‘Sister Wives’: Why did Meri and Kody Brown divorce?

Season 18 of Sister Wives ended with Kody Brown’s third and (for now) final divorce, with Meri Brown, his first-ever wife of over thirty years, deciding to end their marriage for good. While the couple formally announced their separation in January of 2023, the series finale has shown viewers how their marriage eventually broke down.

Technically speaking, Kody and Meri brown legally divorced back in 2010, but they remained very much a married couple. Due to bigamy laws, Kody was only ever permitted to legally marry one of his wives in his polygamist family, while the rest remained “spiritual” unions. After beginning a relationship with his eventual fourth wife, Robyn Brown, Kody requested a divorce from Meri, in order to legally marry and then adopt Robyn’s children from her previous relationship.

While the divorce request caused significant strain to their relationship, they stayed together as a now-only-spiritually married couple. What an average, monogamous couple would consider a divorce wouldn’t befall Meri and Kody until thirteen years later.

So, why did Meri and Kody Brown end their (non-legal) marriage?

After a series of off-camera conversations, Meri revealed in a confessional that she and Kody realized their marriage “was not going to move forward.” While Kody apparently maintained that he did not want their split to become public knowledge, Meri decided that such a huge life change needed to be shared.

Meri revealed the split in an on-camera conversation with Kody’s last remaining wife, Robyn, by announcing she intended to move back from Arizona to their original home state of Utah. Meri’s mother, Bonnie, had died around a year prior, and the reality star revealed she felt “very drawn” to relocating to her home state of Utah, and reconnecting to her roots.

Meri also told Robyn about “an empty feeling” from her grief, along with “statements that Kody has made to me” over a very turbulent year and a half for the household. Kody’s then-most recent ex-wife, Janelle, said in a previous episode that Kody had changed his attitude significantly in the past few years, and started trying to create a “patriarchy” in their household that didn’t exist before. Janelle had also called him out for gaslighting her during their arguments, which could be the sort of abusive off-camera behavior that that Meri was referring to.

Kody stated in a confessional that he is willing to “fake” his love for Meri, to which Meri responded that he hadn’t done so in the last decade, referring to their post-divorce stage of marriage, and furthermore, understandably, she doesn’t want him to “fake” a love for her.

When the Meri and Robyn talked to Kody about Meri’s big move ahead of their formal separation, Meri said it was “not fair for me to be alone like I have for years, and it’s not fair for [Kody] to feel like he has a duty” to continue an irreparable relationship with fake affection. When Kody and Robyn mournfully reply it’s not what they wanted to happen, Meri responded that “it’s not what I wanted to happen, either.”

Can you blame her?