Telling Family - ylop comes out

[ylop]

Hi there.

According to the accrued wisdom on this site, I should notify my parents in law BEFORE anything happens (if ever).

Now ylopsonlywife cautioned me not to, saying "don't tell them ylop, they wont understand, and it might never happen". I wanted to tell them so that it was clear that the belief came before the woman. However I heeded the caution and bided my time.

But last week in a fit of irrational exuberance, believing I was doing the right thing by acting in respect and consultation, I called my parents-in law and told them (they live a long distance away). It was a very hard call to make, and excruciating to discuss. I followed it up with a detailed letter.

The instant reaction from my parents in law is the belief that my marriage to ylopsonlywife is over (not true at all). And I suspect a range of other reactions, use your imagination.

Anyway, here is my tip. If you are looking for a fast way to wipe out the good impressions of 15+ years of steady marriage, responsibility, clean living and grandchildren, MY METHOD IS THE BEST.

ylop

 

[Isabella]

Men....listen to your women!!!!

This is a public announcement by the common sense bureau.

 

[Dr. K.R. Allen]

According to the accrued wisdom on this site

Ylop, I don't think that is the position of everyone and certainly not all of the staff. Some of us think the principles of wisdom as Solomon says applies: "there is a time and season for everything under the sun." Often it is best to gradually over a year or longer to incrementally bring up the topic to lay small seeds of thought before discussing the full subject. In many cases a drop everything on someone at once can create a Romans 14 issue where a person's freedom in the Lord destroys another's conscience and damages the person.

This article below discusses the issues with brain development and why it takes time for others to assimilate new information.

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=1894

Literally new subjects like this require new growth in the actual physical areas of the brain so that it can process the information without shock and without revolting against the idea. When no prior ground work has been established in regard to certain ideas when that new idea hits the brain if the brain has not been accustomed to new ideas such as the one under consideration it will almost always reject the idea.

I'm sorry you have hit this bump in the road. I pray in time the Lord will resolve this breach.

 

[ylop]

Well yes I agree that a slow release of information would be best.

However I only see my relatives infrequently and briefly at that. On those occasions, religious views are not a topic of conversation or even a common ground.

And the principal I was following was announcing the IDEA not the WOMAN.

And I gather from various accounts I have read on this site, that often relatives are not informed until long after the new woman is in the home.

So perhaps a good technical play poorly executed?

But at least I have endeavoured to do the right thing.

ylop

 

[julieb]

I personally think announcing the IDEA before the WOMAN is always the best method. That way you have started on the brain change as Dr. Allen talked about and you are not having to deal with a new wife and all that comes with that AND your emotional relatives. I think each family has to decide how strong emotionally they are and what just makes sense to them in regards to "coming out". Yes, ylop, maybe you could have been a bit slower with the reveal but it is going to be a certain amount of shock no matter how slow or fast you share your belief. It might just be that they needed something to rattle their minds to show what is really in their hearts for you and their daughter. I know how tough it is to battle outraged family, it is no fun, but these are the moments that God shows himself to be....well, GOD. My prayers are with you.

With hope for the future,
Julieb

 

[Dr. K.R. Allen]

So perhaps a good technical play poorly executed?

Maybe so. With the distance it also does make it tough to have those extended conversations to lead into it.

In either case, I would suggest small doses of questions to get them thinking and then as the Spirit so leads introduce more and more as you progress in the conversation. But, if the persons involved have no biblical background at all or are non-religious that too makes it tougher.

 

[steve]

good for you, ylop.

you have been up-front with your family and there probably would have been no way to to make it painless.

some enter into the lifestyle in falsehood and live a lie and then try to figure out how to get the fam up to speed. sometimes what happens is that the information comes from another source and the relationship really goes downhill.

do what is right and suffer the consequences.

steve the amatuer

 

[ylop]

I appreciate the encouraging messages, thank you.

And I will keep stumbling through. After thinking and discussing this topic so much, I am not going to leave it as theory.

ylop

 

[porkchop]

Yeah, we are stuck at that cross-road ourselves..stuck and defaulting to 'don't say a word' cause you might want to see your grandkids once a year....

 

[Doc]

Fear was a big factor for me as well, as noted before. Would I do it again? Yes, but I would rest in the promises of God's Word that it was Truth, no matter what anyone else thought. I would also probably take the approach that Katie mentioned, allowing truth of the Word concerning Biblical marriage make its impression first, rather than trying to defend the position later. Katie, a lot of wisdom in that approach!

Just so everyone knows, my former wife eventually accepted that the plurality of marriage was a Biblical truth, however resisted it because it was culturally taboo and legally invalid. I was too young in the faith regarding the issue to make an appropriate defense. By the time word had gotten out to a few female friends and some family members, the pressure came on pretty hard for her as well to regard it as 'cultic', and 'immoral'. They were actually the ones who were equating it with homosexuality and worse.

This is in spite of the fact that I made of pledge of monogamy to her only (which you can read about elsewhere on the forum).....

Ylop, we are all learning here, which is why the information on this forum is so very valuable. Hopefully someone else will read about your experience and others, and use wisdom in approaching and sharing the concept of Biblical marriage.

Blessings,

Doc

PS. For future readers of this post and forum....I too felt compelled to share with others what I had learned about plural marriage as well. I don't know what it is, but we are almost DRIVEN to do it. Listen to what I am about to say to you very carefully, because it will save you a world of heartache....DON'T TELL ANYONE THAT DOESN'T NEED TO KNOW. It is better to ask FORGIVENESS than to ask PERMISSION! Words of wisdom from someone that knows!

 

[Dr. K.R. Allen]

.DON'T TELL ANYONE THAT DOESN'T NEED TO KNOW. It is better to ask FORGIVENESS than to ask PERMISSION! Words of wisdom from someone that knows!

Wisdom indeed. I think that is Apostle Paul's point in Romans 14:22 "The faith that you have [on conscience issues], keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves."

There will be times in which a person should remain silent or to even practice what Dr. Luck taught on at the retreat in regards to righteous concealment. Yet at other times it is wise and holy to address the matter even if it is unpopular and even going to cause you grief and flack for it. I've for sure lost some friends over my views on this as well as other doctrines. But of that some I can also look back and see that sometimes it was not the truth itself that cost me but the time at which I delivered it or even by the means in which I delivered it.

How does one know when to do what? God lives in his children through the Holy Spirit. Paul said it this way, "you however are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." Also he said, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." By prayer and by being a true child of God a saint can know the times to speak, the time not to speak, and even the time to conceal.

For sure, like children do, we will stumble in this process. But by the leadership of God as the Spirit in us we can discern these matters and in the process love the truth, live in it, and yet still be wise in how we approach others not only with this truth but with all truth and every doctrine. This principle even applies to the doctrine of evangelism. It is not always right to share the gospel in every second with every person. Sometimes by the Spirit we know it is the right time to share the gospel, other times we know it is not the right time to share the gospel, and even at other times it is wise and right to conceal the gospel for a time.

 

[steve]

a perspective from one of last years threads:

Someone from our list who has recently, finally "come out of the closet" amidst great family upset posted the following in a PM, and gave me permission to post it on this thread ...



BTW: You have never been more right than when you encouraged us to tell our family the truth from the beginning and to be proud of our beliefs. I so regret not being upfront at the start. It just muddies the waters of the biblical truth of polygyny. ...

I would be fine with you posting that...especially if it helps another family not make the same mistake=s we made. I felt like I was in Kindergarten when we first started trying to figure out the rght way to do things, and now I feel like I've got my Doctorate degree! The funny thing is, by next year, I'll probably think that where we are today is like Kindergarten!

Post away, and prayerfully, it will save someone some of the pain and trials we're having to deal with because of our lack of faith.


For those who haven't followed this thread since the beginning, I advocate being out of the closet with family at least from the moment you are convinced of the truth of PM. That way they never get to level a charge at you of having been secretive and ashamed of your new "truth", nor of having destroyed their trust.

Preferably a/your pastor as well. Saves the same charge. And if he's going to disfellowship/excommunicate you, oh well! They KILLED Jesus. This is less. And God looks at THEM and says, "If you did it to the least of these ..." *yikes!*

 

[ylop]

thanks steve, that was what i was talking about. ylop

 

[sola scriptura]

Steve is quoting something I wrote last year. I believe even more strongly now that close family members need to know about PM beliefs before another woman joins the family. It implies more integrity on the part of the man and causes you to be above reproach -- at least theoretically.

Starting off slowly seems to me a far more reasonable and thoughtful way to approach close family members with such a difficult subject. It's not foolproof, though, and you can still end up with disastrous results, as many on this board can attest to.

Unfortunately, some families just won't accept the truth no matter how it is presented to them. We tried talking vaguely of patriarchy, headship, etc., but once they got wind of the totality of these ideas, it went downhill very quickly, and family members began questioning me about whether my husband had a mistress.

I think being honest in a cautious way with select people is probably the best method, but I'm sure there are those who have tried that and failed, too!

Ultimately, bathing the decision in prayer and going forward with a cautious resolve to please the Lord is the best advice I would give.

Katie

 

[MarvelousMarvin]

ylop wrote:

And the principal I was following was announcing the IDEA not the WOMAN.

In my experience, it is harder to talk about Biblical Marriage to another Christian than to someone who is not born again. I think it probably is because the non-Christians have only the cultural taboo to overcome, but Christians have that plus more than 900 years of false teaching by the Church.

For example, the pastor of the church I recently quit attending stopped listening as soon as I said, "The Bible does not teach that it is a sin for a man to have more than one wife." He ignored everything else I tried to say and asked me why I'm not a Mormon! I thought he had a right to know about my beliefs because I had volunteered to help with Children's Church, and I wanted him to hear it first from me rather than from someone who had already condemned me for believing what the Bible says.

Another example: the Pastor of the church from which I was fired as Assistant Pastor, which is part of the denomination that excommunicated me based on the accusations of that ignorant Pastor, refused to discuss anything beyond his false belief that polygyny=adultery. The ignoramus, who is quite proud of his ThD, should know better.

sola scriptura wrote:

Ultimately, bathing the decision in prayer and going forward with a cautious resolve to please the Lord is the best advice I would give.

I agree completely. As Christians, that should apply to everything, not just discussing controversial doctrine with someone.

My youngest daughter found out by accident that her dad believes in Biblical Marriage. When I called her to tell her what flights my lovely Navajo Princess and I would be on to get to and from the Conference in Asheville, she asked why we were going. So I told her I was one of the guest speakers.

And she found this website while we were talking on the phone! She even read to me the list of Conference speakers, and said, "Oh - there you are." (Thanks, google! Guess I should never have mentioned Biblical Families as the sponsor of the Conference...) She was quite upset and said she didn't want to talk about it. And I'm sure she has told her older sister, since they are quite close. (I have only the two daughters.) But my oldest daughter has not mentioned it if she does know anything.

So I now have a delimna not too different than ylop's. How do I tell my daughters and sons-in-law (one is a Pastor, the other has been a Youth Pastor and Assistant Pastor but is not right now) exactly what I believe? I have 10-9/10 grandchildren (#11 is due any moment - actually, overdue) that I want to see occasionally.

And I agree that "the idea must come before the woman" with people who have a right to know, and those who don't have a right to know, well, too bad for them that they are so nosy.

So should I write a letter? Save my pennies and make a trip to the Northwest where they all live, and talk to them face-to-face? (IMHO, the best way to discuss something is in person.) Arrange a conference call and talk to all four (two daughters and two sons-in-law) at the same time?

As was said, the collective experience and wisdom on this forum is invaluable, and I appreciate it. Thank you, brothers and sisters.

 

[itainteasy]

My experience was different in that I was already the "black sheep" of the family in terms of doctrine, customs etc. so they were not so shocked when I talked to them about the doctrine and belief of plural marriage. I had no in-laws to impress, no "reputation in the community". I was not even attending a church regularly because the home church I had been a part of had a split and I hadn't found one that I fit in. When i was going to my first biblical families retreat my whole family knew and were wierded out somewhat but they knew that once I made up my mind about something I was gonna run that thing into the ground studying it. There are some benefits to being a lonely single mom with little to lose! Unfortunately the person I married had way too much family baggage-enough to strangle his christian liberty almost completely! That is another story altogether.

The point I was trying to make was in my case it was good for my family of origin to know my belief and hear it defended before I made any move towards marriage. Otherwise, my family may have been scared for me,and thought that I was being taken advantage of by a womanizer or that we had lied to the first wife and were trying to make up a new doctrine to cover up our lie. Either way i wouldn't have listened and losing fellowship with me was something that they feared so I would have still won them over rather quickly, I imagine. I think Doc's advice is the right way to go for "good, churchy" couples though.

 

[ylop]

A bit more information that might be helpful - the letters, which I think went down better than the phone call, did not focus much on PM at all. Instead they went into a lot of practical detail about my commitment to their daughter, things I had done for her in the past, things I have put in place right now, and my absolute commitment to her for the future. Concrete and real things, some with $ attached. I think that is really important. Kind of like when Bill explained to Margene's mother about the trust fund and health insurance (my memory is a bit hazy on that episode). ylop

 

[Jim]

In my experience, it is harder to talk about Biblical Marriage to another Christian than to someone who is not born again. I think it probably is because the non-Christians have only the cultural taboo to overcome, but Christians have that plus more than 900 years of false teaching by the Church.

I agree with Dr.Allen and Rm.14 when it comes to believers, especially inmature....probably 80% of Christians because most don't study the Word.

"there is a time and season for everything under the sun." Often it is best to gradually over a year or longer to incrementally bring up the topic to lay small seeds of thought before discussing the full subject. In many cases a drop everything on someone at once can create a Romans 14 issue where a person's freedom in the Lord destroys another's conscience and damages the person.

And the principal I was following was announcing the IDEA not the WOMAN.

Planting a SEED in good soil ok, but I don't think its good to reveal a PLAN too far in advance because it would allow them time to devise their own.

....DON'T TELL ANYONE THAT DOESN'T NEED TO KNOW. It is better to ask FORGIVENESS than to ask PERMISSION!

It falls under Christian liberty and a believer doesn't need permission, although it's nice to be accepted.

I think being honest in a cautious way with select people is probably the best method

I agree

My experience was different in that I was already the "black sheep" of the family in terms of doctrine, customs etc. so they were not so shocked when I talked to them about the doctrine and belief of plural marriage.

That's like me too, the "black sheep"

 

[cnystrom]

I have believed polygamy to be Biblical for a number of years now. I have been public about my belief on my (old) blog and on Facebook. I think pretty much all of my family and the in-laws know now. Mostly they disagree but I still have good relationships with everyone. I have had the luxury of not actually practicing polygamy during this time. This allowed me to move slow. I think it is a little easier when it is a theoretical discussion.

 

[Jim]

I have believed polygamy to be Biblical for a number of years now. I have been public about my belief on my (old) blog and on Facebook. I think pretty much all of my family and the in-laws know now. Mostly they disagree but I still have good relationships with everyone. I have had the luxury of not actually practicing polygamy during this time. This allowed me to move slow. I think it is a little easier when it is a theoretical discussion.

That takes a lot of courage to go public, I only have rumors going around about my beliefs.
:mrgreen: