Sister Wives Summary: Christine Says Robyn ‘Plannu’ Meri Divorced Kody

The Brown family revamped the play around Mary Brown‘ legal divorce from Kody Brown on the latest episode of Sister Wives —with Christine Brown claiming that was all Robyn Brown‘ an idea.

“When Robyn first came into the family, she started talking to us about these other families where the first wife divorced the husband so he could legally marry the second wife and adopt the children legally,” claimed Christine, 52, during the Sunday, December. 29, episode of the TLC series.

Christine claimed that she was thinking, “That’s a plant” at the moment, and that Robyn, 46, suggested that she wanted Meri, 53, to do the same for her and her children.

“She mentioned that several times over the years she, like, put that in there because she would have loved for that to happen,” Christine further claimed, noting, “I don’t think Meri is felt like it was planted. I think Meri feels it was her idea.”

Meri Kody, 55, legally married in 1990, become his first wife. The large family expanded their brood in 1993 when Kody married spiritually Janelle Brown. In 1994, Christine entered into spiritual union with the patriarch.

When Robyn started dating Kody in 2010, she already had three children from a previous marriage. Four years later, Meri and Kody legally divorced and he married Robyn a then she adopted her children.

While Christine claimed it was Robyn’s plan all along, she denied the accusations. “The idea that I, like, planted an idea in Meri’s head is a complete lie,” Robyn said in Sunday’s episode. “I never said it.”

He claimed, “I don’t even know anyone who divorced their first wife so the second wife could adopt children. I’ve never heard of that before.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Robyn claimed, “I feel like I’ve been gas lit by some family members,” suggesting that her actions had been misinterpreted.

Janelle, meanwhile, admitted she was wary of Meri divorcing Kody in 2014 because of the dynamics of their family at the time.

“I was speechless when (Meri) told us she was really doing it, because I thought Meri would never do this,” Janelle recalled. “I had already started to see that there was a bit of a preference for Robyn from Kody at that time, and I was worried.”

Robyn, however, insisted that it was never her intention to marry Kody legally, especially after her divorce in the past. She said it was Meri’s idea, and Meri said she initiated the case but she and Kody had discussed it together.

“(Meri) had the idea in her head to offer me the legal marriage so that Kody could adopt my children,” Robyn told viewers, claiming, “I never wanted to be legally married to Kody.”

Robyn claimed that she was “very thankful” that she “wasn’t going to be legally married” to Kody because she went through “so much trauma with my legal divorce in my last marriage.”

He added, “I was very happy and satisfied with my spiritual marriage. I didn’t need anything else.”

Although Meri took the steps to get the ball rolling following the 2014 divorce, she didn’t think it would have such a big impact on her emotional state. her marriage to Kody.

“I question whether he had this plan in mind at that time, (saying), ‘If I can do this, it will be an easy transition,'” Meri told the cameras, claiming that within “six month” of signing the papers, Kody “just stopped coming around.”

She remembered having “a lot of heartache” when she went to the lawyers to sign the papers, because she didn’t feel “emotional support” from the other wives or Kody.

“I had the rational part of me say, ‘No, you still have the spiritual side of marriage.’ It felt emotionally like I was getting rid of, like, the whole marriage,” explained Meri. “It was so hard. And I had to tell myself all the time, ‘No, it’s not. We still have that spiritual marriage.'”

Kody admitted that he wasn’t thinking about breaking the legal ties like a big deal. “In my mind, we were just mixing up legal paperwork,” he said. “Meri and I, after that divorce, left Robyn and went to lunch together. I gave her a special ring and I guess we went home and made love.”

Meri and Kody continued in spiritual union for almost another 10 yearsbut their relationship never bounced back after their legal split. (Meri confirmed her split from Kody in January 2023 after months of speculation. Meanwhile, Christine and Janelle left Kody in 2021 and 2022, respectively.)

Looking back, Meri claimed that their divorce and her decision to buy a bed and breakfast in Utah (where her mother lived until her death) was a way for Kody to distance himself from their marriage.

“I think it’s interesting that I’m here actually living in the house because when I bought the house, that wasn’t the intention,” says Meri in the episode after moving from Arizona to Utah for good. “I know Kody feels that way. I think other family members did too.”

He denied it was his “escape plan”, claiming, “I think the escape plan was that legal divorce. Let’s be real, that was his escape plan.”

Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 pm ET.