Spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen this week’s episode of Sister Wives, proceed with caution.
After weeks of tension, Janelle Brown and Kody Brown finally came face-to-face for the first time since their explosive fight over the holidays on Sunday’s episode of Sister Wives.
The pair met up at what appears to be the only restaurant in Flagstaff, Arizona, to discuss their estranged marriage after Janelle told Kody to get his things and move out.
Janelle explains that in past marriage troubles, they’ve just sort of smoothed things over and ignored issues, but says she can’t do that this time.
“I have realized this time it’s just not working for me anymore. I really want to be treated differently and I want some more things out of a relationship,” Janelle declares.
But despite their nearly 30 years of marriage, Janelle doesn’t know if she and Kody can repair the damage of the last few years.
The patriarch of the Brown family does start off on a good note, apologizing to Janelle, and once again blaming his outburst on the anger he’s feeling from his split from his ex, Christine Brown.
“I’m embarrassed by my behavior, but I’m also realizing that you don’t have a safe place, a safe way to talk to me,” he admits. “I am realizing that I am morphing or transmuting grief into anger. And I realized that I’m just not a safe place for you to have a conversation, so just one trigger after another just set me off.”
Janelle is tired of the excuse, and tells him she wants to “stay separated” for the time being, so she can figure out what she wants to do without Kody’s influence.
“I’m sort of surprised that she doesn’t want to try and reconcile, that she wants to be separated,” Kody says. “We’ve been separated probably two or three times in the past. Always felt like that was because she couldn’t manage the relationship with her sister wives. I never felt like that was over me, but maybe I was wrong.”
Janelle says she’s open to doing marriage counseling, but neither makes a concrete plan to do so.
Janelle also says she’s surprised every time Kody claims to not have seen his split from Christine coming.
“He’s been telling me for years that he wasn’t attracted to Christine,” Janelle claims. “They were struggling in their marriage. I would have left his a** the first time he said that to me. I would have.”
Once again, the subject of Kody’s estrangement from his and Janelle’s older children comes up and he says that Christine and Janelle are being “mean girls” together.
“So Janelle’s not in love with me. I think she thinks I’m hot,” Kody claims. “I got nice pecks and great six-pack abs, but that’s all she’s interested in.”
Janelle laughs off the claim, saying, “I’m like, ‘Whoa, buddy, you’re way missing the boat here.’ There’s way more to a marriage than just physical attraction, and I feel like we’re in big danger here.”
Janelle then asks Kody if he still wants a plural family, saying, “sometimes I can’t tell.”
“I felt like Atlas and the world’s on my shoulder, and I just shrugged it off. Nobody else picked it up,” Kody says. “I’ve always worked hard for plural marriage, and just because we got here and I got a little bit cynical doesn’t mean that I don’t want plural marriage anymore.”
Janelle finally sums up her feelings in her confessional interview, saying that she’s simply not getting what she needs from Kody as her husband.
“I’m not really inclined to stay in this relationship with Kody. I don’t feel like I’m getting what I deserve from him,” she says. “Listen, I’m pretty independent. I don’t need a lot from him. But when it comes down to where he does, all of a sudden doesn’t want to be a father to my kids because they disagree with him. That sort of changes the cost benefit equation for me in this marriage.”
She’s also tired of hearing him “b**ching” about his split from Christine, saying, “Be a big boy and reconcile it.”
But in the end, Janelle does show that she still has feelings for her estranged husband.
“I mean, I miss you, honey. I miss you. And I just don’t know how to fix this or figure this out,” she admits to Kody. “But I don’t want to just because you and I have a tendency to be like you come back and we sort of just forget all the hard stuff and we just things in our little place. I need something different, you know, this time.”
In her confessional interview, she adds, “I do miss Kody. We are very best friends. We have a lot of conversations. I miss him in my bed. I miss him in my house. I miss him. But I am not being treated the way I deserve to be treated here.”
Kody is surprised to see that Janelle isn’t willing to simply take him back, admitting, “I kind of thought that we would reconcile.”
But she isn’t the only one moving on. Christine has a nervous excitement as she talks to her kids about the possibility of dating again, sharing that she’s working with a professional matchmaker to find someone new.
“He’s the only guy I’ve ever kissed. Oh my god, what if I suck at kissing? What if I suck at everything like that? I don’t know,” she admits of her past relationship with Kody. “Do you see why it’s scary? Do you see why it is terrifying? It is terrifying.”
As for her ideal man — “bald, tattoos, driving a motorcycle.” Hmm, seems to fit the description of her new fiancé, David Woolley, pretty well.
Meri is nervous to be moving her clothing business to Utah, saying she is scared to tell Robyn. It seems like we have another tearful lament from Robyn about not growing old in a rocking chair on the porch with her sister wives on the horizon.
Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.
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