Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage (12 page)

Like many women who choose plural marriage, I idealized the nature of sister wives. I was eager for my first sister wife to be my friend in addition to being married to my husband. I never wanted to be in a situation with a sister wife who didn’t want to associate with the rest of the family. As I imagined it, it would be the most natural thing in the world for my sister wives and me to form instantaneous friendships.

Paradoxically, I am reserved but at times can be opinionated, which makes me cautious about quickly forging close relationships with women. In forming friendships and relationships, I need to feel safety and trust with the other person before I feel I can open up to a deep relationship. But when I do, I value them deeply and expect these friendships to last. When Kody and I entered into our first courtship with a young woman we’d been introduced to at a church gathering, I was excited. She and I became close friends right away. This was unusual for me and I immediately took it as a sign that Kody and I were destined to marry her. This girl and I loved hanging out together and spent lots of time on our own without Kody. As I saw it, we were on our way to achieving the sister wife ideal I’d always imagined.

Though sometimes I got jealous of the afternoons she and Kody went off on their own to develop their relationship, I did my best to deal with those feelings maturely. I felt confident that the three of us had a wonderful future together and I was certain that while she would be a great wife to Kody, she would remain one of my best friends.

But things didn’t work out. I was devastated when the courtship soured and she left. Back then we were all so young—she was only eighteen, and Kody and I were in our first year of marriage—so we may have mistaken a crush for love. Nevertheless, I felt personally betrayed. I had lost one of my closest friends, a woman I imagined would have been a perfect sister wife.

We managed to put our failed courtship behind us. Kody and I were still the fun-loving, goofy, and wildly romantic couple we’d always been, but we felt that adding a wife to our family was something we needed to accomplish sooner rather than later in order to make good on our commitment to the principle of plural marriage. This was a promise we made to each other when we married—as much as we loved each other and had a wonderful, stable relationship, we knew that plural marriage was our destiny.

I’m not sure when it became apparent to me that Janelle wanted to join our family. Of course, since she had once been married to my brother, I had known her for several years. We had a cordial relationship. Even after her divorce, I thought of her as a sister-in-law, and it never occurred to me that she would one day be a sister wife.

If Kody had feelings about Janelle that were anything other than platonic, he hadn’t discussed them with me. I knew that he valued her intellect and her work ethic, and he had a deep respect for the way she conducted herself on an emotional level. I was surprised when Janelle approached Kody and asked
to come into our family, but not unpleasantly so. After all, she was close to my family already, and she was one of the people Kody and I associated with on a fairly regular basis. So it didn’t seem too far of a stretch to imagine her as a permanent fixture in our lives.

I have to admit, part of me was relieved that Kody and Janelle weren’t a conventionally romantic couple. I didn’t feel that Janelle’s presence in our lives in any way threatened the love Kody and I shared. Their bond was intellectual, which made it easier for me to accept Janelle. If they had been one of those gushy, lovey-dovey couples, who melt at the sight of each other—if they had been the same kind of couple Kody and I were—I would have had a lot more trouble making peace with the idea of her as a sister wife.

I immediately saw that Kody and I would have one type of relationship—the passionate, romantic one we’d always had—while he and Janelle would have another, something more cerebral. This seemed both totally acceptable to me and easier to handle, as our first move into plural marriage.

After nearly three years of monogamous marriage, I was ready for a sister wife, or so I thought. I was happy for Kody that he’d found someone to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, and I was happy for Janelle to have chosen—and to have been chosen by—such a wonderful man after her failed relationship with my brother.

One thing that was difficult was the timing of Kody and Janelle’s wedding—they planned it to take place on my birthday, thinking that it wouldn’t be a big deal. Looking back, I realize a lot of my issues with their marriage were really because I thought they were being extremely insensitive. Birthdays are important to me! I felt like I was being completely overlooked, even when they offered to celebrate their future anniversaries on a different day. It floored me that my husband would think this was a good
idea, but it baffled me even more to know that a woman who was wanting to join our family would even think for a minute to do it on the birthday of a future sister wife! Fortunately, Kody’s mom got involved and persuaded them to move their wedding to the day
after
my birthday.

While I wished them all the happiness in the world, I was not as prepared as I believed myself to be. Kody and Janelle’s courtship was so quick that when their wedding day arrived, I was struck by the realization that I was going to be sharing my husband. It was harder than I thought it would be. No matter how much you are committed to the principle of plural marriage, the first time the reality hits you, it’s a total shock. For three years, Kody and I had been practically inseparable, and now there was going to be a new person in our midst. Permanently.

Their ceremony was simple but touching. I was happy for both of them, but I couldn’t deny my own sadness, especially at the prospect of them leaving for their honeymoon. After all, Kody and I had barely been apart since we married. We spent every possible moment together. Now he was driving off for a week-long trip with another woman. No matter how hard I tried, it was difficult for me to come to terms with this.

Just before Kody left for his honeymoon with Janelle, he pulled me aside and handed me some money. “This is mad money,” he said. “Go out and play. Spend it on whatever you want and enjoy yourself.”

His gesture was so sweet and touching. My plan was to hole up in a hotel room and gorge on television viewing while I tried to make sense of my complicated feelings. Who was I, now that I wasn’t “Meri and Kody”? When my mom and dad realized what I was intending to do, they insisted that I come stay at their house. I resisted at first. I couldn’t imagine being around anyone and burdening them with my emotions. In the end my parents prevailed.

“This is a time when you need people around you,” my mother explained. She knew, without my telling her, how much I was struggling inside.

My parents were completely right—instead of wallowing in a hotel by myself, I needed to be surrounded by family and friends. Despite my sadness, I managed to enjoy myself, which was really important because it made the week pass more quickly. Kody called me every day to check in and to tell me that he loved me.

When Janelle entered the family, Kody and I were still starry-eyed regarding the principle of plural marriage—and marriage in general—so we had no idea how to prepare for the emotional and domestic reality of our new situation. I guess we just assumed that after Kody and Janelle got married and went on their honeymoon, the three of us would live in one house as a big, happy family, and everything would go back to normal. Neither Kody nor I anticipated the need to change our behavior when Janelle came into the house. We didn’t consider how he might have to balance the relationship he had with me with the one he was developing with Janelle. I never took the time to think about how I should open up my space—both physical and emotional—to accommodate a new wife.

I felt as if I was welcoming to Janelle, but I didn’t realize at the time how different our personalities could be. We all moved into a new house about the time of Janelle’s wedding, so I didn’t feel like it was
my
house, but
our
house. When we were deciding who would get what bedroom, I offered Janelle the master bedroom, thinking it might be something special to have as a newlywed, while I took the small bedroom at the back of the house. I didn’t realize then that Janelle wasn’t the type to speak up for what she needed, so I don’t know whether this was something that was important to her, or even appreciated. I assumed that Janelle would feel free to behave with Kody the same way I was
with him, and I didn’t realize I needed to change my behavior sometimes as well.

The biggest mistake we made when we married Janelle was us all moving into a house together and not giving Janelle and me the space we needed to develop and nurture our own relationships with Kody. Having us all in the same house brought Janelle face-to-face on a daily basis with the romantic relationship Kody and I had. We were too naive to hide our affection for each other from Janelle, and I’m afraid to say that she was confronted by it regularly, which I’m sure was both painful and awkward. At times, Kody and I would hold hands or hug each other in front of Janelle, leaving her in what was probably a very uncomfortable situation.

Although Janelle is by no means as physically affectionate a person as I am, it was not healthy or fair for her to see the affection I shared with Kody. I’m sure this led to hard feelings toward me. Living together from the start ultimately shortchanged the three relationships we were trying to develop and maintain.

Another reason that Kody and Janelle had difficulties laying the foundation for their marriage during that first year was that they were essentially living under a veil of secrecy. Kody was simply unable to acknowledge Janelle as his wife outside of our church community.

We were very quiet and private when it came to our family life, which I’m sure didn’t help Janelle feel secure in her position in the family. When we went out together somewhere other than church associations, we always introduced Janelle as Kody’s sister. I remember on more than one occasion that Kody, Janelle, and I had a conversation about how to explain who Janelle was. Kody and I already lived and worked in the small community in Wyoming when Janelle joined the family, so it was Janelle whom we felt we needed to explain. Looking back, I realize it wasn’t fair to Kody and Janelle’s relationship to refer to her as his sister.
Since Janelle’s mom was married to Kody’s dad, it seemed to be a reasonable explanation, and it always seemed as if Janelle was okay with this reference. I always felt a bit uncomfortable referring to her this way, but she and Kody seemed to be okay with it, so I played along. I believe it did a major disservice to Kody and Janelle’s marriage.

After Kody married Janelle, I went through a sort of separation anxiety. I missed the privacy of our old situation—the luxury of making a romantic dinner for just Kody and myself whenever I wanted, or renting a good movie and curling up on the couch together. These are things you simply can’t do when another wife enters the picture and is living in the same house. It can be perceived as preferential treatment and that is just not okay in a plural marriage. This anxiety put a strain on Kody’s and my relationship and made me at times act unfairly to both him and Janelle.

I have to admit that I didn’t always handle the stress of the new situation as I should have. I didn’t know how to hold back or temper my opinions. I am a very direct person, and when I have a strong opinion about something, I can be a little bit harsh. Since I see things in black and white, I have a bad habit of phrasing things in a way that can come across as aggressive. Janelle, on the other hand, is quite nonconfrontational and seems to have a hard time being honest with herself, or with others, about her feelings. I’d tell Janelle that “this is how it needs to be,” and didn’t realize I was offering her no space to voice her own concerns. I didn’t intend to be mean, I wasn’t even aware that I was coming across that way. I was being honest with my thoughts and feelings and just assumed she would do the same.

I remember having conversations with her many times concerning everything—from how the house should be decorated to how the finances should be handled. I would tell her how I thought the situation should be taken care of, and because I had
that type of personality, I just assumed she would voice her opinion as well. When I would find out later, through Kody, that there was an issue or disagreement, I was so upset that she didn’t tell me her thoughts or opinions while we were having the discussion. I felt as if she was lying to me, and I felt betrayed by this. I thought we were in this marriage together to have a close, if not completely open, relationship, and didn’t understand why she wouldn’t communicate honestly with me, when that’s what I was trying to do with her. I hadn’t yet learned how to be softer in the delivery of my words and not so overbearing.

Naturally, the tentative friendship I had with Janelle deteriorated even more in the months following her marriage to Kody. I had hoped that with her in the family, we would be able to work on improving our relationship. I wanted, and almost expected, to have a special sister wife bond with Janelle. I realized early on, however, that wouldn’t be the case. Janelle seemed very reserved toward me, as far as becoming close friends. I felt that I had to accept that we wouldn’t have the close sister wife relationship that I had always hoped for. To make things worse, Kody had taken a job setting up new accounts for Schwan’s Frozen Foods, which required him to be on the road for long stretches of time. This left Janelle and me at home with our growing list of complaints against each other. Since Kody was new to the principle and the practice of plural marriage, he had no idea how to negotiate between the two of us. I know he was aware of the tension between us, and did his best to deal with it, but we all were going to have to sort out our new roles, and learn how to live together and love one another.

During the early years of our plural family, there were many emotions rolling around among all of us—mostly, I feel safe to say, between Janelle and me. In living plural marriage, you definitely have to go through a huge learning curve. Janelle and I had a lot of rough times in those early years. We both did and said
things to each other that I’m sure we would like to forget. There is a lot of past history, things that I won’t talk about in specifics in public out of my respect for Janelle, and my desire to protect her. Even now, we still struggle with the residue of those early years. I truly hope that Janelle and I can work through some of those haunting issues of the past, so they will stop recurring in our lives. Someday, when we’re both ready, I hope it will happen.