Sister Wives’ Meri Brown Shares Bittersweet Memories of Being an ‘It Couple’ with Kody (Exclusive)

The pair were “so connected,” as Janelle Brown put it, that their spark inspired Christine Brown to join the plural marriage — but now decades later, Meri admits “there’s no reason to hope” for her marriage

Meri Brown is reflecting on how far her marriage fell as she looks back at her happy memories with Kody Brown.

In PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek of Sunday’s episode of Sister Wives, Meri reminisces about the early days of her marriage to the Brown family patriarch and the “disappointing” ways they’ve grown apart.

“I know the person that he was when we got married. I know that the couple that we were,” the 52-year-old inn owner says as moments from their 1990 wedding flashes on screen.

As a montage of the ceremony continues to play, her sister wives, Christine and Janelle Brown, recall watching a happy couple from the outside looking in. They share that Kody’s treatment of Meri were big motivating factors in their decision to join their plural marriage.

“I was 18 when I met Kody and Meri, they were so cute and everybody wanted to be around them,” Christine says, looking back at their marriage in a confessional. “They were the ‘it couple.’ He was so charming with her and just sweet with her. That’s why I became interested in Kody was because of how well he treated Meri and I was like, ‘Yeah, sign me up for that.’”

Janelle agrees with Christine’s perspective of Meri and Kody’s marriage, and explains the importance of joining a plural relationship with a strong foundation in her own conversation with cameras.

“When you come into a family as a plural wife, you’re looking to see how the relationships that came before you are faring because you’re not going to come into a relationship if a man can’t manage his family already,” she reveals. “Why would you sign up for that? That’s like, all kinds of danger signs.”

“When I entered the family, Kody and Meri — they were in love, they were attached, they were connected. They did things together. They were always together, they were a couple for sure,” Janelle adds.

Though she and Kody have grown apart, Meri admits that she’s “proud of myself” and the “person that I am.”

“It’s just sad to me that he couldn’t see that there is value to you know, three decades of history,” she says of Kody’s lack of interest in working on their marriage.

The reality star says that her future in the plural marriage remains unclear, and weighs her options with the cameras.

Meri says she could “stick around” and “keep living life in this family,” not as a “wife” but a “member of the family.” On the other hand, she could “completely terminate it” and stay in Flagstaff now that Kody has “made it clear that there’s no point to hope” they reconcile.

“There’s a lack of real interest,” Kody says in a flashback, to which Meri responds. “Not on my part.”

“Screw him. He’s not worth it,” she tells cameras.

Back in January, the former couple addressed their split publicly in a statement via Meri’s Instagram. In it, the bed and breakfast owner noted she had “no animosity toward Kody.”

Meri’s marriage isn’t the only Sister Wives split that’s taken place in recent years. Christine was first to leave the plural marriage in November 2021. Janelle also revealed she’d separated from Kody in 2022 during the One on One conversations. Robyn Brown is the last sister wife to remain in a marriage with Kody.