Read Online Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage by Kody Brown, Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown, Robyn Brown - Free Book Online

I broke off the friendship. I couldn’t be around Kody and Meri while they were courting someone else.
    Kody and Meri’s news was not the most devastating blow I received that year—not by a long shot. A few months after I returned to Utah, my parents told me they were getting a divorce. Even worse, my mother had decided to leave our faith, which felt like the worst kind of abandonment. I was stunned and inconsolable. I felt as if my world was disintegrating. I’d seen no signs of trouble between my parents and I couldn’t imagine a life in which we would no longer be a cohesive family.
    I completely shut down. I didn’t want anything to do with any of my old friends. I couldn’t bear associating with people in Kody’s circle or people who’d known my family when it was intact.
    I turned inward. I told my father that I wasn’t interested in dating and that if a boy approached him and expressed interest in me, I didn’t want to know about it. I was so shaken by my parents’ divorce that I wanted to make sure I was solid in my faith before I committed myself to someone else. Naturally, I questionedthe whole concept of marriage. If my parents couldn’t sustain their relationship, what chance did I have when the time came?
    Even though I’d cut myself off from a lot of my friends, Meri and I still talked on the phone from time to time. I resisted these phone calls because I didn’t want to hear about the courtship. It had been prolonged because Kody and Meri wanted to wait for the girl they were courting to turn eighteen before making their engagement official. Even though I wanted nothing to do with it, I heard when they got engaged, and I knew when they set the date for the wedding.
    A week before the wedding, I received a phone call. I was standing in the kitchen when I answered the phone. It was Meri on the other end of the line. My heart nearly exploded with joy when Meri explained that the wedding had been called off. It was the happiest day of my life. I felt as if I could re-enter the world again. I immediately welcomed Kody and Meri back.
    But my happiness was short-lived. One day, completely out of the blue, Kody called me up.
    “Christine,” he said. “Janelle is driving me crazy. I can’t stand it. She really frustrates me.”
    “Who is Janelle?” I said. I had no idea who he was talking about.
    “You know her,” Kody said. “You’ve met her here and there.”
    I had no idea why Kody was bringing this problem to me. Anyway, there was a simple solution. If this woman Janelle was making Kody crazy, wouldn’t the easiest thing to do be to stop associating with her?
    How wrong I was! The next thing I knew, he and Meri had married Janelle. Of course, I thought this was really weird because Kody had told me that she was driving him crazy. It took me a while to realize what kind of crazy Kody had meant.
    After Janelle joined their family, they moved to Wyoming. I had just let Kody and Meri back into my life and now they had moved away with another wife. I hadn’t just lost a man who was special to me—I’d lost my best friends.
     
Kody
    After I married Janelle, we traveled down to Utah for a weekend to visit Meri’s parents. While we were there, we invited Christine over for dinner. I was used to the gregarious, bubbly Christine. But when she showed up that evening, I immediately sensed an underlying sadness and turmoil within her. It made me sad to see her struggling.
    On her way out the door, I pulled her aside. We stepped out on the porch so we could chat. Then I asked her what was wrong.
    “Nothing. Everything’s fine,” she said.
    I knew she wasn’t telling the truth, and I told her so. I insisted that she tell me what was going on—she was my friend, I loved her, and I needed to know what was breaking her heart.
    “It’s my parents’ divorce,” she said. This admission opened up the floodgates, and suddenly Christine felt that she could be open and honest with me once more. I felt