In the TLC show's season finale, Meri finally walks away from her estranged marriage to Kody.
After more than three decades of marriage -- legal and spiritual -- Meri Brown is finally done. On Sunday's episode of Sister Wives, the first wife of Kody Brown finally says her piece while having a discussion with Kody and his only remaining wife, Robyn Brown, out at the family's Coyote Pass property.
Once Kody makes it clear that Meri is not getting an equal share of the land as the rest of the wives, Meri seemingly has had enough and asks if she can "drop a bomb."
She shares that she is not going to re-up her lease in Flagstaff, Arizona, and notes that she plans to spend nearly all of her time in Utah.
"It's all coupled with everything else that's been going on and the statements Kody has made to me this year that I probably won't be renewing my lease here," Meri shares.
Kody previously told Meri that there will never be a chance of a romantic relationship with her again. She claims that he did want to publicly discuss this in an effort to save face.
"Things that you've said to me and about me this year, it changes things," Meri tells Kody.
"Now you're making it about what I said," Kody replies. "Why can't we get on the page where we're making about where we are instead about what I say?"
Kody adds that Robyn has been pressuring him to stay in his marriage to Meri, often against his wishes.
"She's always advised me that I seek healing in this relationship, and she's still doing it in a way against my wishes," Kody says in his confessional interview. "It's like, stop. I have to determine if this is right for me or not. I know you were a part of this and I know you have a covenant inside of this that includes them, but we have to be in a place where I can love her the way she wants to be loved or she is going to move on anyway."
Robyn gets up and walks away crying as Meri and Kody try to work through the conversation together.
"I sit here feeling like it's ridiculous to stay in a duty-bound marriage," Kody says, and Meri replies, "I don't think it's fair to either of us."
Kody goes on to tell his first wife, "The hardest thing is accepting that it's not going to go back to a place that works for what you're looking for."
Meri doesn't appreciate this response and calls out Kody for not "owning" his part in their dissolving marriage.
"I don't like that he's putting all this on me, and he's also not owning that," Meri says in her confessional. "He just doesn't have the interest. He said it to me in private, but he's still not saying it here."
Meri tells her husband, "Doesn't mean I'm not mad at you for not giving me what we promised each other."
Meri adds to Robyn that she's not going to "force" anyone to be in a relationship with her who doesn't want to be.
Kody admits that he's been "performing my duty as a husband," as Meri replies, "I'm not going to be a duty."
In his confessional interview, Kody later says he's willing to "fake being in love with Meri" even though he doesn't want to, but that ultimately, she didn't want to either.
A tearful Robyn says she's been hanging in there for all of them, and Meri tells her to "let go" and says that it's not fair to any of them.
"I know it's not fair for me to be alone like I have been for years," Meri says. "And it's not fair for him to feel like he has to do a duty."
Kody also acknowledges the disappointment Robyn is experiencing at the loss of her plural family.
"Robyn came into our family specifically because she intended to live plural marriage," Kody notes. "This appears to be the end of our plural marriage."
As for where that leaves Meri, Kody says, "It was a negotiation that was long overdue. I mean, it's been maybe a wasted seven years for Meri, I have no idea. But we've agreed now, and I hope she finds peace because I will."
Meri calls out the injustice of Kody's behavior in their marriage, saying earlier in the episode that it had nothing to do with her 2015 catfishing incident.
"I really feel like I was emotionally abandoned by him many, many years ago, well before the catfishing," she says.
The finale ends with a tearful Robyn, once again in her feelings about the loss of her plural family dream of sitting on the porch with her kids and grandkids.
Meri and Kody publicly announced that they had "permanently terminated" their marriage in January 2023. Christine Brown left Kody in 2021, and shortly after Janelle Brown followed suit.
Sister Wives' One-on-One special airs Sunday, Nov. 26 at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.
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