Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage (27 page)

Since there is considerable overlap of beliefs between my faith and the LDS faith, Scott always assumed that I was a conventional Mormon, and I never bothered to correct him. Naturally, when he invited Kody and me to the wedding, he never imagined he was breaking a fundamental rule of his faith. Kody had been suggesting for quite some time that I open up to Scott about my family and my faith. I was too concerned about losing a friend, so I just wasn’t willing to do it. I told Kody I was just going to make an excuse to Scott and say we couldn’t make it. Because Scott and I had been such good friends, Kody felt that Scott deserved to know the truth about why we couldn’t attend his wedding, not just blowing him off saying we couldn’t make it. He was very emphatic now that we needed to tell Scott the truth.

Kody and I arranged a dinner with Scott and his fiancée. I was really nervous. I had no idea how Scott would react. My
worries were twofold. On the one hand, I was worried that Scott would reject me for my beliefs, and on the other, I was worried he would be angry that I’d lied to him for so long.

Over dinner, Kody managed to steer the conversation around to how Scott and his wife met. After he heard their story, he shared ours. Kody told them that when he returned from his LDS mission, he fell in love with a woman whose father had five wives. It took Scott a moment to realize that Kody was talking about
me
. Once Scott caught on, we explained that we had embraced my father’s faith as well and were practicing members of the faith, with a much larger family than Scott had ever imagined.

When Kody and I were done speaking, Scott was silent for a moment. Then he began to apologize. He apologized for putting me in such a difficult position by inviting me to a wedding I couldn’t attend. He apologized if at any time during our friendship he might have made a remark about polygamy that was insensitive. I thought it said so much about Scott’s character to be the one apologizing, when I was the one who really needed to apologize to him for not being honest about who I really was.

Even though we couldn’t attend the ceremony in the temple, we still went to Scott’s wedding reception. I felt honored that Scott had considered me such a close friend that he would invite us to his temple wedding, and I was so relieved that our friendship was still intact after opening up about my family and our beliefs. Since then, Scott and his wife have met and accepted our entire family, and even once appeared briefly on an episode of
Sister Wives.

Incidents like this were frequent in our lives. I think our entire family was starting to feel that in order to live our lives to the fullest, we needed to make some changes.

Kody is a dreamer, which is one of the qualities I love about him. He tends to reach for the stars and in so doing, can come up with some pretty amazing ideas. During our twenty-two years together, I’ve learned to listen to his ideas and realize that while some are great and we can make them happen, some can be less than realistic, and we need to allow them to fall by the wayside.

Kody had talked for more than a year about wanting to do something to show that plural marriage can be
so
much more than what was usually portrayed in the media—but it took some time to figure out just how to do that. When we met Tim Gibbons, our producer, and the idea of doing a television program was introduced to us, Kody got on board with the idea long before I did. When he told me he was interested in doing a reality program about our family, I just shook my head and let it slide. After all, I assumed this was another one of those plans that he would eventually drop.

I was wrong. Kody did not drop the idea. In fact, he became more and more drawn to it. Soon his discussions of doing a television program went from abstract to serious. Kody felt that he was truly called to the cause.

As our family has grown, so has the time we’ve devoted to family discussions—decisions about money, schooling, and our living situation. As Kody realized more and more the importance of doing the show, and the calling he felt to it, these discussions became more frequent and more urgent. We spent hours running through the pros and cons of going public.

Initially, I resisted the urge to come out as a polygamist. I have never been ashamed of my lifestyle—in fact, quite the opposite. However, I didn’t want to be judged for it. Most of all, I didn’t want our children to suffer because their parents had revealed themselves to the world. Kody explained that this show
was important and necessary. We needed to step out from the shadow of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS, who for too long had been the face of polygamy. We needed to disassociate ourselves from the negative connotations of polygamy—child brides, sexual abuse, and religious oppression. We wanted to show America that we aren’t really that different from anyone else. Most important, we needed to pave the way for a better and more tolerant future for our children. This, Kody explained, would be the purpose of the show.

Although Kody felt called to do this show, it took me a while to come to terms with going public after having guarded my privacy my whole life. It took many conversations with Kody and the family before I started to feel comfortable with the vision he had in mind for us. It also took many conversations with God; I knew we would be looked down upon for taking our family public, so I needed a strong indication from God that this was what He wanted for us.

Deep down in my heart, I knew Kody was right. Secrecy breeds evil and unhappiness, and for too long, that is the only thing about polygamy that had been portrayed in the media. While I was nervous about all the repercussions of taking our story public, I knew that I needed to support my husband. Ultimately, I wanted the world to know that what most people think of when they think of polygamy has no place in our family. We are a great family, with the normal disagreements and laughter, heartbreak and happiness of any American household. I guess I started to believe that our story was worth telling. I contemplated long and hard over my decision. Eventually, I also felt the call to go public with our story; it just took a little longer than it did Kody. In the end, I agreed to do the show and prayed for the best.

Once we committed to being on television, I became incredibly
nervous. I was concerned about how people I had known for years would feel about me. I was worried that the children would be ostracized by their friends. I knew from the beginning that there would be those from our own faith who would support us in the message we were sending, but even more who just wouldn’t understand. I was worried that we’d be made into pariahs.

It wasn’t until I told my daughter, Mariah, about the show that I realized how important it could be to her future. I explained to her that our primary intention in doing a reality program and opening up about our faith was so people would be more accepting of our beliefs. After I told her this, Mariah said, “Mom, you say that you are doing this so that we all can be open. But I’ve never been secretive about my faith. I’ve always been open with my friends.” While this was true, most of Mariah’s friends at the time were kids from our own faith, so there really was no risk involved, she was still young, and her world was the church and the church school. I had to point out to her how easy things can be when you rarely associate with anyone outside the faith. Mariah is so confident in herself and her faith that it never occurred to her that there could be a whole world out there opposed to her lifestyle and her religion.

Unlike many of our other children, until that time, Mariah hadn’t had a lot of experience with friends outside our religious community. She is a very spiritual young woman and dedicated to our church. She’s naturally drawn to people who share her morals, standards, and beliefs—which usually means they share her faith as well. She hasn’t yet had the misfortune to suffer on account of others’ intolerance, and she doesn’t know what it is like in the real world—the cruelty and fear that might temper her enjoyment of life. As her mom, I want to protect her from having to experience these things, yet I don’t want her believing that
our religious community is the only place that she could be safe being who she is. There’s a big world out there and I want her to enjoy it without having to lie about her beliefs.

At the young age of sixteen, Mariah has already expressed a devotion and desire to live the principle of plural marriage and remain in our faith. While I know she’s a teenager and may or may not actually follow through with this plan, I hope that when the time does come, she will be confident enough in herself and her relationship with God to be able to come to her own decision. I believe in order for her to make this decision she needs to feel comfortable in the society of those outside our faith. She needs to have a wealth of experiences before choosing the path for her adult life. I want the world to be a safe and tolerant place for her.

When we thought about doing
Sister Wives,
I knew that if all went well, the show would make it possible for Mariah to live openly, without feeling judgment or oppression. She might live as she pleased in public without fears of ostracism or rejection. She would be given freedom and opportunities that I wouldn’t have dreamed of when I was her age.

The first day the cameras showed up at our house was strange and uncomfortable. I was completely unprepared when I came up the stairs into my living room and saw a cameraman there. I had no idea how to behave. I felt awkward trying to act as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I’m not the actor in our family—that would be Christine. When the cameras first started rolling, it was difficult to behave naturally as the crew instructed.

It took all of us a while to adjust to having our lives filmed. Whenever the cameras were around, the kids, who are excitable enough, became hyper. Family dinner, our Friday tradition, went from mild chaos to an all-out zoo. I did my best not to modify my behavior for the cameras, but it’s hard not to be aware
of how you look when people are filming you every hour of the day. One of the things that I’m very particular about is not letting myself be seen without my makeup. When Tim Gibbons, our producer, wants to film an early morning episode, I’m up an hour beforehand getting ready, doing my hair and makeup. This way I can truly look like a “TV star,” waking up in the morning with perfect hair and makeup. This doesn’t really have anything to do with being vain—I think of it as protecting the world from a good scare!

Eventually, I grew used to having my life filmed. Often what they’re filming seems really uninteresting—which I guess is good in a way. After all, we are a pretty normal family that does normal things. I’m happy to show the world our everyday reality and defuse the myth that there is anything weird or inappropriate about our lifestyle.

However, every once in a while, private issues crop up that we don’t want to share with the public. In general, the crew is respectful of our wishes to keep some issues off camera. They will generously leave the room when we need privacy to deal with a particularly difficult matter. Of course, the production staff does push and probe us. They want drama, after all. Since I’m a black-and-white person, I don’t hold back, even on TV. It’s not in my nature to sugarcoat things, even for a national audience. On TV as in real life, I can only be my honest self. The Meri you see on the show is the person you’d meet face-to-face.

I don’t think any of us realized what a strange experience it was going to be discussing our lives in front of a producer. The “couch sessions,” in which we talk about issues and problems, were a real wake-up call for our family. We had to learn to think before we spoke. At first, when the producer would ask us questions about a particular situation, each of us would answer as if he or she was alone with the camera, and not sitting on the couch with the rest of the family. Often one of us would
inadvertently throw a sister wife or Kody under the bus, publicly airing a grievance that would have been better dealt with in private.

These couch sessions turned into a public form of therapy. Issues that might have remained dormant were quickly brought out into the open. One of the things that the producers were eager to dig into was my relationship with Robyn. They latched onto my struggle with Kody and Robyn’s courtship and exploited it into a major story line. I can’t really blame them. After all, this was, in reality, what I was dealing with at the time.

When they first started filming the show, Robyn and I were going through an unbelievably difficult period. After getting the ball rolling between Robyn and Kody, I had just stepped back in order to allow them to have the time, space, and freedom to get to know each other better. I was at a low point, feeling unwanted and unloved. I know I wasn’t being as kind or welcoming as I could have been.

Despite this struggle, Robyn and I knew that we wanted a good relationship with each other. The couch sessions helped to bring our issues into the open, and we began to address them on the show and behind the scenes. The beauty of it is that over the course of that first season, Robyn and I developed a wonderful relationship. Fans of the show can see just how close we’ve become. Whenever they stop us in public, we almost always get some sort of comment about our relationship.

Watching how we began to overcome our initial struggles and differences and became close friends is both rewarding and satisfying to me. It’s also important, for it shows the audience that something that seems dysfunctional at the start actually works when you give it some time. The success of Robyn’s and my friendship is essential to understanding the beauty of the sister wife relationship. Like Robyn and myself, our family is constantly
evolving for the better. The show brought that process to light, both for us and for the audience.

When I look back on the first season, I’m thrilled by our family’s evolution. I love our collective strength and the maturity that has developed. Of course, there are still some moments during that first season that, while interesting to the public, I have chosen not to watch, one of those being the honeymoon episode. Kody, Robyn, and I have made such progress in our relationships that I worry seeing them in such a romantic setting might set me back a few steps. I’m sure I’ll watch it one day when I trust myself with my emotions a little more. The wedding reception episode, however, is my favorite moment of the show! When I watch it, I’m overwhelmed by the love and joy I see on the screen.