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Is Sister Wives star Meri Brown crazy for staying with Kody Brown? Or does she have a secret agenda that’s driving her to remain in her dysfunctional plural marriage? Some fans of the TLC show suspect it might be the latter, and that Meri is refusing to leave the relationship as a way to punish her husband for his treatment of her. 

Kody Brown says he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with Meri Brown in a ‘Sister Wives’ teaser 

Meri was Kody’s first wife. And for years, she was his only legal wife. But when Kody divorced Meri to marry Robyn in 2014, it was the beginning of the end. The couple’s relationship was already under strain because of her fertility struggles. The divorce only drove them further apart, even though they remained spiritually married. Then, not long after Kody married Robyn, Meri got caught up in a catfishing scandal. The incident drove a further wedge between the two, who had been together since 1990. 

The distance between Kody and Meri has grown into a chasm. While she insists that she remains committed to her plural marriage, Kody has made it clear he’s over it. With tensions in the Brown family rising following Christine Brown’s decision to leave Kody, he’s letting his true feeling show. 

“I’m exhausted. Who cares. If you’re not with me, you’re against me. F off,” he says in a teaser for the Dec. 11 episode of Sister Wives (via Twitter). “Ironically, Meri is trying to support me and I don’t want to be in a relationship with her anymore.” 

Is Meri from ‘Sister Wives’ deliberately ‘tormenting’ Kody? 

Meri Brown of 'Sister Wives' smirking
Meri Brown of ‘Sister Wives’ | TLC via YouTube

Many Sister Wives viewers can’t understand why Meri refuses to leave Kody

“He doesn’t want her,” one person commented on Instagram. “How many freaking times does he have to say it for it to sink in with her???”

“Meri just go,” another wrote. “Why do you insist on letting a man treat you like you’re less than dirt?”

But a handful of fans suspect Meri may have her own reasons for staying with Kody, revenge chief among them. 

“I think this is Meri’s way of slowly tormenting Kody,” one person theorized. “She stays on purpose to wear him out. She has a plan.”

“I have to agree,” another person agreed. “I think she’s doing it to get back at him for being a jerk.”

In addition to staying to annoy Kody, some thought she also wanted to irritate Robyn. Many Sister Wives fans suspect that Robyn has long been scheming to be Kody’s only wife. 

“I think Meri stays to get under Robyn’s skin,” one person wrote.  

Other viewers wonder if the ‘Sister Wives’ star won’t leave because of her TLC paycheck 

Related

‘Sister Wives’ Star Meri Brown Was Once Fired Because of Her Polygamous Lifestyle

Sister Wives viewers have another theory about why Meri is sticking in what appears to be a loveless plural marriage: money. 

“Is there a possibility that she sticks around because she still wants to be on the show and receive a paycheck?” one person wondered. 

Another agreed, commenting that they believed “Meri is staying because of the income and nothing else.”

Some suspected that Meri had checked out of her relationship with Kody a long time ago and was only around when the family’s TLC show was filming. 

“Meri is the smart one,” the person wrote. “She is there for the show but in her real life she does whatever she wants and [goes] whatever she wants.” 

New episodes of Sister Wives Season 17 air Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.

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