‘Sister Wives’: All of the Red Flags in Christine and Kody’s Marriage Revealed in ‘Becoming Sister Wives’ Memoir
In the Brown family memoir, Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage, Kody Brown and Christine Brown document their perspectives from their first meeting to their life until the book was published in 2013. Now that Christine and Kody’s marriage is over, here are all of the red flags revealed in the Sister Wives memoir.
Kody’s nacho diss on Christine before their courtship
One of the first red flags on Christine and Kody’s relationship was when Kody admitted to not being attracted to Christine before the courting phase. He mentioned losing attraction to “chubby” Christine for eating nachos in the back seat of his car during a road trip to his family’s ranch in Wyoming.
The excerpt of the memoir, written by Kody, reads: “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.”
Christine penned her response in the following chapter:
“Of course, I had no idea that I’d grossed Kody out with my nachos. I was an overweight kid who liked junk food a little too much. And of all the junk food in the world, chili cheese nachos were my favorite.”
Kody wanted to ‘prolong’ their engagement
Another red flag is that Kody didn’t feel ready to get married to Christine and 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.”
He continued: “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 was ‘morose’ on his wedding day to Christine
Once the six-week engagement was up, Kody still wasn’t thrilled to be getting married to Christine. 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.”
He wrote: “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.”
Kody didn’t plan a honeymoon for Christine
A major red flag is seeing how seemingly uninvolved and disinterested Kody was in wedding planning with Christine.
He wrote: “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 admitted to not planning a honeymoon for Christine, despite planning them for his other wives. He wrote, “I didn’t have time to plan a honeymoon. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me to plan one.”
Christine wrote about her honeymoon, (or lack thereof), in her chapter: “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.”
She continued: “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.”
There were some obvious red flags with the way Kody treated Christine from the beginning. It all comes full circle as now Christine is starting her life single for the first time in over 28 years after divorcing Kody. Sister Wives Season 16 “One on One” reunion airs Sunday, Jan 30 on TLC and discovery+.
