Over the past few weeks on Sister Wives, viewers have witnessed the demise of Kody’s marriages to both Christine and Janelle.
The former left her spiritual spouse in November 2021, while the latter only just confirmed she had separated from Kody.
On the first part of the Season 17 tell-all special, however, which aired on Sunday night, we were shocked to see Kody touch on a different relationship… one we thought ended well over a decade ago.
Yes, we’re talking about his so-called romance with Meri.
For the first time in ages, Kody talked about Meri in a positive light on this special; even revealing that he considered getting back together with his first wife at one, semi-recent point.
“I was trying to reconcile with Meri,” he told host Sukanya Krishnan.
“And Meri gave me this really cool birthday present and I’m in this place expressing to Janelle, Christine, and Robyn that I might reconcile with Meri.”
Wow, huh?
Last we had heard, Kody was once again emphasizing his lack of interest in Meri.
A couple years ago, though, a bunch of Rice Krispies treats nearly changed everything.
“She put a bag full of them, one for every year of our marriage,” Kody described of the gesture, adding on air:
“She even included the bad years the ones where I was like we’re basically not really married and the expression was sweet and the mood that I was in was the right mood to try and think about reconciliation.”
Previously, Kody BLASTED Meri for having an affair (in his view) when she tried to date someone in 2015 (only to get catfished).
“I was no longer angry with her for what I had gone through in my life with her,” the father of 18 continued.
“I was willing to see the error of my ways and then work to determine whether we were good with each other anymore.”
Yes, this was all due to some baked good apparently.
Meri, for her part, said she had no idea the gift left a mark on her estranged spouse.
“That’s interesting that he felt like that. Because that is also the same day that we went out on a picnic and he was saying, ‘No, you’re supposed to have been courting me,’” she said to Krishnan.
“I said, ‘Kody, I’ve been waiting for you’ and he’s like, ‘I’m not coming.’”
The Bed and Breakfast owner — who legally married Kody in April 1990 and then split with him two decades later so he could marry Robyn instead — revealed that during their 2020 anniversary date, she made a move to try and reconnect.
And it failed. Miserably.
“After I turned off my camera, I put my arms around him. Up around his neck and I said, ‘What would you do if I just kissed you right now?’” she told Krishnan.
“He was physically [straight like] a board. And he was backing up. He’s like, ‘I can’t do that.’
Kody, meanwhile, alleged on part one of this special that Christine “lost her sh-t” when she heard about the Meri reconciliation, blaming her for things not working out.
On air, Meri had no idea how to react to this revelation.
“It makes me feel good that he was considering it, but it didn’t last through the evening, I guess,” she shrugged and said.
Elsewhere in the episode, Meri confirmed that she and Kody had called it quits.
“This last anniversary, he’s like, ‘I don’t even know why you called me, Meri.’ He’s like, ‘We’re not married. We’re not acting as married,’” the reality star claimed on the tell-all.
“And I said to him then, ‘If that’s where we are, don’t you think we should address that publicly?’”
Kody replied that he didn’t want the “judgment” of going public with this split, which is ironic now that TWO other splits have been made public.
“He’s already made the decision,” Meri concluded of where things stand at the moment. “I would [think about reconciliation]. I don’t think that he’s interested.”
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