Being in a marriage with one person is often difficult enough on its own — especially if that person is my husband, who can’t even remember to put his clothes IN the laundry basket instead of on the floor NEXT to it.
I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to be in a marriage to four other people — even if it meant being able to pawn my husband off to someone else whenever he gets annoying!
One of the best parts about reality TV is we get to see a side of life that we may not choose to live for ourselves.
I may never decide to become the rich housewife of a celebrity or travel the world in search of the best drive-in restaurants, but I can watch people do it, and learn a lot that way!
The same goes for plural marriages on reality TV.
*Sister Wives* has been on the air for a long time, and we’ve gone through all the ups and downs of their lives with them.
The show, which has run since 2010, follows polygamist Kody Brown and his four wives — Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn — as they raise their 18 children and navigate their very unique home life in their plural marriage.
You might think five spouses would lend itself easily to drama — and you’re right.
The family has not been free of drama, as you might expect.
Just last year, rumors swirled that Kody’s first wife, Meri, may have been unhappy in the relationship after sharing cryptic Instagram posts while not sharing any photos that mentioned Kody in over a year.
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Kody’s third wife, Christine, has also opened up about feeling unimportant in the family hierarchy as well as being jealous.
While speaking about the family’s recent move to Arizona where they all live in separate houses, Christine said , “It’s not just that we are geographically different, because I expected geographically different. But what I didn’t expect was to feel isolated and feel separate.”
“It feels lonely,” Christine went on.
“I’m really sorry — I still get jealous,” Christine explained. “I still get super, super, super jealous and I’m really, really, really sorry. It makes getting together hard — really, really hard.”
Christine has now opened up about feeling like ranking lower than the other wives.
In a recent episode, Christine has opened up about not feeling confident or welcome in the other wives’ homes, stating that she felt that the other women didn’t like her.
“I’m sure everybody hates me all the time,” she said.
Christine added , ” And then when we get together for family gatherings, I’m like, ‘Why would I want to go? Because it’s just going to be a hostile environment and no one there even likes me.'”
Christine explained she’d felt this way since they lived in the same house together.
“Looking back, with Meri and Janelle, when it was just the three of us, it was the same kind of thing — I didn’t always know if they were mad at me or frustrated with me.”
“Before family gatherings, I think about it a lot,” Christine said.
“If it’s at my house, then I know what to do to prepare for it, to try to make it so that everybody feels comfortable but when I go into one of my sister wives’ homes, I don’t know how to feel safe, I don’t know how to be me in their home,” Christine revealed.
Christine added that whoever’s home they were in felt like the “queen wife.”
“The one house was so hard — I never felt like I was queen wife or queen mom. Never,” Christine revealed. “Everybody’s needs came before mine. And all the kids’ needs came before my kids’, too.”
Christine explained that she felt metaphorically and literally like she was at the bottom of the house order.
Christine said this was reflected in how she lived in the basement of their old home. “Someone needed to take the basement — not fun, not a fun choice to make. It was super hard — I hated it. Because I hate conversations so bad, I just put my needs last, every single time,” she said.
Christine explained “inthe plural community, there is certainly a ‘basement wife’ mentality.”
“If you have a situation where there’s a wife that’s a queen bee, well, the other wife goes in the basement and she doesn’t matter as much. And I’ve seen it enough. I’ve seen it a lot.”
“I put myself in the basement and became a basement wife,” Christine went on.
“I just feel like I stopped having a choice and I didn’t really matter as much.”
What do you think of Christine’s basement wife analogy? Do you agree with her? Let us know in the comments below!
