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I Read the ‘Sister Wives’ Book: Part 7 — An Unhappy Spiritual Marriage
Before she got married, Janelle believed that her new sister wife, Meri, would become her best friend. She was totally unprepared. Honestly, Meri and Janelle seem to have a discrepancy in the way they see their relationship. Meri seems to suggest that Janelle came out of nowhere, but Janelle insinuates that she, Meri, and Kody had been good friends.
Immediately, Janelle began to lose some of her self-esteem. She struggled to find her way in the marriage, lacked self-esteem, and had to learn more about her values. She threw herself into work and found security and happiness in that.
Janelle couldn’t help but feel like she barged into somebody else’s marriage. She says Meri was “frosty,” and she felt like she couldn’t do anything right, whether it was folding clothes, buying soap, or doing dishes. She said that “when she was younger” Meri had “quite an overbearing personality.”
Janelle says that she’s a “pleaser” and was raised to be “nonconfrontational,” so she caved a lot. She couldn’t get alone time with Kody, and she stopped spending time in common areas because they felt excluded. They lived in a small three-bedroom mobile home, and Kody worked late nearly every day. She continued to study “Native American arts and crafts” in addition to “wild plant herbology.”