Sister Wives: Kody Claims He Wasn’t ‘Going to Leave’ Christine, Janelle and Meri ‘No Matter How Much I Didn’t Love Them’

Divorce was never a part of Kody Brown’s plans.

Beginning by reflecting on his broken marriage to Meri Brown during the Sunday, Sept. 22 episode of Sister Wives, Kody believes one thing to be true: “There is a lot of wisdom that we lacked in our marriage.”

“I didn’t know who she was when we got married. She was very different,” the patriarch, 55, told the cameras. “I think just there’s some baggage that Meri had that I didn’t know about initially. I felt like I could live with it. … I can’t live in a world where she is constantly angry at me.

Kody’s comments come as he revealed that Meri, 53, has chosen to go through their church (a.k.a. the Apostolic United Brethren) to request a formal “release” from their 32-year marriage. But Kody doesn’t agree with this, noting that “the damage was done so badly that we’re not going to reconcile no matter what” and he doesn’t “want to be accountable to this church and all their BS.”

When it comes to plural marriage through the Brown family’s church, Kody said that “a man has no choice after he’s already married.”

“In plural marriage, if he wants to stay faithful and in the faith, he cannot request a divorce,” he explained. “It’s not allowed. So I was not able to get out of that relationship.”

However, Kody admitted, “At the same time, I didn’t necessarily want out of the relationship. I wanted to know if we could save and fix it.”

“There was a complete nuance about, well, we’re going to figure out our relationship like there were several times I was with her where I’m like, well, here’s to a new beginning. We’re going to figure this out,” he shared. “Every time I was with her, she wasn’t nice, she wasn’t fun, she wasn’t kind, she wasn’t interesting. I’m trying to be curious with her and I’m bored. And so, I guess to be fair, Meri feels abandoned.”

“But I didn’t kick me out. Christine, Janelle and Meri all chose to have me leave the home,” he added.

Kody and Meri publicly separated in January 2023. Before that, Christine Brown and Janelle Brown chose to end their marriages with Kody, who now only remains married to his fourth wife Robyn Brown.

“Now, I’m not playing the victim card, I’m just saying it’s just the way that it was,” Kody shared. “I wasn’t ever going to leave them, no matter how much I didn’t love them. But they made choices that separated us. And maybe I made choices that separated us, but they eventually moved on.”

Taking a moment to speak about Robyn, Kody said his “loyalty is to Robyn” because she has “always been loyal to her sister wives and she has always been loyal to me.” And yet, when it comes to their polygamous family’s demise, he still doesn’t think it’s about who is to “blame” but “it’s about choice.”

“We chose the road we’ve been on. This is the life we chose and when we chose well, we were happy family and when we chose badly we weren’t,” he concluded. “But everybody’s on their journey and I hope in the end that everybody is happy.”

Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.