After splitting from Kody Brown, Meri Brown is ready to move on with her life.
In Sunday night’s episode of Sister Wives, the 53-year-old opened up about requesting a marriage release from their church to undo her and Kody’s “covenant.”
Unlike a typical legal divorce, because Meri and Kody were spiritually married at the time of their split, their union can only be undone by requesting a release from their church leaders.
Meri decided to terminate their covenant after years of holding onto hope that she and Kody would eventually reconcile.
But once she came to her senses and realized that Kody wanted nothing to do with her, she began the process of officially dissolving their marriage so they wouldn’t be “sealed for eternity.”
As Meri confessed, Kody was “resistant” to the idea because he didn’t want to acknowledge the authority of the church leaders, as he no longer abides by the faith.
Kody Brown ‘needs’ Meri to ‘go away’
As Kody put it, “I don’t want to be accountable to this church and all their BS.”
Therefore, Kody agreed to “let Meri go” and pursue the marriage release.
“I needed her just to go away because it just took forever for her to finally realize it’s been done and over for years,” Kody confessed.
As Kody explained, he didn’t know who Meri was when they got married. At the time, in 1990, Meri was just 19, and Kody was 21.
Without going into detail, Kody said, “She was very different, and I think just there’s some baggage that Meri had that I didn’t know about initially.”
Kody says Janelle joining the marriage caused things to get ‘worse’ between him and Meri
Kody accused Meri of constantly being angry with him throughout their 33-year marriage and said that as time went on, things got “worse, and worse, and worse.”
According to Kody, after he and Meri legally wed in 1990 and Janelle joined the marriage three years later, it “diluted” his experience with his first wife.
Meri and Janelle did not get along from the start, but when Christine joined the family a year after Janelle, Kody said that his third wife “diluted” the relationship between his first and second wives.
In fact, Kody said that Christine entering their plural marriage “saved” Janelle and Meri’s sister wife relationship.
He says Meri initiating a divorce from Kody had nothing to do with his not wanting to leave their marriage.
The father of 18 explained that in their church if a polygamous husband wants to stay faithful and remain in the religion, he cannot request a divorce.
Kody claims it was up to Meri to end their marriage
“It’s not allowed,” Kody revealed. “So I was not able to get out of that relationship.”
However, Kody claimed that he didn’t necessarily want out of his and Meri’s marriage.
Kody told TLC’s cameras that he hoped he and Meri could save their marriage.
But Kody began to feel as though his dreams of reconciling were all for naught because every time he was with Meri, she wasn’t “fun, kind, or interesting.”
“I’m trying to be curious with her, and I’m bored,” Kody admitted. “And so, I guess, to be fair, Meri feels abandoned. But I didn’t kick me out.”
Season 19 of Sister Wives airs on Sundays at 10/9c on TLC.