The beginning of the end. Christine Brown threatened to leave her marriage to Kody Brown during the Sunday, January 23, episode of Sister Wives.
Tension within the duo’s relationship came to a head on the TLC series as Christine, 49, told cameras that Kody, 52, said he was “not interested” in being “intimate” with her if she didn’t start behaving like a “good sister wife.” Along with Christine, the father of 18 is legally married to Robyn Brown and has spiritual unions with Meri Brown and Janelle Brown.
“It’s over. The intimate part of our marriage is over,” Christine said on Sunday’s episode. “And to be honest, I’m not OK with that. I’m not OK with staying in a marriage where there’s no intimacy. That’s not a real marriage. I’m not interested in a half marriage or a partial marriage or whatever we have.”
The Becoming Sister Wives coauthor said her heart was “shattered” after Kody’s comments, claiming he’d even gone so far as to say he wasn’t “attracted” to her anymore.
The Wyoming native, for his part, noted during a confessional that Christine dropped “a bomb” on him as she decided to pack up his belongings.
“She said, ‘I don’t want you to stay in my room anymore,'” Kody told the cameras. “She’s like, ‘My room is a special place to me and nothing special happens there for us.’ I’m like, ‘OK. I know a lot of people have marriages that are like this — romance-free marriage.’ She says, ‘[That’s] not for me. So I don’t want you in my room. Go ahead and go on out. You can come visit the kids, but don’t plan on staying in my room.'”
Following his conversation with his wife, Kody revealed that he wasn’t certain about their future and claimed that she “murdered our intimacy with betrayal” by threatening to leave their polygamous family. While Kody wondered whether Christine was simply going through “a phase,” she was determined to get out.
“I don’t want to stay in Flagstaff anymore and I want to go,” she explained. “I got to thinking about what it would look like if he came back to pack up all of his stuff. So that would mean that every time he’s over at my house, what, he’s going to be packing and not spending time with the girls? So I just decided to pack up his stuff and I put it all in the garage. … I don’t know what to tell my kids.”
Christine and Kody share six children: Aspyn, 26, Mykelti, 25, Paedon, 23, Gwendolyn, 20, Ysabel, 19, and Truely, 11. In November 2021, the pair announced they were going their separate ways after more than two decades together. At the time, an insider exclusively told Us Weekly that the reality stars were “not on good terms” as they navigated their split.
“It’s a new chapter for her and she’s excited to see what the future holds,” the source revealed, noting that Christine will “never go back” to the way things were.
Throughout season 16 of the Brown family’s show, Christine and Kody’s marital woes have been front and center. The departure of one of his wives has the businessman rethinking his relationships, according to a second source.
“He is not happy with the other wives threatening to leave,” the insider told Us earlier this month. “He’s considering starting fresh with new wives.”
As he was “moved out” of Christine’s home on Sunday’s episode, Kody told the cameras that he felt “frustrated” by her actions. Christine, for her part, got emotional while reflecting on what has changed over the past 25 years.
“What did I do so wrong? I always wanted [a] romantic marriage and it’s been so hard for so long,” she wondered. “I feel like I don’t have a choice but to throw his stuff out because I can’t — it’s too heartbreaking to be around his stuff and it’s too heartbreaking to be around him and watch him with Robyn and Janelle and the kids.”
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
