After years of relationship issues, Kody Brown no longer feels he is married to first wife Meri Brown. Although the two never publicly announced a split, the fragile state of their marriage is discussed in a preview for the upcoming episode of Sister Wives, as shared by PEOPLE. The clip from the one-on-one interview special begins with a confessional where Kody talked about his relationship with Meri during this season of the show. He said he doesn’t consider himself married to her and insisted he’d be fine if she went and found someone else.
According to Meri, Kody never expressed those feelings to her directly. In fact, she was confused that he was so blatantly stating that their marriage was over without talking to her about it first. “It doesn’t make sense to me that he would be so frustrated with Christine [Brown] and be like, ‘She made this decision. We didn’t talk about it, we didn’t consult, she just made the decision,'” Meri says. “But then he says, ‘I don’t consider myself married to Meri. Like HE just made that decision. I’ve never heard him say that to me.”
Meri explains that Kody had led her to believe they were trying to make their marriage work, and says that he even toasted to a “new beginning” with her when they celebrated their first anniversary after the family moved to Arizona. “But this last anniversary, he was like, ‘I don’t even know why you called me, Meri. We’re not acting married,'” Meri reveals. However, she says Kody refused to publicly acknowledge that the relationship was over.
“I said, ‘If that’s where we are, then don’t you think we should address this publicly?'” Meri recalls. “And he said, ‘No I don’t want to address it because I don’t want the judgement.” When asked how she feels about where her relationship with Kody stands, Meri has no other option. “He’s already made that decision,” she insists. Still, she says she “definitely” would reconcile with Kody, although she acknowledges, “I don’t think that he’s interested.”
On this season of the show, Christine officially left Kody and moved away from the family. Meanwhile, Janelle Brown’s marriage to Kody also began to fracture, and previews for the one-on-one special have shown the two revealing that their marriage is over. As for Meri and Kody — they’ve had issues since Meri’s catfishing scandal in 2015. The scandal involved Meri striking up an online romance with a man over a 6 month period. The person was eventually revealed to be a woman pretending to be someone else. When Meri ended the relationship, the catfisher released messages Meri had sent her over the course of their online back-and-forth, which led to a strain on Meri and Kody’s marriage.
Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. on TLC.