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"I think the meanest thing that I did was I said I didn't love you. That wasn't true. That was a lie from the perspective of pain," Kody began telling Janelle.
Kody Brown is taking ownership, but is it too little too late?
During the December 7 episode of TLC's Sister Wives, Kody began his self proclaimed "three-part apology tour."
"I feel like we've needed an olive branch -- the entire family," the dad of 18 admitted on the series.
To kick off the tour, he flew to North Carolina to meet with second wife Janelle Brown, because she received , per Kody, "the high honor" of "being the person I felt the safest with to start offering that olive branch."
"I've been a bastard for about three years about this whole breakup, four years," Kody admitted to Janelle. "I think the meanest thing that I did was I said I didn't love you. That wasn't true. That was a lie from the perspective of pain."
He continued: "I wish I would have seen the need for you and I to protect our special place. If I would have understood that, I think it would have been a lot safer for you. I feel like I put you in harm's way and then didn't step up to protect you."
The pair admitted how difficult it was to have a relationship in a plural marriage.
"There were things that happened, especially that first year or two that I kind of wish he would have stood up for me as much as he maybe, by default, sort of took the other position," Janelle explained.
She added that there was "a lot of jealousy and insecurity and stuff that we were working through and it just was not good."
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The 56-year-old went on to apologize to Janelle "for just being so angry and so bitter over the family breakup."
Feeling at odds with his three former brides Janelle, Meri Brown and Christine Brown and most of their combined 13 children, Kody vowed to go on an "Apology Tour" with his ex-wives, which will play out over the next three episodes, airing Sundays on TLC.
"I'm in a space now with this apology where I'm not looking back at my past and going, 'I want to burn that to the ground,'" he shared of his intended result from the tour. "Instead, I'm looking back in my past like, 'That was really cool. We were part of something special.'"
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