Sister Wives star Kody Brown gave some insight into why he didn’t want to “discard” any of his wives.
“You don’t get to be in plural marriage with leadership. Leadership will never allow you to marry again, if you’re discarding wives. I was in terrible relationships but wasn’t willing to discard them. I didn’t want to discard them,” Kody, 55, said in a preview for the October 20 episode of Sister Wives season 19.
The dad of 18 continued, “Didn’t even know I was in terrible relationships. You don’t know you’re in a bad relationship. You just think you’re in a normal relationship because all of your friends have the same problem, until you’re in a normal relationship that has deep emotional intimacy, and you don’t have the ‘F and F.’ The second word is ‘fight.’ Or ‘F and F’ and the first word is ‘fight.’ That doesn’t create intimacy. That just creates orgasms.”
The conversation about what the leadership in his religion allows regarding plural marriage came about as he discussed the end of his relationship with Meri Brown.
“I wish you would have made your choice sooner,” Kody told Meri, 53, referencing her decision to leave their marriage.
“My choice was always to stay. Had I wanted to leave sooner, I would have left sooner,” Meri explained.
However, Kody wasn’t through as he continued to throw jabs at Meri, “You know what really sucks? It’s not divorce that sucks. It’s marrying the wrong person because you don’t know.”
Meri was visibly taken aback at Kody’s harsh words and replied, “Wow, OK, because you married me at six months, you married the wrong person and you just didn’t know.”
Kody then insisted that wasn’t what he meant and added, “All I know is that you and I have different time stamps on when we weren’t happy anymore.”
Later, Meri let her true feelings fly during a solo interview with the producers.
“What sucks is marrying the wrong person and not having the decency to tell her until 32 years later,” the mom of one retorted.
Tensions between Meri and Kody have been strained for years, but Kody was shocked to learn in the September 22 episode of Sister Wives that Meri had gone to the church to request a “spiritual release” from her marriage to him.
“When each of us four ladies married Kody, it was through our church. Obviously, we all can’t be legally married, but it was what we called a covenant,” Meri said during a confessional. “So, I feel like it’s best to terminate that because we’re not moving forward with any marriage, and I don’t want to be sealed to him for eternity if he doesn’t want me. You know, I’m at a place like, ‘Let’s just separate this completely.’”
She added that Kody was “kind of resistant” to the idea of going to the church leaders because he didn’t want to “acknowledge the authority of the church leaders.”
“About 8 weeks ago, Meri told me she was going to go to Utah to meet with our church leaders, and basically request a divorce. It’s called a release in our church,” Kody told the cameras. “The damage was done so badly that we’re not going to reconcile no matter what. So, however we’re made accountable to God, I don’t want to be held accountable to the church and all their BS. So, I’m going to let Meri go and do her thing because if I’m angry at her, it becomes a fight and I need her just to go away because it took forever for her to finally realize it’s been done and over for years.”