Sister Wives: Kody Says Loving Meri ‘Isn’t Safe’ as She Throws Old ‘Knife in the Kidneys’ Dig Back at Him

Meri Brown referenced the famous line Kody used when Christine Brown announced her decision to leave their plural marriage

Meri Brown and Kody Brown. Photo: TLC (2)

Meri Brown invoked a sharp reference while opening up about Kody Brown’s emotional availability and the standards she couldn’t meet in their plural marriage.

On Sunday’s part 2 episode of the Sister Wives: Tell All, Meri revealed she felt her love and “loyalty” wasn’t valued by Kody in their 32-year marriage.

“He said he did, you know, years ago,” she explained to host Sukanya “Suki” Krishnan. “I don’t think what he saw, he valued.”

Meri, 52, claimed she bent over backwards and obliged in all of Kody’s requests in order to save their marriage.

Meri Brown and Kody Brown. Meri Brown/Instagram

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“He would ask me to do things and asked me to be a certain way or asked me to fix the situation or ask me to share some information with him,” she recalled. “All these things to be able to fix a relationship and I did every one of the things that he asked me to.”

Despite her best efforts in exhibiting qualities the Brown family patriarch, 54, claimed he valued most, the inn owner said “it just wasn’t good enough.”

Meri added that Kody wasn’t “emotionally available” to her and watching him give that access to his other wives wasn’t a “dagger to the heart,” but a “knife in my kidneys.” She laughed after making a reference to Kody’s previous explosive confrontation with his third wife Christine Brown when she announced her decision to walk away from their plural marriage.

On the other hand, Kody claimed that he “told her I loved her” and chose to “love her” and “be romantic,” though he was never “head over heels” in love contrary to Meri’s beliefs.

Kody Brown and Meri Brown. Ida Mae Astute/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

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“It was not that experience for me,” he explained. “But I was always a life-affirming person. I would always affirm what I wanted and so I told her and did everything I could to love her. She thinks we were madaout each other and … we played that out.”

“We did have a very romantic experience. We started out that way, but there was a lot of dysfunction that we had,” he added.

While Kody will “always love her,” he said can’t “be in love with her.”

“It’s not safe for me,” he said. “Make up, any b—- you want, but I’m telling you, I’m not gonna sit here and drive the bus over her, because this is sad. It’s heartbreaking. It just didn’t work.”

Meri, Christine, Janelle, Robyn and Kody Brown. Brian Bowen Smith/TLC

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Meri and Kody got married in 1990. The now-exes — who share child Leon Brown — eventually entered into a polygamous arrangement with Janelle Brown before welcoming Christine and Robyn Brown into the plural marriage. Meri later divorced Kody so that he could legally adopt Robyn’s children from her previous marriage.

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Within a span of 14 months, three of the Sister Wives patriarch’s marriages imploded. Christine was the first to leave in November 2021. A year later in December 2022, it was revealed that he had separated from Janelle. A month after that, his union’s end with Meri was confirmed in January after the pair’s relationship had been platonic and distant for years.

Robyn is Kody’s fourth and only remaining wife.