Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn Brown have all had their fair share of meltdowns throughout their run in Sister Wives, but fans suspect Kody Brown encouraged his spouses to be as emotionally repressed as possible. With every season the Brown family starred in Sister Wives, Kody become more controlling and absent from his wives’ lives, and although his first trio of spouses surely wanted to express their frustrations, fans think they knew to keep their feelings to themselves. From Meri’s devastating advice for Christine to Kody’s manipulative tendencies, here’s why Sister Wives fans think Kody forced his wives to hide their emotions.
Unfortunately, Kody’s wives had to do whatever they could to survive the low points of their plural marriage. As Sister Wives‘ audience knows well, there were plenty of low points in Kody’s polygamous family for his first three wives ever since Robyn joined the Brown clan in 2010. Once Kody’s fourth wife was initiated into his plural marriage, the patriarch poured all of his affection into his relationship with Robyn, leaving only crumbs of attention for Meri, Janelle, and Christine. Sadly, the trio of wives didn’t have the best coping mechanisms available to them while in relationships with Kody. Instead of working through their problems like a family, Sister Wives fans think Kody forced his wives to hide their emotions.
It didn’t take long for Meri, Janelle, and Christine to notice that Robyn Brown was the apple of Kody’s eye, and although jealousy is an expected consequence of polygamous relationships, Kody and Robyn’s relationship was a difficult pill for the original sister wives to swallow. Instead of going to Kody about their feelings of loneliness, however, the spiritual spouses coped through other means like Meri’s romance with an online stranger that turned out to be a catfish. Even in therapy with their husband, Meri, Janelle, and Christine rarely felt like they made any emotional progress with their husband. In a scene from an early Sister Wives season, a Reddit user recalled Meri advising Christine, “Don’t bring up problems with [Kody].” Fans think Meri’s instruction for Christine to button up her feelings is a result of Kody forcing his wives to hide their emotions.
Throughout the Brown family’s harrowing decade-spanning run in Sister Wives, Kody has demonstrated that he isn’t the most receptive to his spiritual spouses’ woes. Kody Brown has proven himself to be a resentful husband, as he still holds Meri’s internet affair over her head instead of understanding how her loneliness led her to the stranger’s direct messages. Viewers think Meri astutely pointed out that the only way to get on Kody’s good side is to act like everything’s fine. One fan explained, “Never complain to him…Never need anything… This IS how to make things better with Kody.” Another reason why viewers think Kody forces his wives to be repressed is because the patriarch doesn’t even know how to deal with his own feelings. A commenter assessed, “[Kody’s] emotions are definitely stunted and it’s because he’s never been made to deal with them.”
Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn Brown have all shared deeply emotional moments while starring in Sister Wives, but fans think the polygamous partners learned to keep their feelings out of their relationship with Kody. Based on his desire to feel like a husband no wife could complain about and his inability to process his own feelings, fans think Kody forced his wives to hide their emotions throughout their marriage. Hopefully, the Brown family learns to express their emotions before they lose them entirely in Sister Wives.
Sources: pufftanuffles/Reddit, 4TheLoveOfBasicCable/Reddit, HistoryAnne/Reddit
