Sister Wives’ Kody and Meri Brown’s Relationship Timeline Leading to Split: Their Ups and Downs

Ups and downs. Sister Wives star Kody Brown and his first wife, Meri Brown, have been through it all in their 32 years of marriage before their split. The couple hit several rough patches over the years, and things came to a head when they confirmed their breakup in December 2022.

Meri was raised in a polygamous family while growing up in Utah throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Meri became friends with Kody’s sister, who introduced them in October 1989. Just two months later, Kody proposed to Meri and they wed in April 1990. At the time, Meri was 19 years old and Kody was 22 years old.

Since Meri was raised in a plural family, she was open to living the lifestyle in her own marriage to Kody. During a 2010 interview shortly after Sister Wives premiered on TLC, Meri revealed how she felt about welcoming sister wives into her union with Kody.

“When we were talking about marriage and stuff, at that point, [Kody] and I both knew that eventually, we would take another wife or wives into the family,” she said at the time.

In January 1993, Kody wed his second wife, Janelle Brown. He then got married to his third wife, Christine Brown, in March 1994. In December 2014, Kody wed his fourth and final wife, Robyn Brown.

Since polygamy is illegal in the United States, Kody was initially legally and spiritually married to Meri and got spiritually married to Janelle and Christine. However, he legally divorced Meri, while staying spiritually married, in order to legally marry Robyn so he could adopt her children from a previous relationship.

At the time, Kody insisted that his divorce from Meri was only so they could “legally restructure” their family. He assured the Brown family that his and Meri’s union would remain unchanged. Unfortunately, Meri struggled with changes in their dynamic and their relationship hit a low point. She even found herself caught in a catfishing scandal after forming a bond with someone online.

In March 2015, Meri struck up an online affair with a man named Sam Cooper, a business tycoon who was in his 40s. After six months of communication, Meri learned that Sam was not a real person and instead, she had been talking to a woman named Jackie Overton.

During a season 7 episode of Sister Wives, Kody insisted that he did not believe that Meri’s relationship with Sam/Jackie counted as an “emotional affair,” but the couple continued to struggle with their marital issues.

Meri wasn’t Kody’s only rocky relationship. Christine announced their split in November 2021 after 27 years of marriage. Nearly one year later, In Touch broke the news that Janelle was leaving her husband after three decades together.

Keep scrolling below to look back at Kody and Meri’s relationship timeline leading to their split.