NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n
Christine Brown Woolley’s new memoir Sister Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Finding Freedom,<\/a> comes out on Sept. 2 Christine Brown Woolley<\/a> is finally ready to share her whole story.<\/p>\n Christine, 53, and her polygamous family have been navigating the many highs and lows that come with their arrangement on the popular TLC series Sister Wives<\/a>. It debuted in September 2010 and its milestone 20th season drops this fall.\n<\/p>\n The show began by following the family patriarch Kody Brown<\/a> and his marriages to Meri Brown<\/a>, Janelle Brown<\/a> and Christine (his third wife), as he embarked on a fourth polygamous marriage with Robyn Brown<\/a>. For awhile, the Brown family managed to keep up a happy front. But in the hit reality show’s most recent seasons, the cracks began to show.\n<\/p>\n Christine’s new memoir, Sister Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Finding Freedom,<\/a> comes out on Sept. 2 from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It details her upbringing in the Mormon faith and her life as a sister wife, as well as a revealing look into her life beyond what the cameras showed.\n<\/p>\n “I feel like there’s a rest of the story that wasn’t told before,” Christine tells PEOPLE exclusively. “Even though I really feel like our show\u00a0did our best to be authentic and everything … I still felt like there was\u00a0a huge part that I kept hidden just to be a peacemaker, to make everything work.”\n<\/p>\n “And then, through leaving, people asked all the time, “How did you do it? How’d you do it?'” the author continues.\n<\/p>\n The book seeks to answer that, and many other questions, including “what was happening that I didn’t agree\u00a0with, what was happening that made me stronger, and what made me leave.”\n<\/p>\n Below, read and listen to an exclusive excerpt from Sister Wife<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n ‘Sister Wife,’ Christine Brown Woolley’s memoir.<\/p>\n Gallery Books<\/p>\n \nAn excerpt from ‘Sister Wife’ by Christine Brown Woolley<\/p>\n I knew Kody wouldn\u2019t come to my home if the kids weren\u2019t well behaved, the food wasn\u2019t what he liked and the house wasn\u2019t clean and decorated to his taste.\n<\/p>\n Dinner was ready, usually, when he arrived, but he was picky about what he ate \u2014 he liked only basic foods. It was all steak, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts and spinach. I usually had to make a different meal for the kids \u2014 and then Gwendlyn was a vegetarian, so it would be three meals. It could get complicated, especially if he didn\u2019t tell me he was coming in advance, which happened often and was one of our biggest fights. I needed to plan, and he felt I was trying to control him.\n<\/p>\n I wanted him to feel comfortable and relaxed while he was in my home, but it\u2019s funny to think about now: We all had the same job; the four wives handled childcare, shopping, cooking and housework; and we each made sure the house was comfortable for Kody when he came over. Somehow, Kody was the busiest of all of us.\n<\/p>\n Then something happened that made everything that had come before \u2014 the eternal commitment, the moment he told me he loved me after our trip to Nauvoo, my identity as a wife \u2014 feel like a farce.\n<\/p>\n The sister wives wrote a book together published in 2012. For the book, Meri, Janelle, Kody, Robyn and I each talked separately to a writer, who then weaved the story of our early years together, as well as Robyn\u2019s integration into the family. Talking with the writer took me straight back to my twenties, when I was young and crushing on Kody, and admiring Kody and Meri as a couple \u2014 so pre- Janelle, too.\n<\/p>\n Kody had a different memory.\n<\/p>\n Before we got married, Meri, Kody, and I had got caught in a snowstorm while driving from Salt Lake to Wyoming with a group of people for a retreat at Kody\u2019s parents\u2019 house. I loved seeing his family, and I felt like our bond as friends had grown stronger. We\u2019d been in the car for hours after having to pull over and spend the night on the road. I was starving, and we ended up at a gas station. I ate a lot of junk food back then, and chili cheese nachos were my favorite thing.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe sight of this chubby girl in my car devouring chili cheese nachos for breakfast put the brakes on our relationship,\u201d Kody wrote in the book.\n<\/p>\n Are you serious? I thought after reading the draft. You were disgusted with me when I ate nachos? And you weren\u2019t attracted to me? Why did you marry me?\n<\/p>\n This is what you tell the world about your wife? In your forties, when you absolutely know how hurtful it would be \u2014 or you should. In Becoming Sister Wives, we found out stuff about each other that we didn\u2019t know, and it was brutal. I knew Meri and Janelle had struggled, but I didn\u2019t know the details. I felt heartbroken reading that book.\n<\/p>\n Mykelti read it, and she called me right after.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea Dad felt that way about you,\u201d she said. She was so upset.\n<\/p>\n I was, too. We had been married for about 18 years when I read the book, and I didn\u2019t know Kody had never been attracted to me. I felt so humiliated. The whole world knew almost before I did. And now my kids knew, too.\n<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer , from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n On camera, in front of the sister wives, Kody said, \u201cI was not attracted to Christine in any kind of physical sense.\u201d\n<\/p>\n You can see the hurt on my face, even as I initially tried to make a joke of it.\n<\/p>\n \u201cYou were not attracted to Christine,\u201d the host repeated back. \u201cThat\u2019s an understatement,\u201d Kody replied.\n<\/p>\n Janelle\u2019s face. Robyn\u2019s face. Horrified. I tried to smile through it, but it came out as more of a grimace. Oh, Kody. Gee. We just never know what he\u2019s going to say.\n<\/p>\n Why did you say you love me? Why did you propose to me?\n<\/p>\n If you love me now, why would you hurt me so publicly?\n<\/p>\n A knife to the kidneys.\n<\/p>\n He played it like it was a tragedy \u2014 that he had to marry me. That wasn\u2019t the tragedy. The tragedy was that he kept me from someone who would love me. The tragedy was the narcissism of it, the belief that I wouldn\u2019t have moved on if he had laughed and said he wanted to keep me as a friend.\n<\/p>\n You\u2019re really putting this in a book?\n<\/p>\n
\nIt reveals never-before-seen details about her life in polyamory, including what viewers didn’t see on the popular TLC series Sister Wives
\nRead and listen to an exclusive excerpt below<\/p>\n