New Update: Kody Tells Meri ‘I Actually Like You Now’ (Exclusive)
After obtaining her church’s permission to divorce Kody Brown, Meri Brown sits down with her ex-husband for a tense conversation in Season 19, Episode 6 of “Sister Wives.”
In TODAY.com’s exclusive first look at the moment, Kody Brown criticizes his ex-wife’s decision to make their divorce official when she did, saying, “I wish you would have made your choice sooner.”
“My choice was always to stay. Had I wanted to leave sooner, I would have left sooner,” she replies.
In a confessional interview, Kody Brown discusses the tricky dynamics of plural marriage, seemingly explaining why he stayed in several unhappy marriages for so long.
The reality star was once married to four women: Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn Brown. He is now only married to Robyn Brown.
“Leadership will never allow you to marry again if you’re discarding wives. Well, I was in terrible relationships, but wasn’t willing to discard them, didn’t want to discard them, didn’t even know I was in terrible relationships,” he says.
The father of 18 says it’s hard to know that you’re in a “bad relationship,” and uses a colorful example to illustrate his point.
“You just think you’re in a normal relationship because all your friends have the same problem until you’re in a normal relationship that has deep emotional intimacy instead of what some people call it, ‘f and f.’ And the second word is fight. Or ‘f and f,’ and the first word is fight. That doesn’t create intimacy. That just creates orgasms,” he says.
Back in his conversation with Meri Brown, Kody Brown pushes some buttons with his next statement.
“You know what really sucks? It’s not divorce that sucks. It’s marrying the wrong person because you don’t know,” he says.
After sighing deeply, Meri Brown says, “Wow, OK. Because you married me at six months, you married the wrong person, and you just didn’t know.”
Kody Brown quickly clarifies what he meant and says, “I’m not even saying that, Meri.”
“That’s what it sounds like,” she says.
Kody Brown reflects on the end of their marriage.
“We’re breaking up now. Does it mean it was the right person or was it just right at the right time? I don’t know. I can’t philosophize this. We could philosophize it to death. All I know is that you and I have different time stamps on when we weren’t happy anymore,” he says.
Meri Brown offers her own opinion in a confessional interview, saying, “What sucks is marrying the wrong person and not having the decency to tell her until 32 years later.”
In last week’s episode of “Sister Wives,” Meri Brown traveled to Utah to ask her church for a “release” that would grant her permission to divorce Kody Brown. Although the couple haven’t been legally married since 2014, they were still part of a spiritual marriage.
“Back in 2014, Kody and I did do a legal divorce, and for me, that whole process was purely for the fact that he could then marry Robyn (Brown) legally and then adopt her three older kids,” she said in the episode. “But our spiritual marriage, our spiritual ceiling was still intact. When we marry, it is for eternity. That’s the intention.”
Calling the process of obtaining a release “heartbreaking,” Meri Brown said it was necessary so she could end the “limbo” she’d been living in since she and Kody Brown decided to permanently end their marriage.
