Sister Wives star Meri Brown called her marriage with Kody Brown “dead,” but Kody Brown said he does not feel like he has the “right” to say the marriage is over. Meri, 50, and Kody, 52, have been married for over 30 years, the longest of Kody’s four unions, but their relationship has struggled in recent years. Kody believes ending the marriage would be difficult and he still holds out hope for reconciliation.
“Meri and I have been in a very dark place for a very long time,” Kody explained in an interview with Us Weekly on Friday. “It’s been more about trying to get ourselves out of this hole that we dug ourselves into.” Kody hopes “communication” will heal things between the two sides. “It’s been a long time and it’s been very difficult,” he explained.
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Kody has three other wives – Janelle, 51, Christine, 48, and Robyn, 42. He is legally married to Robyn but is in “spiritual unions” with his three other wives. There are also 18 children, three children-in-law, and three grandchildren in the Brown family. According to Kody, it is not easy for divorce to happen in a “plural marriage.”
“In plural marriage, I don’t feel like I’ve got the right to say, ‘This is over, this is ending,’” Kody told Us Weekly. “I have dominion over my own body and where I’m at, but I’m not in a place where, like, I can say, ‘Hey, I’m divorcing you.’ I can’t do that.” Still, Kody said any of his wives “can leave” him at any time. “It’s it’s not working for them; they can leave,” he said. “Nobody’s going to be a prisoner here.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Kody said there was a “double standard” in plural marriage. While his wives could leave the marriage, he cannot. “There’s other double standards that we have in the family that we sort of tolerate,” the TLC star said. “And that other double standard is I don’t get to leave, but they can.”
Kody and Meri revealed in an April 2020 episode that they went to therapy to repair their relationship. However, TLC released a teaser earlier this week that revealed the problems persist. In one scene, Kody described their relationship as “just distant and amicable.” Meri said their relationship is “gone… It’s dead. It’s over.” Meri later noted, “I feel like I’ve made it known to him enough where I want the relationship to go, as far as just moving forward. It’s best to leave the ball in his court.” New episodes of Sister Wives air Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.
