‘Sister Wives’ Star Kody Brown Refuses ‘Intimate’ Marriage With Another One of His Wives

Sister Wives stars Kody Brown and Meri Brown don’t hide the lack of intimacy in their marriage. In a PEOPLE sneak peek of Sunday’s one-on-one episode of the TLC show, the couple reveals they haven’t been intimate with one another for more than a decade after Kody previously revealed he no longer wanted an intimate relationship with wife Christine Brown. 

“This is my family, like I don’t understand people who think, ‘Well just because you don’t have this relationship with Kody, why don’t you just leave?’ Because I don’t want to,” Meri says. “It doesn’t make sense to me when people ask me that all the time.” Meri and Kody married in 1990 and introduced Janelle Brown into their plural marriage three years later. In 1994, Christine joined the marriage, and in 2010, Robyn Brown was added to the family, marrying Kody legally in 2014 after Meri separated from him legally to allow for their marriage.

Christine didn’t have the same response to Kody deciding to no longer be intimate with her, announcing in November that she had left her husband after 25 years together. As for why she hasn’t followed Christine’s lead, Meri says in the preview, “All I can say is we’re two different people, we have two different sets of values.” Christine adds in of her former sister wife, ” I don’t know how she does it. I guess she’s more fine with it than I am.”

Kody explains in the clip of no longer being intimate with Meri, “There’s a point where intimacy is just damaged. It’s misleading to have intimacy in a relationship where there is no real safety, I’m not going there.” Asked if he doesn’t “feel safe” with Meri, Kody replies, “No, and I never will again. I will be her friend, I will do what I can to protect her. I will build a house for her out on Coyote Pass, but I’m never going to feel safe in an intimate place.”

He continues that the catfishing incident “woke [him] up out of the daze” of realizing where he and Meri had gotten to in their relationship. Nevertheless, Meri has committed to staying with the family to continue being there for the family, the children and Kody. “I don’t think that’s enough for anybody, but everybody makes their choices,” Kody says. Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.