On Sunday night’s episode of TLC’s show “Sister Wives,” Kody Brown admitted that his marriage to his first wife Meri has not been the same since she was involved in a catfishing scandal.
“Sister Wives” chronicles the lives of Kody and his four wives as well as their combined 18 children.
Here’s the trailer for the current season:
Meri’s Catfishing Scandal
People Magazine reported that Meri had been involved in a catfishing scandal in 2015. She entered into a relationship online with whom she thought was a man, but the person turned out to be a woman.
Catfishing is when someone creates a fake profile on social media as an alternative identity. It’s used to befriend someone, for romantic reasons, and even for financial gain.
Kody and Meri tried to get therapy in the wake of this, but he later admitted that he had no desire to be intimate with her again.
“About five years ago, Meri and I were in a bad place,” he explained in last night’s episode. “She basically asked me to stop staying at her house and ultimately what happened is she went through an experience where she was catfished by a person pretending to be somebody else.”
Kody went on to explain that Meri’s online relationship “turned out to be extremely exploitative and abusive. And from that experience, Meri and I sort of saw our marriage just dissolve.”
Related: ‘Sister Wives’ Daughter Shares Photo That Could Shake Up Entire Show!
Meri Discusses Catfishing Situation
As for Meri, she said that Kody was “more distant than I wanted him to be” at the time of the scandal.
“At night, I just wanted him to put his arm around me,” she said. “And I couldn’t sleep because of this outside situation. And I did not manage the situation well. I said to him, ‘Can you just not stay here for a while? Can we just take a break for a minute?’ He took it as, ‘Go away and don’t ever come back,’ because that’s what he’s done. And that’s not what I meant.”
“I was just like, ‘Can we just take a break so I can get through some stuff?’” Meri added. “And for him to say, ‘That didn’t work out very well for you last time,’ I’m feeling like, ‘OK, you’re right, it didn’t work out at all.’ But that’s not what I was saying.’ We’ve never come back together from that.”
Kody effectively agreed with her. “The catfish situation and basically the year before it, whatever happened, it just got flippin’ ugly,” he said. “And even a year into living in Flagstaff, [Arizona], I was still dealing with a lot of bitterness about our past. In the past few months, I’ve been able to really let that go for myself. And I feel more friendly with Meri than I have felt in six or more years.””
This does not mean that Kody wants to be intimate with her again, however.
“It doesn’t mean I’ve got any romantic inclinations within our marriage,” he said.
Related: Jill Dugger Reveals The Real Reason She Hasn’t Been To Her Parents’ House In Years
Kody’s History With His Wives
Fox News reported that Kody married Meri in 1990 and his second wife Janelle three years later. His third wife Christine was brought into the picture in 1994, followed by his fourth wife Robyn in 2014.
Though he considers himself “spiritually” married to all four, he only was legally married Meri. However, Meri agreed to divorce him in 2014 so that he could legally marry Robyn.
Kody said two years ago that he and his wives don’t see themselves ever bringing in a fifth wife.
“We really took the fifth wife thing off the table a long time ago,” Kody said. “And because we don’t want to snub the concept, we’ve always sort of been very casually dismissing it, and I think that’s one reason the question keeps coming up. But it’s technically been off the table as long as we’ve done the show.”
Whether or not you approve of what the Browns are doing with their lives, it can’t be denied that they certainly aren’t boring!
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