Long before Janelle, Christine, and Robyn Brown became Kody Brown‘s second, third, and fourth wives, there was another woman who almost joined the polygamous marriage.
During Part 2 of Sister Wives Look Back, How It’s Going, Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn continued to watch previous episodes of the show and give their commentary.
Kody revealed during one of his segments that while he still only had one wife, Meri, he was involved in a serious long-term relationship with another potential bride.
“There was a woman that I was courting for a very long time before I married Janelle. Her and Meri were friends,” Kody confessed.
Kody explained that although things didn’t work out between himself and the mystery woman, she was still holding onto hope that she would join the Brown family.
“After I married Christine, she still wanted to be in the family,” Kody continued. “Christine shut it down the first time because, you know, Christine and I were friends.”
Sister Wives Look Back: How It’s Going: Kody says Christine interfered with him marrying a woman he courted early in his and Meri’s marriage
Kody says that when Christine joined the family — after asking him to do so — she “fundamentally adjusted” everything.
“She said, ‘I’d never marry you if you married her.’ And then Christine had no interest in having her in the family after Christine had come into the family,” the father of 18 added.
For her part, Christine was adamant that she didn’t try to prevent Kody from getting married again. According to Christine’s version of events, the other woman never even mentioned wanting to marry Kody. In fact, she accused Kody of lying about it.
“It’s just a lie. I’m sorry – that’s just a lie,” Christine said during her solo confessional. “And why is he living in the past? Why is that relevant to anything?”
Although Christine said that Kody was lying about the woman wanting to join Kody and Meri’s marriage, she told a different story in 2012.
Christine sang a different tune in the Brown family memoir
Interestingly, the mystery woman who courted Kody before Janelle, Christine, and Robyn came into the picture has been mentioned before.
In the Brown family’s 2012 memoir Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage, Meri first talked about her and Kody nearly welcoming another woman into their marriage early on.
Meri wrote about a young woman she and Kody had met at a church gathering. Meri was “excited” about the idea of welcoming a second wife into her and Kody’s marriage and admitted that she and the other woman became close friends right away.
In Meri’s eyes, she and Kody were on their way to “achieving the sister-wife ideal” she’d always dreamed of.
Christine also mentioned the relationship in the book, noting that she didn’t want to hear about it, and she dropped a bombshell when she revealed that the woman was underage.
“It had been prolonged because Kody and Meri wanted to wait for the girl they were courting to turn 18 before making their engagement official,” Christine wrote.
Kody and the mystery woman ended up getting engaged, but one week before the wedding, they called it off… a moment that, in the book, Christine called the “happiest” day of her life.
Kody’s timeline of adding multiple wives to his marriage
While the young woman never achieved sister-wife status in Kody’s once-polygamous marriage, he went on to welcome three more wives after marrying Meri in 1990.
Janelle and Kody became husband and wife in 1993, followed by Christine and Kody in 1994, then Robyn and Kody in 2010, who made their nuptials official with a legal marriage ceremony in 2014.
As we know, Kody’s first three wives have since left their plural marriage, leaving him and Robyn in a monogamous relationship.
Sister Wives: Christine and David’s Wedding (Part 1) premieres on Sunday, January 7, at 10/9c on TLC.