As Sister Wives returns for a new season, it’s clear things are more strained than ever between Kody, his exes and his many, many children — as he accuses the women of trashing him to his kids as they move on without him.
Sister Wives returned for its 12th season on Sunday night, giving fans a not-so-pleasant update on where Kody Brown stands with wife Robyn, exes Meri, Christine and Janelle, and all of his children.
And, considering it seems the episode was filmed extremely close to the end of last season — which saw Kody, Meri and Janelle all go their separate ways — there wasn’t much time for the situation to improve.
Setting the scene, Kody explained that, at the time of filming, “Christine and I just don’t talk. Janelle and I have been separated. Meri, do we say we’re divorced? I don’t think so. But we’re not in a marriage and I don’t want to be in a marriage.” All that left him asking, “Who am I without my family?”
Here’s where he stands with his family now.
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Kody & Christine
During the hour, Christine held a baby “sprinkle” for daughter Mykelti, who was pregnant with twins. While Janelle was invited, she didn’t make it; Meri, meanwhile, was not invited.
“I will do anything for Mykelti and Mykelti wants Kody and Robyn at her sprinkle,” Christine said, adding she was “nervous” about seeing them. “It’s the first time I’ll be seeing them after I left … Kody was furious the last time he spoke to me and we haven’t talked since.”
Kody admits he and Robyn are “terribly nervous” to see Christine. “There’s so much animosity,” he added — admitting his feelings are “childish” — before saying, “I’m just nervous because our divorce hasn’t been really amicable. It’s been sad, and we just hope that the environment is warm and friendly.”
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When Kody and Robyn got to the party, they were greeted warmly by Christine’s daughters Mykelti and Aspyn, as Christine was heard in a confessional saying she wants all her kids to “have a great relationship” with both their father and Robyn.
Christine, however, kept her distance from both of them — saying that giving them a warm greeting “would be disingenuous and that would mean I was going to be friends and friendly and I’m not. I’m not gonna be friendly.”
“I can’t speak for Kody and Christine, but I kept my distance and did not greet Christine because she told me she didn’t want a relationship and I don’t want to push myself on her,” added Robyn. “I want to have any relationship that I can have, but it takes 2.”
The three weren’t seen talking to each other at all, and spent most of the party at separate tables.
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“I don’t want to talk to her, I don’t want to see her. The divorce has put me in, I’ll be honest, a pretty dark place,” Kody said of Christine. “I’ve spent a lot of time hearing Christine and Janelle berate me in ways that have challenged my resolve for sort of love of myself.”
“For years they were singing my praises, and now they’re sort of loathing me,” he continued. “If they’re trashing me to the public, I can’t imagine what they’re saying to my children, so it makes me very uncomfortable.”
Christine denied that accusation, however, saying she hasn’t “pitted” the kids against him and will do “everything that I can to have them have a good relationship with him.”
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Kody & Janelle
Janelle made it very clear she and Kody were “not back together” — something she was more than okay with.
“I’m actually finding a lot of peace over this new life,” she said, admitting she was mourning “the loss of this ideal we were striving for” as a big happy polygamist family.
“The big spark for me was when his relationship broke down with my children and he didn’t seem like he would move heaven and earth to fix it,” she added of why things really fell apart. “And I thought, ‘OK, that was what was really holding me here.'”
Despite things being rough between her, Kody, Robyn and Meri, Janelle has maintained her friendship with Christine.
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Kody & Meri
Meri explained it had only been “about a week” since she and Kody filmed their big “official breakup conversation” — something she said she saw coming “for a long time.”
“For the past nearly decade, he has pulled himself away from me,” she said, saying that while they still have “that spiritual marriage intact,” that’s something she’s “moving forward with having terminated.”
“But that’s going to take some time,” she added. “Like, why in the world would I want to be tied to somebody eternally who doesn’t want me?”
She then spent the rest of the episode venting to a friend about how the marriage fell apart, repeating most of her talking points about last season — accusing Kody of stringing her along and pushing back at his insinuations that he never truly loved her.
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Kody & Robyn
While they’re still together, things aren’t too peachy for Kody and Robyn either.
During the episode, Kody admitted he and Robyn are “kind of in a struggling place,” while she said they’re “probably doing the worst we’ve ever done in our marriage.”
“He doesn’t know who to blame, himself or one of the other wives. Kody’s feeling a lot of rejection,” she later explained. “And so, I think he’s kind of looking at me like, ‘are you going to reject me too?’ I’m having to consistently make sure that he is not sabotaging our relationship.”
She also continues to keep hope alive that “there could be some healing this year” between Kody and at least some of his exes. “You and Janelle, you could still get this figured out … you just have to keep trying,” she told him.
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Kody & His Kids
When it comes to his children, there’s certainly a lot of room for improvement.
Saying he wasn’t sure where he fits in anymore, Kody exclaimed that he felt “f–king excommunicated from my own family.” He added, “I have this marriage and these kids with Robyn, and then I have some relationship with some of the other kids and it’s infrequent. And so I’m like, ‘what do I do with all of this?’ It doesn’t feel like a family.”
Christine later explained that not all the kids “have a great relationship with Kody,” while Janelle said her daughter Maddie hasn’t spoken with him in a long time.
“I know that Maddie has not had any conversations with her dad. He’s not called, she’s not called him, and she doesn’t have any relationship with Robyn,” she shared. “She’s pretty much written them both off. She doesn’t really want him to have any contact unless he can commit to it like a consistent presence.”
When asked by a producer about Maddie, Kody shut down the conversation — saying, “I won’t talk about her. Nope.”
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“I don’t understand why Kody’s not reaching out to Madison or some of the other kids,” Robyn said in her own confessional. “I know he’s in a very angry and hurt place, but he should just be putting in the effort. But I think the kids should be doing the same thing, too.”
One of his kids also addressed the family’s strained relationship in a confessional of her own.
“I think the current state of my family is honestly heartbreaking,” said Mykelti. “I mean, you look back 14 years ago when Robyn first joined the family and we were all this like beautiful, united together against all odds vibe. It was really amazing. And then just life has gone on and it kind of started to disjoint. It’s really sad. It’s honestly really sad.”
Sister Wives airs Sundays on TLC.
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