I grew up like “sisters”. This is how this series affected my attitude.

“Which sister woman do you feel like today?” Luke sends a text before I even have time to drink my morning coffee. This is the “good morning beautiful” version of the lyrics and makes me laugh instantly. With a busy day ahead of side meetings and work on my thesis, I answer:

“Janel, sure, boo?”

“Of course Christine,” he replies. This means she feels like she drove two hours just to get a cold drink.

Sister Wives, TLC’s 19-season hit reality show and counting, is the source of a new habit for Luke and I to chart our daily emotional barometers through the lens of each Sister Wives: Meri, Janelle, Kristin and Robyn. Janelle represents a career-oriented woman whose family synergy is her north star. Self-proclaimed “basement woman,” Christine is the glue of the family, a loving homemaker who brings family members together for special gatherings. Meri is the original “Queen Woman” of the Brown family, who becomes the comedic and alien relief. Robin introduces the new order of the Brown family, known for manipulation as a peacemaker to secure the new status of “princess wife”.

The long-running series follows the polygamous Brown family, led by Cody Brown, his four wives and their 18 children, as they paint a saccharine picture of what a thriving polygamous family can look like in the 21st century. The new season premieres on Sunday.

I first heard about Sister Wives years ago from my Aunt Annmarie, who got so excited when talking about the show you’d think she was watching the Super Bowl. The only other time I’ve seen her react so passionately to television was when Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) got dizzy in Season 6 of The Sopranos. Of course, my aunt and I enjoyed The Sopranos because it contrasted with the extra mentality of our Italian family, minus, of course, the mob attitude and assassination attempts.

Growing up, I grew up as an only child in a devoted, devoted, matriarchal family consisting of my mother and her two sisters. When my mother divorced two decades ago, she moved back to her childhood home with her two sisters for extra support. This It Takes a Village mentality, similar to Christine and Janelle’s dynamic in Sister Wives, allowed my mom to support her career while providing free childcare. My aunts, who were also dedicated career women, spent a lot of their extra time, money and love to raise me.

As a non-religious person with no one to tell me what to do in New York, the last thing I expected was to be with the women and children of the “Sister Wives”. which most people think is a weak subject of Cody. However, this assumption could not be further from the truth.

When Luke and I decided to watch the first episode at his Bushwick apartment, we were hooked. In season 5, episode 2, when Cody and the women go to the parent-teacher conference, I couldn’t help but turn to Luke and say, “Wait, that was actually for my moms.”

Then I went on a tangent about my childhood. Because I was used to playing peacemaker, emotional interpreter, and judge among my mothers, many of the show’s scenes were familiar to me, even though I wasn’t Mormon. I couldn’t help but be enamored with both the early season Sister Wives social gatherings and the later season fights between the wives because it felt real and dynamic.

Over the years, I have become accustomed to how my matriarchal family composition is viewed by society. The mostly female family I grew up in was not without its emotional and theatrical outbursts, of course. When I say that I have three mothers, some people get confused; A spark of curiosity in their eyes about how brothers can live together until they are 50 years old. Others slip moments of judgment into the conversation when they ask the question: “So … neither your aunt nor your mother … are married?”

In high school, I read Rebecca Traister and Call Hooks, then wrote about single women, women who are free to have children, and different kinds of love. In college, my research also focused on how television and film construct and configure the category of “woman” in the first place. Today, when I watch Sister Wives, I see again the desire to understand, talk and empower people who are socially invisible and often marginalized due to nuclear lifestyles.

What I didn’t expect when I watched Sister Wives with Luke was how it strengthened our bond and served as a cornerstone for my relationship. For most of my life, I never dreamed of getting married, and sometimes I saw relationships as a weakness. But “Sister Wives” broke the ideal of monogamous romantic love and conquered other versions of love.

It wasn’t long after Cody revealed that he was never attracted to Christine during their marriage when I heard Luke scoff, shake his head and exclaim, “What’s wrong with him?!” I couldn’t help but laugh and tell him I love him. It was an emotional episode, and I thought: Here’s someone who’s in touch with her emotions, following me to the moon — and she’s more into Sister Wives and its aftermath than I am.

After that, there was a season when Meri was shocked in an ugly way. Luke sided with Cody because he felt Meri betrayed him. However, I didn’t think it was that simple because I saw how much Meri needed a friend to talk to.

“Don’t you see how he behaves?” Of course she looked away, she was out of breath! You know what he reminds me of? I thought how my mother was mistreated in her marriage.

This was one of the many moments that “Sisters of the Wives” caused controversy among us. It opened doors for us to critically discuss our relationship with marriage, monogamy and adultery.

Looking back, I can see that the lines were very blurred for me as to where Sister Wives ended and my family dynamic began. I felt for Meri what I felt for my mother: the devastating effect that a narcissistic partner can have on one’s self-esteem, self-worth, and happiness. I felt that my mother felt like a contented single mother who still looked down on her. Speaking out loud to the TV and to Luke, I was standing up not only for the women in the Brown family, but for my three mothers and the struggles they went through.

The construction of identity through television characters is not new; Ask any New York woman with a love interest and a finance man, and she’ll probably tell you she’s Carrie. But using “Sister Wives” as a personality test presented new challenges, mainly because they were real people with real personalities that evolved dramatically. What did it say about me that I resonated more with the women in Sisters than in Sex and the City? Was my upbringing as a fourth sibling more than a child that raised me over the years?

Maybe. The more I got into Sister Wives, the more I realized I was less in touch with the exciting intensity of being a 20-something and more seduced by the martyr and victim in the Brown family. I was well versed in understanding narcissistic parents, non-romantic intimacy, and the fear of maintaining one’s identity in a relationship with the serpentine scene in New York. I selfishly watched Sister Wives like I was looking into a crystal ball to see what my future would be like.

For most of my life, my family felt controversial because the American family I knew consisted of a divorcee and two single women, both childless by choice. As a young woman with no romantic relationships or religious ideals, entering my first monogamous relationship with Luke felt controversial. However, as we watched Sister Wives, I felt more confident about revealing my non-traditional upbringing to Luke and embracing other non-traditional ways. As season 19 approaches, “Sister Wives” is very different: divorces, new marriages, new revelations.

For Luke and I, we will be watching from the road during our yearlong road trip. This is another unconventional path I’m excited to walk.

“Sister Wives” airs Sundays at 10:00 PM on TLC.