Sister Wives’ Kody Brown Talks ‘Terrible Relationships,’ Blames Exes for Him Not Loving Them Anymore

During Sunday’s all-new Sister Wives, Kody admitted he was “terrible” in his past relationships, “but wasn’t willing to discard them.”

And he didn’t want to either, noting in a confessional Sunday that he had what he called “f–k and fight” style relationships with his first three wives — Meri, Janelle and Christine Brown.

“[I] didn’t even know I was in terrible relationships,” Kody confessed. “You don’t know you’re in a bad relationship.”

“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 the [butting heads],” he added, seemingly referring to fourth wife Robyn Brown as his “normal relationship.”

Kody went on to explain, “Some people call it F&F. And the second word is fight. Or F&F and the first word is fight. That doesn’t create intimacy, that just creates orgasms.”

“Don’t blame me for not loving you. I was doing my duty,” he said in another confessional of what happened as his relationships with his first three wives waned. “Blame yourself if I don’t love you, okay?”

“When I’m in love with a woman, that’s her fault,” he added. “So what happens when I’m not in love with a woman? Is that just my fault? If I’m mad about a woman, want to serve her, passionate, want to rub her feet, want to carry in her groceries, if I want to buy her jewelry, if I want her to feel special all the time, if I’m in love with a woman, I think that’s her fault.”

While Kody seemingly pointed to his failed marriages with this all three of his original wives as becoming unhealthy, he explained that his relationship with Meri was the worst.

“This marriage was on the rocks the entire marriage,” he said of Meri, whom he wed in 1990. “And how would I know that? Because I had such a better relationship with Janelle, with Christine, with Robyn, and Janelle and Christine didn’t survive.”

He added that he “should have gotten out of the relationship 25 years ago” instead of sticking it out for 30-plus years.

Kody’s relationship with Meri was the last to officially come to an end, despite the pair having trouble for years.

They did legally divorce in 2014, however, so Kody could marry Robyn, 46, and adopt her three children from a prior marriage.

Kody and Meri remained spiritually married for nearly another decade before she confirmed in January 2023 that they were done. His spiritual marriages with Christine and Janelle ended in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

“My choice was always to stay. Had I wanted to leave sooner, I would have left sooner,” Meri told Kody on Sunday’s episode, noting she took the steps to “terminate” their union with their church.

While Kody was fine with moving on from his relationship with Meri, he didn’t like how the church categorized their split.

“They said they’d give Meri a release, a divorce on account of abandonment, and I just don’t believe that that’s true at all. She was never abandoned,” he said in a confessional.

Meri, meanwhile, was steadfast in her belief that Kody “knew what was happening” throughout the process and could have come with her to the church elders.

“I know that they use the words abandonment, and he really didn’t like that. Most people don’t like what is truth,” Meri quipped.

Still, despite it all, Kody revealed that he was hopeful his relationship and friendship with Meri wouldn’t end after their breakup.

“I don’t want any more enemies, and I don’t want another loss,” Kody told the cameras. “I just hope that in the future, Meri will call me when she’s got something fun to share.”

“I’m embarrassed that my other divorces have created contempt and contemptuous enemies,” he added, referencing his splits from Christine and Janelle.

Elsewhere in the episode, Christine discussed her new relationship with now-husband, David Woolley.

The former polygamist broached the subject of David to her six children and their spouses, who said he reminded them of Kody.

“He reminds me of Kody,” Christine’s daughter Mykelti’s husband, Tony, said Sunday.

“Oh god!,” Christine, who was the first of Kody’s wives to officially leave him, replied.

“He’s from the same generation for sure,” Tony said of David. “All this Boomer stuff that I have no idea what he’s saying.”

Noting the eight year age gap between herself and her future husband, Christine said that she is decidedly not a Boomer, though technically David is.

Kody, meanwhile, gushed about being a member of Gen X, later in a confessional.

“Gen X, we’re the feral generation,” Kody shared. “What a great time to be alive! You’re a teenager in the ’80s, you’ve got music videos, you’ve got fashion, so many things happening. Duran Duran happened in the ’80s!”

While Christine’s kids want what’s best for her and even had a few nice things to say about David, too, not everyone was immediately on board when it came to the new couple’s whirlwind relationship.

“As happy as I am for her, I think there is a strangeness in it just because I’ve only known her as married to my dad,” Christine and Kody’s daughter Ysabel Brown said in a confessional. “She’s only been divorced for a little bit, and so it’s a little strange.”

To her mom, Ysabel added, “I do, however, think you are moving so, so fast.”

Christine agreed with her daughter’s take, however, she didn’t express any interest in slowing things down with David.

“I knew after our first date that this was something that I really wanted to invest in,” she shared. “My kids, it’s gonna be too soon for them. It’s important for me to know how my kids feel about David, but how they feel is not gonna end my relationship with David.”

One person surprisingly on board with Christine’s blossoming love life is Kody, who said in his confessional, “If Christine is wanting to date, she should have been dating, in my mind, whenever she felt she was divorced.”

Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.