Meri Brown of *Sister Wives* came to realize that being in a polygamous setup required her to share her spouse with other women – but she wasn’t quite equipped for the emotional impact that each new member would have.
“I was aware that I would experience [an] emotion regarding it when someone eventually became part of the family. And I did,” Meri, 54, recounted during the Sunday, November 9, installment of the TLC series. “I didn’t always conduct myself in the best manner.”
She went on, “I recall feeling quite jealous. You know, people constantly inquire, ‘Were you not jealous?’ Well, yes, I was. How could one not feel jealous?”
Meri held the position of Kody Brown’s first wife, having legally married him in 1990. Three years later, they expanded their family with the inclusion of Janelle Brown, who spiritually married Kody, 56, in 1993. Christine Brown became a member of the polygamous family in 1994, and Robyn Brown finalized the family structure in 2010.
With each additional wife, Meri experienced a surge of emotions, confessing, “I believed I was engaging in polygamy incorrectly.”
She recalled believing that due to the jealousy, she was “a human being [doing it] incorrectly.”
“I felt I was a woman incorrectly, a wife incorrectly. I couldn’t even conceive a child, for goodness’ sake, you know?” Meri expressed. “So, everything about me was flawed. It was challenging.”
Throughout her marriage to Kody, Meri faced numerous challenges, including only being able to have one child, Leon, in July 1995.
After Meri legally divorced Kody in 2014 to enable him to marry Robyn, 47, and adopt her three children from a previous marriage, their relationship suffered. Meri and Kody did navigate Meri’s catfishing incident in 2015, but the extended family as a whole began to disintegrate in the years that followed.
“Polygamy diminishes a marriage because you aren’t required to invest the necessary time to enhance your relationship,” Christine asserted during Sunday’s episode.
Christine, 53, revealed her separation from Kody in November 2021, and Janelle verified their split in December 2022. Meri and Kody, in the meantime, issued a joint announcement in January 2023, indicating that they had gone their separate ways.
Reflecting on their polygamous way of life and values, both Meri and Christine disclosed during Sunday’s episode that the religion purportedly encourages unhappiness in the hopes of attaining a superior afterlife.
“It’s an intriguing concept within the church culture we originated from, that suffering would improve you,” Meri conveyed to the cameras. “Because if you endure suffering, you’ve got it made.”
However, Meri is not comfortable with that line of reasoning. “I don’t think that we need to endure the pain and the struggles and the challenges,” she said. “I think what we need to do is figure out how to go through them.”
Christine adopted a comparable viewpoint on the church’s practices after marrying David Woolley in October 2023 and opting to embrace monogamy.
After David, 61, shared with Christine his belief that polygamy fosters “a great deal of hatred, jealousy, and control,” predominantly at the hands of men, she validated that jealousy and competition among the women do indeed occur.
“If I’m having a difficult time with Kody in an unfavorable situation, I don’t want to witness him being physically affectionate with other wives in my presence,” Christine elucidated, describing it as a “slap in the face.”
While Christine conveyed that she never perceived Kody as “controlling” her, she informed David that the church did advocate that being able to cope with the man’s ego and the element of jealousy rendered them “better” individuals.
“They instruct you that it betters you. You experience those emotions, you acquire the skills to manage those emotions, and then you progress and evolve into a superior individual,” she recalled.
David contended, “No, they instruct you to relinquish those emotions,” to which Christine concurred.
“The famous quote is, ‘Endure to the end,’” Christine said. “Basically go ahead and have a miserable life because when you die, you earn the celestial kingdom, you earn all the way up and you get to live with God if you endure. That’s sad.”
Christine noted that for her, she just wanted to “enjoy to the end,” instead of suffering.
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
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