Kody’s ‘Resistant’ to Meri’s Divorce Request Through Church

Meri and Kody Brown have differing opinions on how to best navigate their separation.

During the Sunday, Sept. 22 episode of Sister Wives, Kody shared a big update in the aftermath of his breakup with Meri.

“About eight weeks ago, Meri told me that she was going to go to Utah, meet with our church leaders and basically request a divorce,” Kody, 55, told the cameras. “It’s called a release in our church.”

Because all four of Kody’s wives wed him through their church” (a.k.a. the Apostolic United Brethren) and created what they called a “covenant,” Meri said she believes “it’s best to terminate that because we’re not moving forward with any marriage.”

“I don’t want to be, like, sealed to him for eternity if he doesn’t want me,” Meri, 53, continued. “I’m at a place that like, let’s just separate this completely.”

Meri then noted in her confessional that when she was “asking Kody how he felt about moving forward with the release, he was kind of resistant to it.” The businesswoman added that her ex-husband “didn’t want to acknowledge the authority of the church leaders.”

However, from Kody’s perspective, “the damage was done so badly that we’re not going to reconcile no matter what.”

“However we are made accountable to God, I don’t want to be accountable to this church and all their BS,” Kody added. “So I’m going to let Meri go and do her thing because if I’m angry at her, it becomes a fight. I needed her just to go away because it just took forever for her to finally realize it’s been done and over for years.”

Aware that she has “been living in limbo in this relationship for nearly a decade,” Meri is “just not going to keep doing that.”

“I’m moving forward with this,” she concluded.

Meri and Kody had been together for over 32 years before confirming their separation publicly in January 2023. She went on to have a brief relationship with Amos Andrews.

Before Meri and Kody called it quits, Kody’s fellow wives Christine Brown and Janelle Brown chose to leave him within a year of each other. Now, Robyn Brown is Kody’s only remaining wife.

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Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.