Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage (20 page)

During Kody’s courtship of and marriage to Robyn, I felt that I needed more from him than he was giving me. He couldn’t love me enough or spend enough time with me. Nothing he did satisfied me. I was so panicked about being neglected that I wanted more, more, more. I nagged and nitpicked. I felt it was his responsibility to do all the heavy lifting in our relationship.

I have to admit that during that period, I wasn’t a lot of fun to be around. Eventually, Kody had enough. I was venting to him once about some way in which I felt I was being shortchanged, and he just looked at me and said, “I just want my best friend back. I need you. I miss you and want you back.” There were tears in his eyes.

When I realized he wasn’t saying it to be hurtful (which, by the way, was totally stupid to think!), I began to change, and to take the advice I’d so blithely given other women living plural marriage.

During the period I was taking out my own unhappiness and insecurity on Kody, I learned a lot from my kids. Kids being kids, they can whine and complain. They can nitpick and pester me about the smallest, most inconsequential thing. When they test me to the max, I can no longer deal with being around them. So I send them to their rooms. Suddenly, I realized that what my kids were doing to me, I was doing to Kody. I needed to stop harassing him and making demands on him. I had to let myself love him and let him love me. I, too, wanted my best friend back.

It’s been a big change for me from being the person people could rely on for holidays and family meals to becoming the dependent one. During my struggles with postpartum depression and my own issues with making room for a new wife, I had to ask my sister wives to take over some of my duties—to organize
family meals and trips, take care of the little kids during the day. I needed to lean on them while I rebuilt my own inner strength. Meri and I have gone a long way toward repairing our relationship. We have been traveling together, and I believe that we are back on track. But still, I’m hurting.

I’ve been very frank with Meri, Janelle, Robyn, and Kody about where I stand emotionally. I let them know what I need from them and what I can and cannot do. I recognize that they are always there for me, and everyone is supporting me now. I need their patience and their understanding. I will get through this, but I need time. I am lucky to have a wonderful, supportive husband.

As our family has become more settled, Kody has been more available to us as a group, taking on a leadership role in the day-to-day concerns that were once my chosen obligations. In many ways, this is more appropriate. He’s made this transition wonderfully, which speaks to the amazing emotional maturity he’s achieved over the years. I think he gets overwhelmed a little quicker than I used to, but he’s learned to listen to all of us, to take our needs and problems into consideration, and then to apply them to the overall picture. I’m very happy to take a backseat while he does this.

Although Kody is a stronger man than he’s ever been and grows more and more reliable every day, I feel a lack of stability in our own relationship. I can only blame myself and my insecurities for this. I will get through this only when I’ve strengthened my relationship with God. This will return my confidence to me. Then all of the jealousy will vanish and everything will fall into place.

I know that this will happen, because our family is incredibly strong. I’ve seen a lot of polygamous families in my life, and ours is the bomb! My own insecurities pale in comparison to our collective strength.

In the long run, I know my struggles are temporary. I have an amazing husband who is my best friend, and I have three truly incredible sister wives. Although there have been some rough periods, I never dreamed that it would be this great. Of all the examples of plural families I’ve seen, ours is truly the best.

When Kody and I got engaged, we didn’t have enough money to get married or to help me move from southern Utah to Lehi. Janelle offered to let me move in with her, but I was desperate to avoid this situation. I needed time to explore my relationship with Kody. This would have been impossible living under the same roof as another wife. It wouldn’t have been easy on anyone. I don’t believe Kody would have been able to be as emotionally involved in our relationship had I been living with Janelle, nor would that situation have been fair on their marriage. So for the moment, I stayed put in St. George.

Even though we had no money to get married, Kody dreamed of a big, fancy wedding. It’s his view that since polygamists marry so often, they don’t value the marriage ceremony and the reception as they should. They don’t do enough to make the day special. For the most part, polygamous weddings are humble. Kody swore that when he and I married, it was going to be a big deal.

While I love all the sweetness and romance attached to a big wedding, I didn’t want all the bother and attention. And I certainly didn’t want the drama I worried would come with the territory. The Browns had a comfortable and complicated family.
I didn’t want to come storming in with a huge party and make myself the center of attention. I wanted a quiet yet romantic wedding. And I wanted it to happen as soon as possible. But no matter what size wedding Kody and I decided on, we were going to have to wait.

It was not entirely due to financial constraints that we were forced to put off our wedding. We got engaged at the end of September, and I was hoping that we could find a way to be married by December at the latest. My future sister wives were unhappy with this plan. When I discovered this, I knew that I was going to have to be incredibly sensitive to their feelings and wishes as I planned my wedding.

I quickly realized how foolish I’d been to consider getting married in December. I didn’t want my wedding to Kody to distract from the Brown family’s holidays. I didn’t want my event to eclipse the children’s Christmas. Getting married in January was also out of the question as it was Meri’s birthday, Janelle’s anniversary, and my son Dayton’s birthday. February, too, posed similar problems.

While Kody and I were figuring out the best and earliest possible date for our wedding, the television show that he’d been discussing since we got engaged went from a dream to a reality. The show’s producer, Tim Gibbons, sold a pilot to TLC. TLC was going to help us pay for our wedding. I knew that having a big ceremony meant the world to Kody. So I consented.

This immediately posed another problem. They wanted to open the show with our wedding. Kody and I vehemently objected to this. It would be a grave disservice to Kody’s first three wives to feature his wedding to me in the opening episode of the show. Focusing on a new wife would shortchange their rich family history. Since the goal of the show was to exhibit the wonderful and wild Brown family, beginning with my story just didn’t make sense. It would have been hurtful to all of those who’d
built this family from the ground up. In addition to this, Kody worried that if the first thing the audience saw him do was get married, people would misinterpret his intentions and view him as “the marrying guy” instead of the family man he is.

After much discussion, Kody convinced the production team to begin the show with the core family and then introduce my story. This meant, once again, pushing back my wedding. Now my courtship would be extremely drawn out—and not only that, it would be filmed, something I’d never anticipated. I’m glad that Kody and I had time to ourselves before the cameras intruded into our lives. I’m sure that I wouldn’t have gotten to know him had he been filming a show right from the start.

Eventually, we were able to settle on a date for our wedding at the end of May. When I began to plan the wedding, I wanted to involve my future sister wives as much as possible. I was aware that since TLC had become involved, the wedding was going to be a much larger event than I was comfortable with. And I worried that the amount of attention lavished on my wedding day might lead to hurt feelings within the family. I wanted to make sure that my special day was as much a celebration about my family as it was of my marriage. I wanted to do everything within my power to avoid offending my sister wives, some of whom didn’t have the opportunity to have a large wedding. I had also watched other women in our church who were coming into a family not include the present wives in the reception and celebration of their marriage. I had heard horror stories about these wives being hurt as they watched from the sidelines as the new wife married their husband. I was determined to make it a happy day for everyone.

While I was beginning to plan the wedding, Kody made a large commission on a sign he’d been trying to sell for ages. We used this money and my tax return to help me and my kids move into my own apartment in Lehi. This made planning the wedding
infinitely easier. It also allowed me to start developing a closer relationship to my sister wives.

Of course, it would have been nicer for me to have been able to have a place either in or near the big house—not in one of the other wives’ apartments, but in my own. This would have made me feel integrated into the family instead of feeling like an outsider. However, this was not possible, since the house was designed for a man with three wives, not four. I know a lot of people probably misinterpreted the fact that I was given my own house as my getting preferential treatment. This was not the case at all. There was simply no other reasonable option.

When I got to Lehi, I made it very clear to my sister wives that I wanted my wedding celebration to be about family. I made sure to include them in every step of the planning process—the flowers, the cake, the invitations, the food. In fact, Janelle even picked the location herself, which was great. My sister wives and I even went dress shopping for my wedding dress. The experience was really fun, and it was great to bond with them. I loved having their advice but I didn’t find a dress. Later, I was looking by myself and was having trouble finding what would be appropriate. I had never been a plural wife before, so I was a little nervous about what to wear. Kody called right then and offered to help me, and I said yes. Later on in the show, Kody revealed this to everyone. I don’t think he meant to cause any hurt feelings, but the damage was done. Janelle and Meri felt like I had pretended to want them involved in picking out my dress and then, behind their backs, had Kody help me instead. Christine’s struggle was that Kody hadn’t helped her pick out hers. I was frustrated with Kody for blurting out the story in a way that hurt my sister wives. I hadn’t meant harm, I just needed to pick out my dress!

After I chose my colors for the wedding, I wanted each of my sister wives to have the exact style of dress she would like, but
all in the same color scheme. Meri wanted to use the wedding as an opportunity to take a family portrait. I wanted this portrait to focus on the family, not on my wedding, so I had a second dress made to match my sister wives.

Although, I would have been happy with the smallest of receptions, the wedding was absolutely lovely. I really felt that it celebrated not just Kody and me, but the union of our beautiful families.

Sometimes I worried that it seemed as if I was getting preferential treatment. I got the big wedding followed by a long honeymoon. However, the honeymoon was both necessary and special to me. I never asked Kody for a ten-day trip, but he must have had a sixth sense that it was something important for us. Since we believe in remaining chaste before marriage, the honeymoon ushers in a new part of our relationship. Those ten days were especially important to me because of the hardships I had been through in my previous marriage. In addition to this, since I already had three kids, the minute we returned from our trip, Kody and I would be thrown into a cycle of homework and child care. We would be developing our relationship as a married couple with three younger children. So it was wonderful to have such an extended vacation from the cares of home and private time to build our relationship. It was comforting to know, however, that when I got back, my maternal duties would resume, but I would no longer be a single mother. I’d have a wonderful husband and three sister wives at my side.

I understand now that long my honeymoon was somewhat hurtful to my sister wives, who didn’t have comparable experiences. I made sure Kody called all of them several times during our ten days away—but not all of my new sister wives took his calls. I found out later when we returned home how upset some of my sister wives were that Kody took a longer honeymoon with me than with them. I remember Christine talking to me and saying,
“If you needed that long, just tell me. I need to know you needed it.” I told her that I needed it but I didn’t know how much until I was on the honeymoon with Kody—when you have been married and divorced, you can have the past come back to haunt you in the worst times.

Like many women who embrace plural marriage, I had an overly idealistic notion of how simple it would be to develop healthy and stable relationships with my sister wives. I understood that there had been some issues regarding my courtship, but I assumed when the wedding was over, these would be forgotten. I imagined that when I returned from my honeymoon, I’d easily slide into the Brown family. I thought the struggles my sister wives were going through would fade because Kody and I were now married.