In an exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming episode of Sister Wives, Meri Brown detailed the moment she says Kody Brown told her he wasn’t interested in being married to her anymore.
When Meri and Kody Brown tied the knot in 1990, she thought nothing could unravel their marriage.
“In our religious background and when he and I got married, we married with the intention of forever,” the Sister Wives star explained in a sneak peek for the Oct. 29 episode shared exclusively with E! News. Their bond, as she put it in the confessional, “literally was an eternal covenant.”
But as viewers learned over these past few seasons, their love wasn’t so timeless.
Recalling the moment she knew their marriage was over, Meri said Kody told her, “‘Well, I’m just not interested. You can stick around if you want.'”
Needless to say, that proposal didn’t sit well with her. “‘Why would I want to do that eternally?'” the 52-year-old wondered. “Be with somebody who really just has changed his mind about me.”
Meri said Kody also told her she could stay and visit him, his remaining wife Robyn Brown and their five kids. And while she said she feels like she’s “always had a pretty good relationship with Robyn” and loves her children—adding she had “every intention to still keep a good relationship” with Dayton, 23, Aurora, 21, Breanna 18, Solomon, 12, and Ariella, 7, if Robyn and Kody allowed—she knew she had to move on.
So, Meri suggested that she and Kody be upfront with fans about where they stood.
“I said to him, because our life is public, why don’t we just be real open and honest about this? That we should discuss this and that we should really be open about our story with this?” she added. “And he said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’ He said, ‘I just have so much criticism I don’t want to be open and vocal about it. Let’s just keep this between us.'”
But the TLC celeb suggested she didn’t want to cover up what was happening.
“I’m not gonna go the rest of my life hiding the fact that this is the way our relationship is and hiding the fact that you said to me you don’t wanna ever have a relationship with me,” she added. “This is my story too, and I have the right to tell my story.”
The following month, Meri and Kody—who divorced in 2014 so he could legally wed Robyn and adopt her kids from a previous relationship, but still considered themselves spiritually married—announced their decision to “permanently terminate” their union.