Robyn Brown Reveals 'Sad' Reason Sister Wives Fell Apart, Kody Worries About Their Marriage

In the latest episode, Kody Brown's lone remaining wife, Robyn, shared why she thinks things might have fallen apart when it comes to her former sister wives Christine, Janelle, and Meri.

All three of them left the relationship within a 13-month span from November 2021 to January 2023. Robyn thinks it was fundamental issues breaking down that led to the ultimate collapse of their shared union.

"I felt like when the family was together, there was unfair fighting that was happening," she said on the latest episode of TLC's long-running reality show.

The "unfair" came in how communication had collapsed that it felt more like their arguments became more about scoring points or hurting the other than actually reaching resolution or compromise.

"Hitting below the belt, jumping to conclusions, name-calling, that is a big part of the family falling apart," she said. "There was just so little trust with each other."

Thinking about the way the family seemed to be squaring up against one another, she asked, "If you're sitting there constantly using that scoreboard against each other, what are you? Enemies?"

The big issue, she feels, came down to jealousy. There has been much speculation that the first wives grew jealous of the attention Kody devoted to Robyn, who was the last of the four.

This reached a fever pitch when he opted to legally divorce first wife Meri in 2014 and wed Robyn, so that he could legally adopt her children from before their union.

Meri and Kody had first married in 1990, legally. He would then go on to "spiritually" marry Janelle in 1993 and Christine the following year. Robyn joined the expanded family with a "spiritual" marriage in 2010.

Christine also admitted to letting jealousy rise in the marriage. "Robyn was up on this pedestal and the rest of us were just lacking. I felt like I was lacking in that relationship," she said, noting that she believes Kody, too, was comparing his wives, leading them to compare one another, as well.

Kody's ex said that her own insecurities about how Kody treated Robyn differently -- based on her perception -- from his other wives led to her rising jealousy. She said she felt at the time like everything Robyn had in her home was "better," while she was left with "scraps of time," "scraps of stuff."

Kody denied this notion, though, saying, "When a relationship is united, you don't tend to keep scores much because you've got a cloak of charity to put over this person that you love."

Nevertheless, what followed was the slow decline of what the family believed was a strong, healthy polygamous marriage through their faith, which has left Robyn feeling bad, as none of the Brown children have followed them into their church, a sect of the Mormon church that encourages polygamy.

"I do feel like we failed," she said on the show. "We weren't working on our jealousy as much as we should have been. I feel like everybody was looking out for themselves rather than like, 'OK, how can we build up this group and how can we make a bigger, better, whole?'"

She also said she thinks the family lost sight of their own faith, adding, "We weren't including God enough."

"This is such a complicated, challenging way of life, you have to include God," she continued. "There were a lot of things that I saw that I'm like, 'We're screwing up here.'"

While she may feel like they failed as a polyamorous unit, Robyn does feel that maybe she and Kody are finally starting to figure it out as a monogamous couple, after a rough period following the exits of the other spouses.

Kody, though, admitted that he still struggles with what's left of his family, and struggles with where Robyn's feelings have landed. After all, she came into a large polyamorous relationship with the intention of being the fourth wife, not necessarily the one and only.

"It goes through your mind once in a while, 'Hey, do these divorces devalue me to her? I've been left. Do you still want me the same way?'" Kody admitted. "As they left, they stole some of my confidence and I just, I'm vulnerable and I'm a fool."

But Robyn is feeling like they're finally finding their way. "Kody and I have done a lot of work to make sure our relationship survived all the splits," she said, emphasizing that despite what happened, "The splits didn't make him less valuable to me. That's not how I feel at all."

The issue wasn't that his other wives had left him, she explained, it was how he was behaving toward the one who stayed. "What I struggled with was how he was treating me, and how he was acting," she explained.

The Kody she first fell in love with, though, is starting to come back, now that some time and healing have both happened. "I feel like Kody's coming back out of it," Robyn said. "I'm just proud of us for surviving it."

As for whether or not they might open up their marriage to polygamy again, Robyn was hesitant, saying she'd need a "guarantee" that it would go well and she could have a positive relationship with whoever joins the union.

Kody, though, seemed pretty certain that he was done with that chapter of his life, saying in an episode last December that "polygamy kills emotional intimacy."

"It makes everybody defensive, and I really want an emotionally vulnerable, intimate relationship with a woman," he explained, "and you're not going to get that in polygamy."

New episodes of Sister Wives premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC