Sister Wives’ Kody Brown: There’s ‘Tension’ When My Spouses Are Together
Troubled waters. Sister Wives star Kody Brown got real about the difficulties he has faced in his four marriages, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
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“When I see the episodes, it makes me realize that I am not being calm when we’re together,” the reality star, 52, exclusively told Us Weekly on Friday, February 26. “For some reason, there’s this psychic tension with us.”
Brown noted that he used to hold family meetings with wives Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown and Robyn Brown, but the proceedings became “awkward” and “frustrating,” so they stopped having them. Still, the discomfort remains.
“I realized that I need to calm down and I need to invite all of them to calm down,” he said. “But, you know, that’s all retrospective because now I’m watching it and I’m going, ‘Holy cow, why am I so angry? Why am I in this bad place?’ And as we broadcast it to the whole world, you know, I’m like, ‘Ah, gosh, I really have got to calm down.’ It’s more of a situation where I don’t really understand.”
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Kody pointed out the dynamics among his wives are impacted by them being the oldest child or oldest daughter in their families. He, on the other hand, is the fourth child in his parents’ brood. “They’re used to being in charge and being the boss,” he explained. “And I’m in a world where I’m supposed to be in charge, but I feel like the bottom.”
The TV personality then divulged details about the division among his spouses. “I feel like my wives are living four separate lives, but I don’t feel like I’m living four separate lives,” he told Us. “I’m sort of strung out on this relationship conveyor belt. … In fact, it seems like my wives are in four different worlds. They’re all actually at different stages of their life.”
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The coronavirus pandemic only complicated matters further among the group. “I have to sort of have this attitude that you will get your time. And so it’s like, you know, we can survive time apart. The hardest thing has been, everybody has had to choose,” Kody said. “As we get into the pandemic, we end up having to — in the very beginning, we were very weak about it, but we tried to establish some ground rules for exposure to prevent exposure to the virus. And then the most important thing was that we keep from spreading it throughout all the households — you know, spreading it through a whole family.”
After turning to their doctor for advice, the family struggled to see eye to eye on the rules. “Some of us have been more willing to be compliant than others of us,” he revealed. “That’s been the challenge is, if a wife isn’t completely compliant, she has to travel. She’s going to go see her kids. If she’s going to be potentially exposed and then asked to quarantine after a while she’s gone. Well, do you even love me? Well, yeah, I do. But you have to quarantine. I can’t come over because [of] quarantining and you put yourself at risk and that’s not fair for me to put the entire family at risk because you traveled. Yeah, it’s been a real challenge.”
Kody and Meri, in particular, have had issues as of late. She admitted in Us’ exclusive sneak peek of the Sunday, February 28, episode that their marriage was “dead” and “over.” Despite the breakdown of the relationship, Kody told Us earlier this week that it is up to his wives to initiate divorce. “I feel like they need to understand that — that they can leave,” he said. “If it’s not working for them, they can leave. Nobody’s going to be a prisoner here.”
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
