‘Sister Wives’: Meri and Kody Were ‘Devastated’ by Failed Courtship in 1991 With an 18-Year-Old
In the Sister Wives family’s bestselling 2012 memoir, Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage, Meri Brown reveals Kody Brown’s first courtship that left them ‘devastated.’ Just a year after getting married, Kody and Meri met an 18-year-old girl at their church that they thought would be the perfect first sister wife. Here’s everything we know about their failed courtship.
Meri thought Kody was ‘destined’ to marry the 18-year-old girl
In Meri’s chapter regarding “Sorority,” she revealed that she and Kody started courting an 18-year-old girl after their first year of marriage. This means that Meri would have been 20 years old and Kody would have been 21 years old. Meri wrote about their first courtship in the family’s memoir:
“When Kody and I entered into our first courtship with a young woman we’d been introduced to at a church gathering, I was excited. She and I became close friends right away.
This was unusual for me and I immediately took it as a sign that Kody and I were destined to marry her. This girl and I loved hanging out together and spent lots of time on our own without Kody. As i saw it, we were on our way to achieving the sister wife ideal I’d always imagined.”
Meri Brown
Of course, Meri felt “jealous” of the time that Kody and the girl spent alone, but she overcame the feelings because she felt so confident that this 18-year-old girl would enter the family. Meri wrote:
“I felt confident that the three of us had a wonderful future together and I was certain that while she would be a great wife to Kody, she would remain one of my best friends.”
Meri Brown
The potential sister wife left Kody and Meri
After the three of them became closer, Meri and Kody were dumped by the woman they were courting as a second wife. While there is no information regarding why the woman left them, Meri did say that she felt “personally betrayed” by the breakup.
“But things didn’t work out. I was devastated when the courtship soured and she left. Back then we were all so young — she was only eighteen, and Kody and I were in our first year of marriage — so we may have mistaken a crush for love. Nevertheless, I felt personally betrayed. I had lost one of my closest friends, a woman I imagined would have been a perfect sister wife.”
Meri Brown
They moved on from the failed courtship by dating Janelle
A few years after Kody and Meri’s failed courtship and three years into their marriage, they were ready to start seeking another sister wife. Meri wrote about the pressure of finding another wife soon so that they could fulfill their promise of plural marriage. That’s when Meri’s ex-sister-in-law, Janelle Brown came in to the picture.
“We managed to put our failed courtship behind us. Kody and I were still the fun-loving, goofy, and wildly romantic couple we’d always had been, but we felt that adding a wife to our family was something we needed to accomplish sooner rather than later in order to make good on our commitment to the principle of plural marriage.”
Meri Brown
That is when Kody became aware of Janelle as a potential wife. Meri said she was finally “ready” to find a sister wife, and Janelle was perfect. Meri didn’t feel threatened by Janelle’s non-romantic and “intellectual” relationship she had with Kody.
“I have to admit, part of me was relieved that Kody and Janelle weren’t the conventionally romantic couple. I didn’t feel that Janelle’s presence in our lives in any way threatened the love Kody and I shared.”
Meri Brown
Of course, Sister Wives fans want to know who this mystery woman is that dodged a bullet by leaving Kody in their courtship. However, there’s no more information available about the “almost” sister wife. It would be interesting to hear her side of the story and find out what caused her to leave.
New episodes of Sister Wives Season 17 air Sundays at 10 p.m. EST on TLC.
