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When she was growing up in a polygamist church, Christine Brown thought the best way to participate was to become a third wife, but now the Sister Wives star says the practice no longer appeals to her.
“I just looked at the society as a whole as being extremely fear based,” Christine told host Kate Casey on Reality Life. “I didn’t realize that I was really living in fear.”
As a member of Apostolic United Brethren, a sect of Mormonism that practices polygamy, Christine met Kody Brown when she was 18 and the two became close friends over the course of three years. It was Christine who suggested she join Kody’s family, which included wives Meri and Janelle Brown, and they were spiritually married in 1994.
“I asked him, ‘Out of all the guys I know I think you should be the one that I marry,’ and he took that as totally a proposal,” said Christine. “It just seemed like it made sense.”
Looking back Christine remembers a romantic connection between herself and the 21-year-old Kody. However, she was devastated when in the premier of the show’s 17th season her husband announced that he had never found her attractive and felt pressured into marrying her, despite already having two wives. The revelation was the tipping point for Christine and led her to leave the plural family after more than 25 years of marriage.
“As hard as it was, that was an empowering moment,” she said. “Well, you know what, if this has been happening for this long, I’m done, it's over.”
It was as if a burden had been lifted. Christine told Casey that’s when she decided she was not going to keep pretending. She recalled sitting on her porch in Arizona, admiring the view and thinking over her next steps.
“I remember realizing, ‘Here I am with this beautiful view and I’m not really happy,” she said. “Basically, I just knew that polygamy wasn’t right for me anymore.”
Listed to “Christine Brown from Sister Wives” to hear the full interview and catch Sister Wives on TLC or Discovery+. New episodes of Reality Life with Kate Casey are available three times a week with exclusive reality TV interviews. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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