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Sister Wives star Janelle Brown was married to Adam Barber before she hooked up with Kody Brown and became his second wife. Recently, she opened up about Adam, the brother of Meri Brown, and that is something she very seldom talks about. Read on to find out more about the TLC star’s candid interview.
Janelle Brown Was Not Legally Married To Kody Brown
There still seems to be some confusion among Sister Wives fans about the difference between a spiritual marriage and a legal marriage. Some people believe that Kody Brown and Janelle were legally married. But, that is not the case. In fact, only Meri, and then Robyn were his legal wives. The rest of them took vows in a Mormon temple.
Janelle Brown was legally married in the past, but not to Kody Brown. Instead, she married Adam Barber, the brother of Meri Brown. The TLC star tied the knot with Adam in 1988 and by 1990 it was all over as they got divorced. Adam passed away last year, and even if she had been invited, Meri wouldn’t have made it to Christine’s wedding because of the funeral.
Adam Barber Discussed On A Podcast
This week, the Sister Wives star opened up about her short-lived marriage to Adam Barber during episode 1135 on the Reality Life podcast with Kate Casey. The TLC star also talked about life with Kody Brown over the years, but most fans already know about that.
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Janelle Brown didn’t have all that much to say about her first marriage. Probably because they were not together very much. Clearly, it never really had the time to become anything robust. The Sister Wives star said:
[Our Marriage] was very, very short-lived. I think we might have lived together physically, actually lived together for, like, six months. [Our relationship] just didn’t take [off].
The Ashley’s Reality Roundup reminded readers that Janelle Brown previously talked about her unsuccessful union with Adam Barber. That came in the book titled Becoming Sister Wives. Adam changed his faith for her because the TLC star was obsessed with the “polygamous Apostolic United Brethren (AUB).” Still, it wasn’t destined to be a lasting union.
Janelle Brown knew Meri, and she knew Kody because her mom was married into the family. In the end, she got the hots for Kody Brown, and the rest, as they say, is history: including her spiritual marriage to the father of her six children.
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Are you happy that Janelle Brown shared a bit about her marriage to Meri’s brother, Adam Barber? Are you surprised that their relationship was so short? After all, she knew him from her school days. Shout out in the comments below, and remember to come back here often for all your Sister Wives news, updates, and spoilers.
I think that, like many women, Janelle wanted a financial partner to help her raise the children she wanted.
It’s just not an adequate basis for a happy marriage. Janelle saw an opportunity to have a better financial partner in her sister-in-law, Meri Brown’s, polygamous husband, Kody.
When Janelle recognized that door might be open to her (because Kody needed at least three wives to have full status under their fundamentalist Mormon church’s tenets, and they were struggling to get Meri pregnant), Janelle jumped at that chance. She approached him about joining his polygamous family even though that wasn’t her own background.
I always coughed when she mentioned having a “spiritual witness” about anything. This was someone who saw a financial opportunity and took it.
It has served her beyond those expectations and she now financially independent as a result of the show.
I don’t think Kody mistreated her within the assumptions of their patriarchal, polygamous, covenant “marriage”.
It was never intended to be a “marriage of equals” so looking back at it without that template really makes no sense in the situation.
Outside of polygamy, in one on one marriages, men and women are more able to be equal in the relationship. The fact of a legal marriage brings the force of law to the woman’s rights. A husband in a legal marriage no longer has Carte Blanche to give or take what he wants.
But when it’s one man and four women you are necessarily not equal to your husband. Men naturally have favorite wives like parents have favorite children. He also leans in with his legal wife because she has real legally defined rights.
Janelle knew entering into this unlawful contract with him disadvantaged her. She had been married and divorced already. So it was a choice she made.
He doesn’t have to share his earnings equally with her the way the law requires him to do with Robyn now and with Meri before. It’s hard for anyone to overcome that simple reality.
The non-legal other “wives” aren’t equal with the legal wife in a polygamous marriage. She has more actual power in the relationship. Meri had it, and they were jealous of her then.
Now Robyn has it and they’re jealous of her.
Robyn also treats Kody observably better than any of the rest of them ever did as far as I have seen within the confines of the show.
Robyn is a kinder, more emotionally generous person to everyone, and more affectionate to everyone. She’s more positive (Kody used to be like that. Some people can’t tolerate negativity).
Kody may be a narcissistic person but when you have four wives I’m sure it goes to your head.
My impression of Janelle and Christine is that they each wanted to be “the favorite”, and those hopes were dashed. Janelle because she produced so many children in addition to working
(I remember Janelle literally saying she thought Meri’s house should not be the same size as hers because she had more kids!). Very clearly, she thought she was entitled to more than Meri financially in every way, because she had more children, even to that extent. Janelle didn’t seem to see that the home costs were equalized by how much was spent on her children’s support, and that Meri worked, too.
Pretty narcissistic of Janelle there.
Christine is also a narcissistic person herself who always wants to be the center of attention. She thought she was “fundamentalist royalty” and that the third wife has an easier role, similar to the fantasies older children often have about the “easy life” of the youngest child in a family. That did not pan out for her either. 18 children are a lot of work even if you don’t work outside the home otherwise. A crazy life plan imho.
Might work if you limited the number of children, but then that’s the whole point behind the tenet of plural marriage, it’s about the man producing a large population of women and children to serve him, which we know modernly is a great disservice to the overall gene pool.
What did these women really expect?
“I wanted the family, not the man”? Oh boy, would I not want to marry someone who said that about our marriage. Whenever you marry someone for anything except to spend your life loving them, you have objectified them, and you’re using them, one way or another.
But notwithstanding, that wasn’t even completely true. They should remember were all very young together and they should forgive each other and be civil with each other and each other’s future partners, for the sake of the family of children they created together, and for all the future generations who will carry their family legacy.
Certainly Kody has not done anything dangerous or unforgivable. His offenses are so quotidian and banal. Let it go! For the kids’ sake.