Book Review: Becoming Sister Wives Part Two: Sorority

After reading this section of the book, Sorority is definitely NOT the word I would use to describe these women's lives.

Armageddon...maybe. Purgatory...most definitely. But Sorority? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE TRYING TO KID??

Like I said, this part should have been named PURGATORY, for surely these women were living, and continue to live, in a place or state of continual punishment !!

 

Part Two: Sorority

 

 

Meri's Chapter

I've never liked Meri Brown. To me, her mouth seemed to say one thing, but her facial expressions said something totally different.  Remember Meri's scowl?

  

 Some tidbits:

• Meri describes herself as a paradox: She's reserved but can be opinionated.
• Acording to Meri, if it weren't for the fact Janelle was married to Kody, she says "I'm sure..our friendship wouldn't have gone past basic cordiality."
• She claims Kody never discussed his feelings about marrying Janelle to her, so she was surprised when Kody told her Janelle wanted to join their family.
• After Janelle and Kody married, Meri was relieved the newlyweds were not a "conventionally romantic couple."
• Janelle was pregnant with Logan when Kody started courting Christine.
• Meri felt threatened by Christine  because she was "...cute and energetic...young and girly...and quite flirtatious...[Christine's] relationship was grounded in an undeniable emotional attraction."
• Meri got pregnant when Christine was 4 months pregnant.
• Meri felt her sister wives flaunted their fertility "...to validate their marriages to Kody in a way [she] couldn't."
• When Kody got a job requiring a lot of travel, Janelle seized the opportunity to move out into a home of her own. It wasn't until they found the big house in Lehi did Janelle move back in with Kody, Meri  and Christine.
• According to Meri, Kody started dating Robyn during a low point in their marriage. She claims she had no idea she would be so involved in selecting Robyn as a possible 4th wife. Since Christine and Janelle did not know of Kody's attraction to Robyn, Meri saw this as her little secret between Kody, Robyn and herself.
• Kody and Meri sought help from a marriage counselor to mend their marriage while he was courting Robyn.
• While Meri's relationship with Christine was good, she felt it had no depth.
• After Kody married Robyn, when it was Kody's night at Meri's house, Robyn and her kids would sometimes drop by and spend the evening with them. Meri claims she never had to ask Robyn to give her space.
• However, Meri states "...when it's time for Kody and a wife to have their own time, I make it a habit to not call him unless it's something extremely important."
• Meri feels after 22 years of marriage "...Kody and I are better than ever. We share a deep and passionate love, and finally understand each other's love language."

My conclusions?  Meri has a lot of issues, and polygamy has not helped her to "smooth out the rough edges." She can be mean, bullies those she doesn't like, can hold a grudge forever and a day, and if you're her favorite, you can get away with murder. She is the Queen of passive-aggressive behavior.

You couldn't pay me enough money to live with this woman, let alone be a sister wife with her.

Janelle's Chapter

Janelle, Janelle, Janelle. Who would've thought she was a polygamy groupie? Or that she camped out on Winn Brown's Wyoming ranch in a teepee. But the most amazing thing about Janelle was that she lived with Meri and Kody in a cramped, 3 bedroom mobile home after marrying Kody.

This lady deserves a medal.

Some tidbits:

• She loves to work and have a career.
• When she moved in with Kody and Meri, Janelle says her relationship with Meri went ".. from cordial to frosty overnight." And that Meri had an overbearing personality when she was younger.
• According to Janelle, "Often Kody would take Meri with him when he worked out of state, which made me very resentful of her. I couldn't just take off from work, as she seemed to be able to. But when Meri didn't work, she didn't get paid - I thought it was extremely flaky to blow off work for fun like that, especially when we were so broke."
• During the first years of her marriage in Wyoming, Janelle was comforted that her mother (now married to Kody's father) lived only 20 minutes away.
• When Janelle visited family in Utah, they tried to forcibly bring her back into the LDS faith. She was 8 months pregnant with Logan.
• When Janelle found out she was pregnant, she knew that Meri would upset, but she said she "didn't care how [Meri] felt about my news. If it upset her, so be it. Things were incredibly tough in our relationship, so her feelings were of little importance at that moment."
• Janelle felt Christine acted like a little princess and was clueless.
• Janelle said Meri and Christine were close friends, and often would go off and not invite her.
• Janelle felt that it wasn't until 5 years into their marriage, that Kody begin to mature emotionally.
• After a particularly brutal fight with Meri, and Kody's subsequent lack of empathy, Janelle packed up her children and moved in with her mother for several months until she could find her own place. She went back to school and obtained a degree in accounting. Kody still visited her and the kids. She lived in her own house for 2 years, until Kody moved to the big house in Lehi.
• Janelle was surprised that after 16 years of marriage, Kody said he was interested in courting Robyn, which coincided with their agreeing to appear on TV in a reality show.
• Robyn taught the sister wives how to argue effectively.
• Robyn takes the lead in family discussions because she can keep a cool head.
• Janelle is working on further developing her relationship with Robyn.

Christine's Chapter

To tell you the truth, at this point, I am totally confused when any certain event takes place. So your guess is as good as mine in reference to a timeline in Christine's chapter.






Some tidbits:

• When Christine married Kody, she chose to ignore any potential problems in their marriage. She says "If I was naive, it was because I chose to be."
• She lived with her sister wives for three months. She then got her own cottage so she and Kody could work on their marriage.
• She got pregnant 3 months into her marriage.
• Christine claims Kody did not know how to listen to her and would cover his face and put his head in his hands when they argued.
• She considered Meri to be her best friend, but had a more practical relationship with Janelle.
• For financial reasons, the wives, kids and Kody had to move back into one house (3000 sq ft) in Utah. It had a kitchen and a kitchenette.
• Christine said she loved Kody way before they got married.
• She enjoyed being the housewife of the family.
• A year before she got pregnant with Truely, Christine had a fight with Meri accusing her of being too tough when disciplining her children. Christine felt Meri was taking her frustrations out on her children.
• Christine's mother broke her heart when she divorced her father.
• Christine loved being the last wife. She claims she was never jealous. But when Kody brought in Robyn, her world changed.
• She suffered from extreme post-partum depression after the birth of Truely. She panicked at the thought of being neglected.
• Although she feels Kody has become a stronger, more reliable man, Christine still feels a lack of stability in her relationship with him.
• She feels once she strengthens her relationship with God, her confidence will return and her jealousy will disappear, and everything will fall into place.

Robyn's Chapter

What a despicable, opportunistic, manipulative, gold-digging, passive-aggressive wrench this woman is! Don't forget she married into a "well-regarded" family the first time around. She knew what she was doing, too bad she didn't pick the right polygamist to climb up the social ladder. But wait, along comes this Lexis convertible with a goofy long haired dude inside it just aching to add a hot skinny mama to his unhappy harem to do the wild thing with. No matter what this woman says, read between the lines, folks, its plain to see exactly what her agenda was.

She didn't want a huge wedding, that was all Kody's idea. She just wanted a "quiet, yet romantic wedding." She didn't want to be the center of attention and she wanted to get married as soon as possible. But alas, Kody was broke. So, even though Janelle offered to let her move in with her, Robyn had to say no. She needed to explore her relation with Kody. And obviously, she needed alone time, in her own place, to get to know her man, if you know what I mean.

So, like that saying about what happens when people wait, a big old gift fell out of the sky into her skinny lap. The pilot sold to TLC, and TLC was willing to pay for a HUGE wedding! But, shy Robyn didn't want to be the center of attention. Oh no, as she puts it "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...it would shortchange [the Browns'] rich family history."

But she continued on with her wedding plans, making sure her future sister wives were involved so their feelings wouldn't be hurt by all the lavish attention she had to endure. Robyn wanted her wedding to be a celebration all right, she "...wanted to do everything within my power to avoid offending my sister wives..." Then she adds, off-handedly, "...some of whom didn't have the opportunity to have a large wedding". Oh yeah, Robyn, great way to just rub those bitches' noses in it. You are one class act.

When Kody revealed that he had helped Robyn to choose her wedding dress, she just didn't think Kody meant to cause any hurt feelings. But now her sister wives think she only pretended to want their help. Well, we all know why Robyn thinks that way -- she didn't expect Kody to OPEN HIS MOUTH AND ANNOUNCE THAT HE HELPED HER CHOOSE HER WEDDING DRESS! As she puts it "I was frustrated with Kody for blurting out the story in a way that hurt my sister wives. I hadn't meant any harm..."

Of course you didn't.

Some other tidbits:

• Robyn said she would have been happy with the smallest of receptions BUT...since TLC was paying...
• She worried that it would appear she was getting preferential treatment. After all, she did get a big wedding and honeymoon and the first three didn't. But the honeymoon was necessary for her to get to know Kody better. And it was all Kody's idea.
• Even though she made sure Kody called each wife each day of their honeymoon, she was surprised to learn the wives were hurt by the length of her honeymoon and in some cases refused to take his calls.
• She can understand why her sister wives were jealous of her relationship with Kody, for her marriage was "fresh and young."
• She showed her sister wives, through example, how to argue effectively in family discussions.
• She says "My sister wives already do so much for me that sometimes I feel lazy."
• She also said she sees the perks of  "having three wonderful women help me raise not just [Sol] but my three other children."

Next will be Part Three: Family, Part Four: Celebrity and Epilogue:Kody.

reprinted 7/25/14