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Polygamy in the Workplace

ostephenu

ostephenu

Member
Real Person
Male
I’m hoping some participants on the forum are reasonably acquainted with law and, in particular, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). As some of you know, I have two wives, and I run a business in Pennsylvania. We’ve learned that things are far easier when those close to us know about our lifestyle, and to date we’ve fortunately had no issues as a result of telling anyone.

All but one of my workers knows I have two wives, and I often consider telling him. For a number of reasons, it would be a big relief if he did know. He’s a generally open and very generous person, although his fiancé is a bit more liberal. Both are more or less “live and let live” types, but his fiancé is borderline feminist (at best). It’s her possible reaction that concerns me most, as I’m pretty confident it would impact him significantly - possibly to the point where she’d convince him to leave. I may be very wrong, though, and she’s always come across as kind and accepting.

I’m not as concerned about the possibility of him leaving (although I do value him as a team member) as I am about word getting out to others in the community, as that could be damaging to my business and to my family’s life - especially my kids. Due to the many unknowns and variables, I thought about attempting to have him sign an NDA to bind him to secrecy. I realize how that sounds, but I can’t think of a more subtle sounding phrase right off. Of course, NDAs are typically designed to protect company sensitive information more than personal info, but even sexual harassment issues have been included in many NDAs. That type of issue obviously relates directly to the employer and employee, though, whereas this would solely pertain to my personal life and my desire for him to keep it secret.

He’s also paid as an independent contractor (1099), not a W2 employee, and I’m not sure if the same rules apply to both scenarios. I’d imagine that the pay structure wouldn’t matter when it comes to an agreement to avoid disclosing confidential information, but I could be very wrong.

If any of you can provide valuable insight or knows someone who can, please do. Thanks in advance!
 
The Revolting Man said:
I bet he knows. I can’t imagine that not being a hot water cooler topic.
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He definitely doesn’t seem to. My second wife is my office manager, so he knows her and is under the impression (from what I can tell) that she’s single, and he’s made a few comments about how attractive he thinks she is. I highly doubt he’d say those things if he at all suspected anything.
 
I'm not an attorney, @ostephenu, but I don't perceive NDA's to be permanent solutions, because we learn about the contents of them all the time. What one agrees not to disclose then becomes 'dirt' with a price out in the marketplace. That price value may not even be monetary, but it may be a matter of doing more to open a can of worms than would even be the case should liberal girlfriend find out and throw a fit (and, in which case, your family becomes the recipient of the standing in court that Jonathan Turley is seeking if any negative ramifications come of it).

Generally speaking, the informal rule of acting like there's nothing unnatural going on is good advice. In your case, that's probably translated into refraining from drawing attention to your marital status but also acting like there's nothing remarkable about it when it becomes a topic of conversation.

And you know me very well, so you already know this, but anyone else should take the following with a grain of salt -- not because I'm anything less than fully sincere about stating it but because I know I'm an outlier: my pretty consistent personal advice these days is to just stand tall. Assert your patriarchal and scriptural right to have more than one consensual lifetime-commitment relationships with a woman (leave marriage out of it or at least take any opportunity one needs to clarify that it's not bigamy, because two state-issued marriage licenses are not involved), stand tall and be proud of your family just as it is, and be ready to provide counter-arguments to the ignorant 'certainties' with which you'll be presented. Also, be willing to accept other compromises in your life to stand tall for it, up to and including loss of income, because which is more valuable: your freedom to be the man and leader of your choosing, or a higher level of creature comforts? Remember, even if the worst-case scenario actualizes, and you lose your business and your home, every one of you can come live with us as temporarily long as you need to. Given your proficiency at starting up the business you now have in such a short period of years, you could do the same thing all over again in the Fort Worth area in an even shorter time span.
 
I note that he's commenting on how attractive your second wife is while having a girlfriend himself. You interpret this to mean that he thinks she's single. But if that's the case, then he's interested in two women himself.
You could simply approach it by one of you asking if he's interested in the office manager, then saying she's yours so hands off... That would be approaching it in a way where he was immediately on the back foot and couldn't exactly express any disagreement with the notion. And he'd have to be careful how he put it to his girlfriend, because the word might easily get around that he'd been the one expressing an interest first, and that wouldn't end well for him...
I'm not saying it's necessarily a good idea. But it was the first thought that came to my mind. You judge the merit of it.

I think if you start trying to hide things behind an NDA, you are immediately making it sound like it's something bad that needs to be hidden. And as Keith says, it could end up reflecting poorly on you. I suspect that if there is some way to approach the matter socially rather than legally it would be far less likely to backfire.
 
FollowingHim said:
I note that he's commenting on how attractive your second wife is while having a girlfriend himself. You interpret this to mean that he thinks she's single. But if that's the case, then he's interested in two women himself.
You could simply approach it by one of you asking if he's interested in the office manager, then saying she's yours so hands off... That would be approaching it in a way where he was immediately on the back foot and couldn't exactly express any disagreement with the notion. And he'd have to be careful how he put it to his girlfriend, because the word might easily get around that he'd been the one expressing an interest first, and that wouldn't end well for him...
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Samuel, this is a brilliant observation! I'm a little embarrassed that that went over my head, but I'm much more impressed with your logic in this situation! Whether @ostephenu follows your advice is up to him, but it's a great suggestion, nonetheless.
 
FollowingHim said:
I note that he's commenting on how attractive your second wife is while having a girlfriend himself. You interpret this to mean that he thinks she's single. But if that's the case, then he's interested in two women himself.
You could simply approach it by one of you asking if he's interested in the office manager, then saying she's yours so hands off... That would be approaching it in a way where he was immediately on the back foot and couldn't exactly express any disagreement with the notion. And he'd have to be careful how he put it to his girlfriend, because the word might easily get around that he'd been the one expressing an interest first, and that wouldn't end well for him...
I'm not saying it's necessarily a good idea. But it was the first thought that came to my mind. You judge the merit of it.

I think if you start trying to hide things behind an NDA, you are immediately making it sound like it's something bad that needs to be hidden. And as Keith says, it could end up reflecting poorly on you. I suspect that if there is some way to approach the matter socially rather than legally it would be far less likely to backfire.
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Great insights, Samuel. I’ve thought about the things you wrote as well, and I agree that not making it into a bigger deal than it should be or needs to be is a good idea.

I can see myself telling him in a casual manner, which is also what I’d planned to do with an NDA if I attempted to use one. “This document is merely for my peace of mind, although I’m confident I can trust you…”

Using an NDA may very well be a bad idea all around; I only considered it to have a more ironclad guarantee of protection. The main thing I’m trying to figure out is simply whether personal information about one’s love life is even allowable and enforceable with an NDA.
 
ostephenu said:
Using an NDA may very well be a bad idea all around; I only considered it to have a more ironclad guarantee of protection.
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The bottom line is that there is nothing ironclad abut an NDA. The motivation to have one signed is to keep something hidden from the public eye, but the only power the NDA gives you is suing the person who violates it, and just the existence of the NDA increases the incentive to disclose the information within it.

I think Samuel is the rock star in this conversation.
 
eye4them said:
This is an excellent observation! And it leads me to think that there is a moderate possibility that he will react favorably if it should come to pass that he finds out the details of the situation.
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I really do think he and his fiancé would be fine if they found out, but I’m sure they both view finding another woman attractive as very different than having more than one wife. That’s obviously true of many couples, although the authors of that terrible book Every Man’s Battle would insist on “bouncing one’s eyes” before finding any woman other than your first (and only) wife attractive.

Yes, he has admitted he thinks my second wife is attractive (without knowing she’s my wife), but he’s said the same about countless other women and isn’t likely to make the leap from that to plural marriage. I’m leaning, though, towards just telling him and praying for the best. The NDA notion has never struck me as an ideal solution, and the idea was actually mentioned by one of my wives and just got me thinking.
 
@ostephenu , I pray for wisdom. I do believe that the changing sociocultural fabric of the west is such that most people don't care and the courts would do nothing... oh, you might have a very short lived flap in the community, but it'll blow over as fast as the next headline... as @Keith Martin says, 'Stand tall!'

Shalom.
 
I remember reading (possibly here) that it seems more socially acceptable in modern western culture to have a mistress than a second wife whom you love and are committed to. Not sure what kind of community you live in, but today lefties will dox you and try to ruin you for not complying with their neo-marxian standards...In all honesty, for the sake of your business, livelihood and family, it's probably best to find a way to remove him from your workplace if he's or his fiancée are viable threats to them.
 
Mc_B said:
it seems more socially acceptable in modern western culture to have a mistress than a second wife
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So you could tell him she's your mistress.

I don't mean saying she's "only" a mistress. Just letting him know the two of you are a unit. You don't even need to say you're sleeping together - just that you're a unit. I mean, he calls his woman a "girlfriend" after all, that's completely meaningless. He can make what he thinks of that. If he thinks that means she's your mistress, that might just mean he is more impressed at your manliness - actually managing to have two women. If he wouldn't take that positively and thinks it's evil he'll question it further, and you can explain further - that you're actually committed for life, you don't see it as a short-term fling. And so forth. Ignoring the word "marriage" unless it's the best word to use in the circumstances.

Just let him think whatever he wants that would be most positive in his own mind.
 
UPDATE: I actually decided to tell him today. We had back-to-back long car rides between jobs, and I decided to go ahead and fill him in.

Fortunately, his response was beyond good. In fact, it’s probably the best response I’ve had to date from anyone I’ve told. He expressed a complete lack of judgment, an admiration for my family and “the love and closeness [he’s] always seen with us, a total willingness to keep quiet, and even respect for the lifestyle. He said he’s committed to his fiancé alone but acknowledged that’s only because of social norms and not a rigid belief in monogamy. He said, “If she were to come to me in a few years and express a desire to add another woman to our family, I certainly wouldn’t fight her on that!”

I told him to tell his fiancé if he wanted to, and after a break between jobs he told me he briefly saw her at home and told her. When he did, her response was apparently, “Well it’s no surprise Steve’s so freaking busy and has no life!” She went on to tell him she was happy for us and eager to get know us all more even better now.

So, it obviously couldn’t have gone better, and thanks to those of you who replied and reinforced my gut feeling of not going overboard with something like an NDA!
 
ostephenu said:
Fortunately, his response was beyond good. In fact, it’s probably the best response I’ve had to date from anyone I’ve told.
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Better than my response?

All kidding aside, though, congratulations -- and kudos for putting another notch on the belt of modeling for other men the power of just standing tall and being proud of what you deserve to be proud of.
 
ostephenu said:
Fortunately, his response was beyond good. In fact, it’s probably the best response I’ve had to date from anyone I’ve told.
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This is awesome in all ways. I’m sure you’re happy to have this behind you now.

Steve
 
Excited to hear that this went well. Positive examples in the community of poly are excellent! May Yah bless and guard you and your family @ostephenu
 
ostephenu said:
. That’s obviously true of many couples, although the authors of that terrible book Every Man’s Battle would insist on “bouncing one’s eyes” before finding any woman other than your first (and only) wife attractive.
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I remember reading that book back in the early 2000s. Pretty unhelpful, and unbiblical.

Then a few years later, I learned that the author Steve Arteburn (coauthor), and supposed marriage advice guru has been divorced twice, and is now married to his third wife (young and attractive too).

It's bad enough when pastors like John Macarthur or John Piper erroneously preach traditional rather than Biblical marriage. At least those guys have successfully been married to the same woman for fifty plus years. They are wrong, but at least practice what they teach.

Arteburn on the other hand gives us pseudo/Christian psychology, and can't seem to even manage to hold on to a woman.

By the way, I'm not intending disrespect towards anyone who is divorced. It's just kinda nauseating to see a twice divorced man prancing around giving the rest of us marriage advice.
 
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