‘Sister Wives’ Stars Revealed the Family’s Shaky Foundation Way Back in 2012

The Brown family is in shambles. Christine Brown has left the family. Janelle Brown seems troubled by her marriage, and Meri Brown is holding on tightly to the tattered strings of her decades-long union. While the Brown family seemed happy enough during the first season of Sister Wives, it has become increasingly obvious that the very first season of the series was just a facade. Kody Brown and his first three wives started their marriage on shaky ground and adding a fourth wife certainly didn’t stabilize it. We’ve collected three red flags that prove the Browns were never a perfect polygamist unit. 

Meri Brown and Janelle Brown never got along 

Kody Brown and Meri Brown had a big wedding, Meri once remembered. Young and in love, the duo had agreed to take on a second wife eventually. It’s unclear if Meri would have agreed if she had known her brother’s ex-wife would be that second wife. 

While the Brown family has been careful to hide some details of Kody and Janelle’s courtship, recent comments have suggested that Meri had a bigger problem with the relationship than the family was ever willing to say. According to several passages from the family’s memoir Becoming Sister Wives, Janelle and Meri had terrible fights. Their early marriage was awkward and uncomfortable, and Janelle still holds a grudge against Meri for things that happened decades prior. The sister wives even revealed that they can’t ride in a car together. According to Kody, Christine’s arrival into the family was partly an attempt to quell the trouble between Meri and Janelle. 

Christine Brown wasn’t the only third wife Kody Brown considered 

Christine Brown entered the family just a year after Janelle became Kody’s second wife. She wasn’t the only third wife that Kody had considered, though. According to the family’s memoir, Kody courted a different woman long before considering Christine as a third wife. He was even prepared to marry the mystery woman before she ended the courtship. Her name has never been revealed, but Christine did note that she had been friends with the young woman when the romance began. 

Because Christine was not Kody’s first choice, their marriage was troubled from the start. Eventually, the couple figured things out, but they seemed to only fall into a relaxed routine when Christine stopped expecting anything from her husband. That led to great resentment. Before Christine left her plural marriage, she spoke of feeling like the “basement wife” for years. She also served as the childcare for her sister wives. While Christine claimed to enjoy caring for the kids, it seemed to grate on her. 

Christine announced the end of her marriage to Kody in November 2021. By the time she made the announcement, she had long since left the marriage, sold her home, and moved to a new state. According to a recent interview, Christine seems to be thriving now and is even dating. She won’t consider polygamy as an option again, though. 

Not all of the wives agreed about adding a fourth wife 

Robyn Brown joined the Brown family during season 1 of Sister Wives. While the family claimed to agree with adding another wife, there are hints that not all was well from very early in the courtship. Christine, in season 1 of the series, made it pretty clear that she wasn’t interested in adding a fourth wife. She also seemed a bit put off by Kody’s courtship while pregnant with her last child. 

The Brown family always claimed that in their religion, the wives had to agree before a courtship could move forward. While Meri was apparently “in” on Kody’s fourth courtship, his other wives were seemingly left in the dark, at least for a little while. It’s pretty clear how that might have bred some resentment and led to some of the Brown family’s most recent troubles. 

In short, Kody Brown and his four wives never had a perfect polygamist union. While they insisted they were just one big, happy family during the show’s earliest seasons, they are getting really honest about things now. From what the family has revealed most recently, the Browns were dysfunctional long before TLC’s cameras came on the scene.