SISTER WIVES – Meri finally reveals her feelings about Janelle marrying her brother and then her husband
Meri Brown is finally addressing the emotional complexity of watching her former sister-in-law become her sister wife. In an exclusive preview for the upcoming Sister Wives “One-on-One” special (Part 3,) the reality star shared candid insights about the challenges she faced when Janelle Brown joined her marriage to Kody Brown—particularly given that Janelle had previously been married to Meri’s brother, Adam Barber.
“There’s a lot of emotion. There is a lot of emotion!” Meri emphasized in the sneak peek obtained by People, acknowledging the layered feelings that accompanied this unique family situation.
The Complicated Timeline
The family dynamics are undeniably intricate. Janelle and Adam Barber married in 1988, creating a traditional sister-in-law relationship between Janelle and Meri. However, the marriage was short-lived, ending in divorce in 1990—the same year Meri married Kody Brown.
Just three years later, in 1993, Janelle entered a spiritual marriage with Kody, transforming her relationship with Meri from former sister-in-law to sister wife.
“Janelle and I were actually sisters-in-law before we were sister wives,” Meri explained in the past. “She’d been married to my brother and she was actually at my wedding with him.”
Beyond the typical challenges of polygamy, Meri faced additional emotional hurdles that her husband and sister wife seemingly overlooked.
“Kody and Janelle fail to recognize that possibly some of the issues that I had in polygamy could have stemmed from the fact that, oh, they wanted to get married on my birthday,” Meri shared, referring to their initial plan to wed on January 16.
While Kody’s mother ultimately stopped that plan, Meri notes that Kody and Janelle initially thought “it doesn’t matter, we’ll just celebrate it a different day.”
“Like, excuse me? It does matter,” Meri remarked.
But the birthday issue was only part of the story. “And they forget that there might have been some emotions involved with the fact that she used to be married to my brother,” Meri continued, highlighting the overlooked complexity of the situation.
During an earlier episode that aired this month, Meri admitted the difficulty she experienced when Janelle first entered the family. “When the conversation about Janelle coming into our family started happening, it was really hard for me,” she said.
“It was a tough thing to wrap my head around on multiple levels just because she had been married to my brother, you know? And so it was definitely a thing for me, for sure.”
In a previous podcast appearance on Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel, Meri acknowledged how unusual the situation appears to outsiders. “I think it really weirds a lot of people out and the community’s not that small,” she said. “So it’s kind of weird that that all happened that way.”
Despite initially struggling with these emotions, Meri has maintained that she worked through her feelings. “It took a minute for me to get my head wrapped around it,” she admitted. “The whole thing was interesting. There was emotions. Let’s just say, there was emotions.”
Adam Barber, Janelle’s ex-husband and Meri’s brother has since passed away from cancer.
