Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage (9 page)

His only question for me was regarding my loyalty to our church. In his mind, this single question determines worthiness. Since the day I converted, my faith has never wavered, not for a single second. I told him that, and he was convinced.

On Valentine’s Day, I asked Meri’s sister Teresa, who lived in Utah near Christine, to buy a bouquet of roses. I instructed her to write, “Let’s get the ball rolling,” on the card. Teresa offered to deliver the roses to Christine at work. Christine was a title clerk at a car dealership. The whole office knew that she was from a polygamous family. In fact, they knew that she had a crush on
me, a man with two wives. It’s a testament to Christine’s outgoing nature and wonderful personality that people do not judge her for her beliefs.

It turns out that the day I asked Teresa to send Christine flowers, Christine had called in sick to work. But by some wonderful coincidence, she had called Teresa to tell her that she was unwell and would be staying home, so Teresa knew where to deliver the roses.

That night I called Christine. We were both overjoyed and a little giddy. The following weekend, Janelle and I traveled down to Utah. Janelle generously offered to hang out with some people in our church so that I could have some time alone with Christine.

Janelle was very sweet and accepting of my courtship with Christine. I knew that things were difficult between her and Meri in the house, and I believed she was hoping for a new sister wife to be her ally or friend. Meri was slightly more prickly when I started courting Christine. However, she liked Christine and was aware of how close the two of us were. I’m sure as far as Meri was concerned, bringing Christine into the family was just a matter of time.

Christine and I spent as much time together as possible that weekend. It wasn’t what I’d call romantic—Christine was quite puritanical in her view of romance and courtship—but we had fun. I think we held hands and maybe hugged once or twice, but that was the extent of it. That weekend we got engaged.

I wanted to prolong our engagement, but Christine didn’t want to. She insisted on setting a wedding date as quickly as possible. She believed that a long courtship would be inappropriate and unfair on her new sister wives. She didn’t want to be running around with a married man. I tried telling her that I wasn’t quite ready, but Christine felt that she’d already waited so long—we’d
been friends for three years. We decided to get married in six weeks.

The minute I asked Christine to marry me, I realized that I had once again acted too quickly. I was in over my head. I was not even twenty-five, I already had two wives, and Janelle was expecting our first child. The thought of trying to bring Christine into our family gave me serious pause. I’m afraid I showed up at our wedding with what Christine calls a “thousand-yard stare.” Suddenly, I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was nervous and apprehensive.

I knew there was a lot about my life that Christine didn’t understand. She had only ever seen me as the life of the party and the good-time guy. She didn’t know how tense things were between Meri and Janelle, and hadn’t had much opportunity to get to know them herself. When I proposed, I was working at a job that was crushing my soul. Meri and Janelle were miserable with each other and I didn’t know how to negotiate a truce between them. And now I was introducing a third wife into an unstable environment. I had no doubt that Christine was the right person, but I sensed it was too early to marry her.

All of this was running through my head as I joined Christine in marriage. What I didn’t know then was that Christine would become a major factor in our success as a family. Her kindness and her positive nature brokered a peace in our household. Christine saved our bacon, as I like to say. She saved the Browns. But back then, all I could see were the struggles that lay ahead.

I worked right up until the day we got married. I even had a hard time getting off work to attend my own wedding. Christine had to organize the whole wedding herself. Neither my father nor Christine’s mother attended the ceremony. It was a hard day for us. I didn’t have time to plan a honeymoon. In fact, it didn’t
even occur to me to plan one. No one told me that I should. When I wasn’t buried in my work, I was a Ping-Pong ball bouncing between two wives who always had their bristles up. Obviously, they weren’t interested in advising me on what I should do with Christine.

After our wedding, Christine and I got in the car and drove to Montana. It was a tense trip, and I have to admit that I wasn’t my most cheerful self. Christine and I had gone from being buddies to being married. We hadn’t had time to get used to each other and I hadn’t prepared myself for the transition of adding a new wife to my family.

I was shaken when Kody showed up at our wedding with that look on his face. He was morose. I was even more devastated when I learned that he hadn’t planned a honeymoon. I was hoping that we’d finally have a romantic getaway, something special that told me how thrilled he was to have me in his family. I was young and naive. I had no idea how to tell Kody what I wanted from him.

On our honeymoon—a drive through the sticks of Montana—I was struck by the realization that I didn’t know Kody very well. Once we got into the car, he still had the faraway look on his face that I’d seen at our wedding. He seemed distant and unreachable. I began to understand that he felt overwhelmed. However, I didn’t know how to talk to him about what he was feeling. I had no idea how to reach out to him. I just sat there in silence.

Watching him drive with that look on his face made me unbearably sad. I realized that I had no idea how to express my feeling with him or ask him to share his with me. I never doubted
that Kody was the man of my dreams, but I began to worry that I’d married him too soon.

Until our honeymoon, I had thought he was a fun-loving guy, but that was the extent of it. Now there was this distant, grumpy man at my side, burdened by something I couldn’t understand. And I worried that I might be the source of his anxiety. Like many young women, I had idealized marriage. I had this silly notion that the moment you got married, your problems ended. I was fixated on the idea of happily ever after. I thought marriage, especially plural marriage, would be absolute bliss. What could be better than being blessed with a husband and sisters in one fell swoop?

I didn’t understand that marriage is something you must work on. I didn’t know that true love isn’t instantaneous but something that develops over time. While Kody and I did love each other, it took us about a year from the day we married to fall completely head over heels for each other. It would be a hard year, but well worth the wait.

I was raised in a polygamous family in southern Utah. My mother was my father’s second wife. They had a truly wonderful marriage—a honeymoon experience that lasted for years and years. Their relationship was sweet, loving, and respectful. They put their family and their happiness in front of any petty grievance that might crop up. I was determined not to marry unless I could find the same kind of relationship.

I grew up knowing that accepting the doctrine of plural marriage was entirely up to me. It was something I considered deeply and carefully. I prayed and contemplated until I received a testimony—which is to say, until I knew without question—that I was going to live the principle of plural marriage.

I got married at twenty-one to a fellow member of my faith. He was from a well-regarded family in our community. Despite the fact that my then-husband’s family members were spiritual leaders, our marriage was not solid. We struggled right from the start.

I was the first wife, but shortly after my son was born, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to have sister wives. Unfortunately,
my marriage didn’t last long enough to bring a second wife into our family.

I tried my hardest to make the marriage work, both for our own sake and for the sake of the three children my ex-husband and I had together. But what started off as unstable disintegrated into something destructive. After seven and a half years of marriage, we separated. A year and a half later, we were divorced.

Both my marriage and its collapse were incredibly difficult for me. I suffered a lot of pain and hardship. I had been badly mistreated and misled by my ex-husband. While I knew that he was the source of a lot of my grief, part of me still believed that I was a failure because I hadn’t been able to make my relationship work.

The aftermath of my marriage left me feeling vulnerable and used, as well as exposed and helpless. I felt betrayed. I needed to regain my confidence and my inner strength, to ensure that I would never be mistreated again. It took me a while to realize that the only person I could rely on to protect me was
myself
. When I discovered this, I invented an alter ego who became my protector. Her name was She-Rah and she represented my tougher, bolder side. Since no one would come to my rescue, I transformed part of me into my own superhero.

She-Rah helped me protect the softer, more sensitive parts of my psyche. She built a wall around them so they wouldn’t be battered or bruised. I knew that it would be going against my nature to throw away the kindness and caring that are important parts of my character—so instead I developed this mechanism to shield them. She-Rah helped me put up a fortress around my vulnerabilities and develop a hard, impenetrable side so that I wouldn’t fall for anyone’s tricks again.

She-Rah was instrumental is helping me cope with the emotional turmoil caused by my marriage. She was there to ensure
that I would never be hurt again. Any man who approached me was going to have to prove himself in every way possible—and he would have to go through She-Rah.

Since both my marriage and my divorce were so difficult, I decided that I would take a break from relationships. I didn’t need the complications of dating in my life. I knew that since I was a mother of three, my dates would be more like job interviews than romantic encounters. After all, any man who might court me needed to be up to the task of helping me raise my children. And while I wasn’t outwardly considering marriage, I was pretty certain that if it happened, I would join a family as a plural wife.

If and when I married again, I wouldn’t care the least bit what my husband looked like. None of the superficial stuff mattered to me anymore. My husband could be old or young, fat or skinny—I didn’t care as long as he was a good man and a good husband. I wanted someone whose sole priority was taking care of his family. I knew that anyone who was interested in this job would have to demonstrate himself thoroughly and competently as caring, unselfish, and strong. I wasn’t taking any chances. But before I even contemplated marriage or courtship, I was determined to take time out for myself, repair my wounds, and look after my children.

After my divorce was finalized and I was functioning as a single mom, I went to visit my cousin Reba in Lehi, Utah, which is thirty miles outside of Salt Lake. I hadn’t been there in a while and I was looking forward to a change of community.

On Sunday, Reba and I went to church. While we were seated in the service, a man sitting in front of me with shaggy blond hair caught my eye. The first thing I noticed about him was his eyes, which were ringed with laugh lines. I always love seeing laugh lines because they tell me that someone is happy. I watched him talk with the other members of the congregation.
There was something peaceful and comforting about the way he conducted himself. He was smiling and laughing, at ease with himself and others. All of a sudden, he looked up and our eyes met. I’m not exaggerating when I say I felt as though I’d been shot through with a bolt of lightning. When this happened, I was stunned. I was embarrassed, too, and looked down at my feet.

Immediately, I was furious that I’d had any sort of response to this stranger. I was determined that no one should break through my hard exterior shell and play with my emotions. So before She-Rah could scold me, I quickly repaired the crack that had appeared in my armor.

Sometime during the service, I had to walk past this man on my way to the bathroom. He was sitting with a group of women. In my bitterness at my own emotional vulnerability, I thought,
He is probably an idiot
. I dismissed the whole encounter entirely.

A month later I visited Reba again. On the afternoon I was getting ready to leave, she had a group of friends over at her house. While I was standing on her front lawn, packing the kids into the car to head home, the same man I’d locked eyes with in church drove up in a white convertible. There was a woman riding in the passenger seat. The man stopped the car and started talking to my cousin. It was like a party exploded out of that car—he was so dynamic and full of energy.

Reba introduced me to Kody Brown and his wife Meri. I fought to suppress the memory of that electric sensation that I’d felt in church a month earlier. She-Rah was screaming at me from inside my head, warning me to not even look at Kody. It was difficult to ignore him—he was so animated and loud—but I did. I focused on Meri instead. She was sweet and engaging.