Sister Wives’ Meri Brown understood that dwelling in polygamy meant having to share her husband with different girls — however she wasn’t prepared for the emotional toll each new addition would deliver.
“I knew that I’d have [an] emotion about it when anyone did lastly come into the household. And I did,” Meri, 54, recalled in the course of the Sunday, November 9, episode of the TLC sequence. “I didn’t deal with myself the perfect on a regular basis.”
She continued, “I bear in mind being very jealous. , individuals ask on a regular basis, ‘Have been you not jealous?’ Nicely, sure, I used to be. How are you going to not be jealous?”
Meri was Kody Brown’s first spouse, legally marrying him in 1990. Three years later, they expanded their household with the addition of Janelle Brown, who spiritually wed Kody, 56, in 1993. Christine Brown joined the polygamist brood in 1994, and Robyn Brown rounded out the household in 2010.
With each new spouse got here extra feelings for Meri, who confessed, “I believed I used to be dwelling polygamy incorrect.”
She remembered pondering that due to the jealousy, she was “a human being [doing it] incorrect.”
“I believed I used to be a girl incorrect, a spouse incorrect. I couldn’t actually have a child, for heaven’s sake, you understand?” Meri mentioned. “So all the pieces about me was incorrect. It was exhausting.”
All through her marriage to Kody, Meri weathered many storms, together with solely with the ability to have one baby, Leon, in July 1995.
After Meri legally divorced Kody in 2014 so he might marry Robyn, 47, and undertake her three youngsters from one other marriage, their relationship took successful. Meri and Kody did overcome Meri’s catfishing scandal in 2015, however the plural household as a complete started to unravel a couple of years later.
“Polygamy dilutes a wedding since you don’t should spend the time that it takes to make your relationship higher,” Christine claimed throughout Sunday’s episode.
Christine, 53, introduced her cut up from Kody in November 2021, and Janelle confirmed their separation in December 2022. Meri and Kody, in the meantime, launched a joint assertion in January 2023, revealing that the 2 had parted methods.
Wanting again on their polygamist way of life and values, each Meri and Christine revealed on Sunday’s episode that the faith allegedly promotes unhappiness within the hopes of getting a greater afterlife.
“It’s an attention-grabbing thought within the church tradition that we got here from, that struggling was going to make you higher,” Meri informed the cameras. “As a result of should you endure, then you may have it made.”
Nonetheless, that mind-set doesn’t sit properly with Meri. “I don’t assume that we have to endure the ache and the struggles and the challenges,” she mentioned. “I believe what we have to do is determine the best way to undergo them.”
Christine had an analogous outlook on the church’s practices after getting married to David Woolley in October 2023 and selecting to stay monogamy.
After David, 61, informed Christine that in his opinion polygamy creates “lots of hate, lots of jealousy, lots of management,” largely by the hands of the boys, she confirmed that jealousy and competitors among the many girls does occur.
“If I’m having a foul time with Kody in a foul state of affairs, I don’t need to see him being bodily affectionate with different wives in entrance of me,” Christine defined, calling it a “slap within the face.”
Whereas Christine mentioned she by no means felt like Kody “managed” her, she informed David that the church did preach that with the ability to take care of the person’s ego and the jealousy issue made them “higher” individuals.
“They train you that it makes you higher. You are feeling these emotions, you be taught to take care of these emotions, and then you definately transfer on and also you develop into a greater particular person,” she recalled.
David argued, “No, they let you know to let go of these emotions,” to which Christine agreed.
“The well-known quote is, ‘Endure to the tip,’” Christine mentioned. “Mainly go forward and have a depressing life as a result of if you die, you earn the celestial kingdom, you earn all the way in which up and also you get to stay with God should you endure. That’s unhappy.”
Christine famous that for her, she simply wished to “take pleasure in to the tip,” as an alternative of struggling.
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.


