control or judge the way that other people live, I have too much to work on in my own life for that.  What I hope to do is offer insight and perspective about Polygyny based on my personal experience. 

I appreciate the fact that women have been open and comfortable enough with me to discuss their candid views about Polygyny. Surprisingly many women expressed interest in possibly practicing Polygyny and Polygamy and wanted a greater understanding about it from an insider's vantage point.  

Another question that has been asked frequently is "How did you do it?".  Literally women want to know, "how do you share your husband?".  I can't speak for every woman, I can only try to explain how Polygyny works for me.  The first emotional step that I had to take in order for me to be successful in sharing my husband was to realize that he is not MY husband, he is OUR husband, and I have to firmly understand and respect that fact.  I truly believe that the creator has been preparing me to be a co-wife for a few years.  After my first marriage ended my ex-husband and I had to find a way to co-parent our children whom we had raised together for 9 years.  So when my ex-husband remarried not only did I have to co-parent with him, but I also had to accept that I would now be sharing my children with another woman who would also be fulfilling the role of mother in my children's lives.  To be honest I was not ready for it.  Allowing my children to be mothered by another woman was one of the most difficult tasks that I have had to undertake in my life!  I had to work on my ego, jealousy, and insecurities so that my children would be comfortable loving and receiving love from their other mom.  It took prayer, practice, trust, and accountability in order for me to get a level of understanding where I could be secure enough to know that the love my children have for their other mother in no way diminishes the love that they have for me.  Nothing will change our bond or the fact that I'm their mother.  Love is limitless and there is an endless supply so we always have the ability to generate more.

Looking at my situation logically as well as emotionally, I figure that if I am able to embrace my children (creatures who once lived in my body) loving another woman in the same type of way that they love me then why on earth would it be hard for me to embrace my husband having another wife?  My husband's love for his other wife doesn't change or downplay the love that he has for me, to me it is not a competition, love is love.

The experience of being a co-parent and co-wife has opened my heart in ways I could have never imagined.  It has shown me the true meaning of sisterhood and given me a greater insight into sharing and humility.  My children's other mother and my co-wife sacrifice for me on a daily even when they aren't conscious of it. I love and respect them both for opening their hearts to joining me on these journeys that will hopefully last for a lifetime and I am grateful for their presence in my life.

All healthy relationships take self-evaluation, constructive communication, compassion, patience, and consistency among so many other elements.  No matter if your relationship is polygynous or monogynous it will take work, every single day.  The reality is that the energy that you put into your relationship will be the energy that you get out of your relationship...so my sincere advice for those considering Polygamy is to work on yourself and invest your energy wisely!

If you like my blogspot, I'm sure you'll love my vodcast. Check out the first Loud Mouth Ghetto Girl video podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fnRMOVbdjI

Copyright Amber Hasan 2018

Edited by Cheryl Williams

Bonding through baldness..."it's just hair"

Yes, really, Bonding through Baldness!  There is some kind of humor in every situation and my daughter Eva and I are the type of people who always try and find that humor.  Even with that being so,before writing this blog I talked to my daughter and let her know that I was going to share this experience just to make sure she was comfortable with it and she is.  

They say that "necessity is the mother of invention", or something like that.  I don't know who "they" are but I think that "they" could be on to something.  About seven or eight years ago when I had less children and more energy I would dabble in making my own skin products; creams, shampoos, soaps, and the like.  At the time I had just begun having these really weird rashes and my skin couldn't take the use of most commercial products on the market.  Several years later I found out that the rashes were caused by Lupus. I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), commonly known as Lupus, a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). This diagnosis caused me to become more conscious of the products that I use and the ingredients in those product.  But to tell the truth just because I became more conscious of what products I used doesn't mean that I changed much, it just means that I thought about it more often.  

I didn't make any real changes until about 4 months ago when my 11 year-old daughter came to me and showed me her head and I was devastated by what I saw.  My daughter had 4 large bald spots in her head, she had worn braids during the summer that damaged her scalp and she developed traction alopecia.  When she went for her yearly physical a week later we had her doctor look at the spots and he prescribed a pill, a shampoo, and a cream but he wasn't sure that the hair would grow back.  I'm not a huge fan of pills but I also wanted my daughter to get better.  Eva is generally level headed but her scalp was damaged and I had no idea how long it would take for the hair to grow back.  I gave my daughter the medication that the doctor prescribed and the next day she had a horrible migraine with vomiting and the whole nine, which caused her to leave school early.  I decided at that moment it was up to me to help my daughter's scalp heal and grow her hair back.  Luckily I save all of my old notebooks and I found some of my old skin and hair care recipes.  I combined a hair and skin cream recipe with a beard growth conditioner to make an all natural hair growth and conditioning cream. 

I started treating Eva's hair and scalp by keeping them as healthy as possible.  As a mother there is so much fulfillment in being able to pass knowledge to your daughter, that is how we live on, through the information and skills that we share.  I would walk Eva through every step and have her assist me when I made products so that she will always know how to keep her hair healthy.  I washed her hair at least once a week with an apple cider vinegar conditioner, used a homemade hair tea every other week and used the hair growth and conditioning cream daily on the hair and scalp as needed. I styled her hair in protective styles only.  Eva wore mostly braid and twist outs that had to be strategically styled to cover the bald spots. Within two weeks we could already see results and after three months her scalp was healed and the hair had grown back in all of the spots.  

I trust my daughter's doctor and I truly believe that he is good at what he does.  With that being said I am glad we decided not to use the medication.  Using natural methods helped me to trust my abilities and I was able to show my daughter how  alternative medicine can be used successfully and that healing doesn't have to come from a pill.

I also unexpectedly learned a great deal about my daughter through this experience.  My daughter is more resilient, self-confident and fearless than I could have ever hoped for.  I know that kids can be cruel so I did my best to conceal the hair loss, which was hard in the beginning.  Eva never let it bother her, if someone happened to ask about the hair loss she would give them a matter of fact response, she owned it.  She would always be polite but she was never embarrassed or intimidated by the questions.  Classmates would also ask her why she didn't just wear weave, and she would respond by asking them why they were concerned with HER hair.  When we would discuss it I would always tell my daughter "it's just hair, it will grow back" and that is the attitude that she embodied through it all.  At such a young age she understands that she is so much more than her hair and she is comfortable in her own skin.  I don't care if she loses all of her hair, I just hope that she never loses that understanding...

Left October 2014/ Right January 2015