TLC fans have always known that Kody Brown loved to control his large polygamous family. Between being the master of the house and making all the final calls, Kody felt pretty good about his standing as head of the household. But now that he is down to one wife, he is humbled almost daily. Meri Brown, his first and latest wife to leave, is finally opening up about what it was like to be married to Kody, and according to her, it wasn’t pretty.
Meri Brown emotionally cheated
In 2015, after years of neglect, Meri found herself in a full-fledged cheating scandal. While living in Las Vegas, she became isolated from her family as Kody showed more favor to his fourth and favorite wife, Robyn Brown. So, the mother of one turned to the internet for some solace. There, she met “Sam,” who, in reality, was a woman disguising herself as a man. Meri shared intimate photos of herself with a banana and details of her private life with the catfish. After months of talking and finally confessing her love, Meri was blackmailed and forced to come clean to the rest of the polygamous family.
Kody was not only furious but also embarrassed. For years, he believed Meri would stand by him no matter how he treated her. But this was the first inkling that Meri could roam from the family, leaving the father of 18 shaken to his core. Eight years after the incident, Kody told TLC cameras, “The experience of Meri’s catfish makes me extremely angry. Cause she’s in full denial of what actually happened.” Even so, Meri tried her best to win back his love but ultimately failed.
Kody Brown wrote a list for Meri Brown
During the most recent episode of Sister Wives, Meri shared that she really tried to put in the work regarding her 33-year marriage with Kody. Sister Wives viewers learned that Kody once considered himself a version of the Mormon St. Nick. It turns out Kody had a Honey-Do list for Meri, and he made sure to check it twice. While talking to her friend, Meri noted, “Kody basically had a list for me to do before we would start working on a relationship.” But as fans have seen, no amount of jumping through hoops has helped Meri win back her husband.
After the scandal, Meri stayed in her marriage for ten years, including no physical contact. She shared that Kody checked out long ago, saying he had once said, “‘Meri, I decided this two years ago.’ I don’t think that was fair to me. You know, if he really was having these feelings that he really, really was done, it would have been cool if he would have just talked to me about it instead of the mixed messages that I kept getting.”
Meri Brown was never going to win
In the stunning admission, Meri added, “He asked me for some specific things. He had this list of things that he wanted me to do in order for us to work on our marriage. And once I completed that list, he was done.” At that moment, Meri finally realized that her husband had run out of excuses. “I had done everything that he asked of me,” noted Meri. In his confessional, Kody claimed he took his time for Robyn’s sake. Kody recounted his fourth wife, stating, “‘It’s not right for you to break this off. She has to do this.’ And I finally went, ‘She’s not going to do this and we’re not safe together.’”
However, Meri ultimately wised up and followed in the footsteps of Christine Brown and Janelle Brown, noting she once thought there was “a way that Kody and I could have figured out our relationship and our marriage.” Still, in the end, Meri knew, “There’s just a lot of things that he says and does that have been really, really confusing to me over the years which, also is why I stayed with him for so long.” Meri is now moving forward with her life and looking forward to a new chapter free of lists.
You can watch Sister Wives on TLC.
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