MY MULTIPLE WIFE

INTRODUCTION

I don't know what it is like to have multiple personalities. They call it Dissociative Identity Disorder now or DID. Actual 'alters' that take control of you without you knowing - alters talking to you in your head - alters that have different ages - alters that have certain abilities - alters that take the lead and others that rarely, if ever come out. Typically people with this condition are unaware of it. The alters feel threatened by knowledge of their existence and so a deception must be maintained for survival of the system.

I have been married to such a person for most of my life. We are still married and very much in love with each other. So I have seen the phenomenon up close and personal.

It started when I was 15 years old. I met the most beautiful, kind, sweet and very interesting girl. I'll call her Annie. Before long I was head over heels in love. I was a shy kid and it took a lot to work up to asking her out. But then I could not find her phone number in the book (this was 1971 and there were no computers). I called a mutual friend who had her number. She acted a little weird when I wanted the number and said Annie lived with her aunt & uncle. I got the number and called her. Of course she turned me down. I tried asking her out to a movie or something a few more times to no avail. We would talk at school sometimes and she had no boyfriend at the time. Finally I asked if she wanted to watch my band practice and then go to a movie. She said 'you're in a band?' and I said yes, I play the drums. SHE SAID YES! I was in heaven. When she showed up at the church basement where we practiced the other guys couldn't believe that a supermodel was going out with me. They all showed off a bit and our songs had a little more punch that evening. Well we went to a movie afterward - a 'drive in' but you had to be 18. I was 16 at the time but one of the guys in the band was 18. So we all piled into my moms station wagon and got in with him driving. Needless to say I was disappointed to have these other guys in the car. But the date went OK if you don't count the fact that the movie was disgusting and boring. She obviously did not like it and we ended up leaving early. But we kissed. I drove her home and we talked a bit and kissed again. I was on cloud nine. We went on a couple dates after that. But sometimes at school she would act as if she did not even know me. Not in the sense that she was trying to, but like she was someone different. Sometimes we would talk about something - like I had to work or something on my day off for example - and the next day she would insist that we did not talk about it. I would call her on the phone and it seemed like sometimes I was talking to a different person. It happened a lot and I remember thinking something was strange.

KIDS WITH KIDS

But that did not stop us from falling in love. We eventually became inseparable. But we came from very different worlds. I was middle class with two older sisters and one younger. My parents had always been together. We lived in the same house my whole life. We lived in a small town and my parents belonged to the country club. We were not rich but we were not poor. She, on the other hand, was the youngest of 6 and was abandoned by her parents before she was 2 years old. She lived with a variety of relatives and foster homes. The only stability was that her next older sister and her were always kept together. The longest she ever lived with a family was four years. When she moved they gave her no notice, put her in a car, took her to another town with different foster family never to see her friends again. She knew she had a bad childhood and yearned to be an adult to be independent and rely upon no one but herself. She had never had anyone she could rely on her whole life. Then along came me. We were young and full of hope. Only later - much later - did she learn of the horrors that had been inflicted upon her. They were like huge festering unhealing deep wounds not seen by the rest of the world and especially not seen by her. Sometimes she would see glimpses or images in her head of unspeakable things but they were never ever talked about.

After all the job of a good alter is to own a deep wound and keep it from everyone. Giving up their secret means they no longer have a job. But healing cannot occur unless the secrets are revealed. So therein lies the rub. The human brain in it's effort to keep one safe from trauma holds onto it in secret places only to later on fester and eventually make the person very sick and in need of help. The only way to heal it is to get it out. It is a wonderful coping mechanism but it is really only a temporary fix.

Getting back to our story. She became pregnant while in our senior year of high school. This was another trauma in itself. She changed to become 'the good mother'. I liked that in her and wanted to be a good father. We made the decision to keep the baby and get married. Of course we were both 17 and needed permission. Since she was a ward of the court she would have no problem getting permission. We then broke the news to my parents. We wanted to get married, live at their house in the basement and go to school and work until we could get on our feet. That idea was soundly rejected. I was astonished and bewildered. I just knew that my parents would see that we were really serious and change their mind. They never did. I moved out into a small apartment a few months later. Then we graduated high school and Annie moved in with me. A few weeks later I turned 18. Five days after that we were married and a few weeks later our son was born. I did not realize this but being rejected by my parents was another in a long line of rejections. She took it hard but didn't really show it. Being young and naive I thought it would blow over. It doesn't work that way.

After we had the baby I was continually amazed at how Annie seemed to always know exactly what to do.  She was the best mother at 18 years old I could imagine.  She was so in touch with the baby and always knew if he needed anything before I did.  She worked hard too and she cooked like a chef.  How could she know how to be the perfect mother, perfect wife, excellent cook - was beyond me - I thought I married superwoman.  As it turned out she had help.  You see she developed alters to suit the needs in her life.  These alters were focused on their job and nothing else.  I guess once you start creating alters, new ones can be created more easily based on your situation.  We still had the occasional argument about something I said or did that she did not remember.  There was no winning such an argument so I didn't worry about it.  Shit I had a beautiful loving wife who was a perfect mother and I liked her cooking better than my own mothers.  How great is that?  However deep in the back of my mind I knew she had some darkness.  I never wanted to piss her off.  My dad called her a 'mother grizzly bear'.  She was VERY protective.

It seems our love life was so incredible that we ended up having two more kids (boys) over the next three years.  So here I was just barely 21 and she not quite 21 and had all this responsibility.  I don't know how we did it, we just did.  She seemed so grown up and I was still a boy in many ways struggling to become a man.  She always knew what to do.

A TRAUMATIC YEAR

It was 1978 and she was pregnant again.  Oh shit, the doctor warned us not to have any more because of our blood type difference.  She had developed antibodies to my blood type and it nearly killed our third child.  We traveled to doctors all over the Pacific Northwest who practiced alternative medicine.  It was a difficult time - we had no help from family.  After five years of marriage my mother still had not fully accepted Annie.  I had no idea how profoundly that affected her.  From the time she was a little girl she dreamed of marrying a man whose mother would take her in like a mother should.  She never had one of her own and now that dream was shattered.  I could not understand the tension - why not let bygones be bygones?  But I knew one thing.  Annie was the most important woman in my life by a mile.  

By that time I had gone to work for my father.  I reasoned that since he had sent my sisters to college the lease he could do was give me a chance to learn his profession.  Sort of an on the job training.  I worked hard to learn the insurance business.  He learned it from my mothers father so why not give me a chance.  My father jumped at the chance.  It was one way he could help us that my mother would have no say over.  The business world was his domain and this was business.  At least I could earn a living wage and in time a decent one.  In the meantime I was playing drums in a local band on weekends.  The extra money really helped.  It allowed Annie to be a stay-at-home mom.

More to come - much more.