Christine and Kody Brown also clash over the discussion of the sale of her house.
Kody Brown isn't above playing dirty when it comes to his split from his third wife, Christine Brown. On Sunday's Sister Wives, the at-odds exes begin discussing logistics, including the sale of Christine's house and custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Truely.
"You and I have to actually have a child custody agreement in place or the state takes her, essentially becomes the owner of her," Kody insists to Christine.
Christine seems surprised, replying, "Oh seriously?"
"Yeah, it's stupid," Kody says.
But in an aside interview, Kody admits to fabricating the custody laws in order to get Christine to agree to a formal custody agreement for Truely.
"So I got to this child custody thing, I just started getting creative about it," he says. "I just don't know what to do. Christine's like, 'Why do we need to do this?' And I'm like, 'Because the rulebook says?' I don't know why we need to do this. There is this thing in the man-o-sphere where it says, 'If you're getting divorced, you're going to get screwed, bro.'"
When Christine brings up the fact that they were never legally married, Kody continues to make excuses, saying, "Doesn't matter, in this case we've got an issue where we've got to have a child custody agreement in place, basically just say 50/50 agreement that we just work out the details all the time. Otherwise you're going to get a lawyer and the government involved, state government. The lawyer's going to take all the money you have."
Rather than be upset by Kody's lies, Christine finds it comical. In an aside interview, she says, "Does he not understand I want him to be around his kids? I'm not going to fight him on that. I've always wanted him to be around his kids, so why would I say, 'I don't want you to be around Truely'? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. He just doesn't trust me. That's what this comes down to."
Kody agrees with his ex about his lack of trust in her. He insists on having the custody agreement in Arizona because he doesn't trust the state of Utah. In the end, Christine resigns herself to the fact that she might have to have a legal battle with Kody.
"I would love it not getting a lawyer involved. But if he's already going there and lawyering up, then I'm going to as well," she says in her aside interview with a sigh. "I don't want to though. I'd rather just figure it out amiably. We've got kids. We're not legally married so we don't have to go down that road."
Earlier in the episode, Christine and Kody discuss the aftermath of Truely accidentally discovering that they were divorced and that Christine was planning to move her to Utah.
"I do believe she's being very unfair with me and to me, especially in this conversation with Truely, where she's marginalized me so much and our marriage so much that she's kind of leading Truely into blowing it off," Kody says. "They're blowing me off."
He says he had a conversation with Truely after the bombshell, and she seemed "very OK" with the news.
"Kind of glad that she's not brokenhearted about the divorce," he says. "I wish I could get her to stay. I don't understand, really, and Christine may have told me 10 times, I don't understand why she has to move."
Another sticking point between the exes is the potential sale of Christine's house. She poses the idea of keeping the house for a place for her and Truely to stay in when she returns and renting out a part of it to bring in money. Kody insists that if they sell the house the proceeds should be split between Christine and the rest of the family to put money into Coyote Pass.
"If I'm going to sell my house, I'm going to keep the proceeds from selling my house and put it towards the next house that I purchase," Christine says in her aside interview. "So if I sell, I'm not going to put that money into Coyote Pass. I'm not going to put any more money into Coyote Pass."
Kody insists that "the family" bought the house and it does not solely belong to Christine.
Christine notes that she's been making all of the mortgage payments and that everything is in her name.
"Robyn and I gave her her down payment for her house. Christine couldn't qualify for financing, so I bought that house with her and it was my money that went into the house to buy the house," Kody says. "Yeah, she's been making a mortgage payment and we've all been having to do that, but we all had to come up with the money for the down payment. That money should come back and go into Coyote Pass."
It seems the conversation will be continued in next week's episode as a teaser shows Christine packing up her home and declaring that, "Legally, I get to make all the decisions."
ET spoke with Christine earlier this week about her life in Utah since her split from Kody.
"An enormous weight has been lifted," she told ET of the split. "Watching the episodes is hard, it puts me back to where [it was] more somber, definitely. But living my life every day, day-to-day, I would say it's so much better. I think because I'm so much more grounded. I just like me, and I like my life so much better now."
Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.
For more from the exclusive interview, watch the clip below:
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