‘Sister Wives’: 4 Excerpts From ‘Becoming Sister Wives’ Memoir Proving Christine’s Marriage to Kody Was Loveless From the Start
Sister Wives star Christine Brown left her loveless marriage to Kody Brown after nearly 27 years. While their relationship began to break down during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the marriage struggled from the very beginning. Here are four times in the family’s memoir, Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage, written in 2012, highlighting Kody’s lack of care for his new bride.
Kody wasn’t attracted to ‘chubby’ Christine
After a little bit of flirtation, Kody and Christine were slowly getting to know each other and considering a courtship. In the memoir, Kody recounts when he invited Christine to his family’s ranch in Wyoming for a youth trip with other young church members. During this trip, Christine wound up in the car with Kody and his first wife, Meri Brown.
Christine was ecstatic about spending more time with her crush. But he recalls feeling “repulsed” by Christine after watching her eat nachos in the backseat. Read the excerpt below (via Archive):
“When we set out on our road trip, I was convinced that Christine was the cutest girl in the world, although she was a little chubby. Back then, I was young and superficial enough to care about physical appearances. After we’d been on the road all night, we stopped at a gas station. I’d been drinking soda pop to stay awake, and my stomach felt sour and upset. Just thinking about food made me queasy.
Christine went into the Quickie Mart and bought herself what seemed like the largest portion of chili cheese nachos that I’d ever seen. The sight of those nachos turned my stomach. I couldn’t watch her eat them. She must have been starving because she was eating so quickly, and there was chili sauce and nacho cheese everywhere.
Looking back, I hate myself for the thoughts I had at that moment, but the sight of this chubby girl in my car devouring chili cheese nachos for breakfast put the brakes on our relationship. It brought out the most superficial and shallowest side of me. I still liked her — in fact, I liked her very much — but the nacho experience cooled my attraction a little — well, a lot.”
Kody Brown
Kody wanted a prolonged engagement with Christine
Another prime example of when Christine loved Kody more was when he tried to push out the wedding with a prolonged engagement. At the time, Kody was 25 years old, had just married his second wife, Janelle Brown, and had just had their first child, Logan Brown, together. Kody wasn’t ready to add Christine to the family and felt like he’d “acted too quickly” and was in over his head.
Kody wasn’t head over heels in love with Christine and didn’t feel ready to get married to her right away. He even tried many times to prolong the engagement. Kody wrote in the memoir:
“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.”
Kody Brown
Kody was ‘morose’ on his wedding day to Christine and
After Kody and Christine’s six-week engagement was up, Kody still wasn’t thrilled to be getting married. She wrote about her wedding day being sad in her chapter of Becoming Sister Wives:
“I was shaken when Kody showed up at our wedding with that look on his face. He was morose.
Christine Brown
Kody wrote about his perspective of the wedding in his section of the memoir. He explained that he didn’t have time to prepare with two wives, a baby, and work.
“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.”
Kody Brown
Kody didn’t prepare a honeymoon for Christine
In the memoir, Kody recounted feeling ill-prepared for his wedding with Christine and said he didn’t even consider planning a honeymoon. Christine recalls feeling “devastated” that her romantic idea of her wedding day was different from the sad reality. Check out the excerpt below:
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.”
Christine Brown
Kody revealed in the memoir that with everything on his plate, he completely forgot to plan a honeymoon for his third wife.
“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.”
Kody Brown
Instead of a honeymoon, the newlyweds drove from Utah to the other wives in Montana in the dead of winter. Kody penned:
“After out 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 from the transition of adding a new wife to the family.”
Kody Brown
Fast forward 27 years later, and Christine leaves her marriage to Kody. While Kody believes that he was fair in his marriage to Christine, it’s clear from the memoir that Christine was constantly receiving the short end of the stick. Sister Wives fans are eager to see Christine find someone who truely cherishes her and can give her all of the romance she missed out on being married to Kody.
New episodes of Sister Wives Season 17 air Sunday at 10 p.m. EST on TLC.
