‘Sister Wives’: Robyn and Kody Brown’s ‘Unreasonable’ Relationship ‘Doomed’ Polygamist Family
Robyn and Kody Brown’s relationship was documented beginning with season one of TLC’s Sister Wives. For 17 seasons after, Robyn and Kody’s union in relation to his wives, Meri, Janelle, and Christine, continually caused conflict. Ultimately, did their “unreasonable” relationship “doom” their polygamist family?
Did Kody and Robyn Brown ‘doom’ the Brown family?
From courtship through marriage, Kody Brown treated Robyn Brown differently. His preferential treatment of her set changed his relationship with wives Meri, Janelle, Christine, and their children.
In a Reddit thread titled “The problems didn’t start on Robyn’s 11-day honeymoon,” Sister Wives fans discussed the troubling history of Robyn and Kody’s relationship. They agreed their union was the beginning of the end of the Brown family as a whole.
“It started with Kody driving 5 hours to ‘court’ her while Christine was pregnant. It was unreasonable for him to leave that long (the entire weekend) when he had three other families & a baby on the way,” one fan penned. “That set a precedent for Kody and Robyn to disregard the larger family, and therefore, they were doomed from the start of their courtship.”
“They expected the OG wives to do backward handsprings to blend the families smoothly when the onus should have been on Ms. Brand New,” claimed a second viewer. “Robyn not only hogged an exorbitant amount of Kody’s time, broke polygamist protocol with the kiss (he’s to blame for that too), but then drained the family resources to pay off all her debts.”
“Robyn never put in any effort to blend with the family. She took, never contributed, and played the victim when she didn’t get her way,” wrote a third Reddit user.
Robyn Brown historically played the victim, causing Kody to be her hero
From day one, Robyn Brown played the victim card to Kody Brown. He, in turn, enjoyed playing her hero role.
As seen throughout 18 seasons of Sister Wives, Robyn has pushed a narrative that kept Kody tied to her, no matter how unreasonable. These instances are seen on-camera in scenes that became all too common.
Robyn claimed the other wives didn’t accept her. She called herself the Brown family scapegoat (but attributed the term to her mother).
On camera, she cried about how bad her former marriage was. Kody eventually married Robyn and adopted her kids to “save” them from her ex-husband.
She made Christine’s exit from the family all about her, saying Christine’s leaving ruined her big picture. Robyn gave Meri false hope that Kody wanted to reconcile their romantic relationship so she could still have sister wives.
Finally, Robyn’s fears about her children catching COVID-19 (coronavirus) led Kody to basically cut off his other wives and their kids during the pandemic. Ultimately, he began living monogamy with Robyn.
The Brown kids called Robyn out on her manipulations in season 18
Janelle, Christine, and their kids discussed the tensions between their sides of the family and Robyn Brown during episode 8 of season 18. Janelle’s kids Garrison, Gabe, and Savannah, and Christine’s daughter Gwendlyn sat down to discuss their feelings about Robyn’s involvement in their family’s breakdown.
Gwendlyn discussed a 2021 holiday family gift exchange that Robyn opted her family out of due to “past trauma.” She shared, “Robyn made it all about herself. She would mention something about trauma: ” There’s a bunch of past trauma.”
She continued, “Which, by the way, where’s the trauma coming from? Because Dad prefers them. We can all agree on this, right?”
“Robyn turned it into us trying to ostracize her and played the victim,” Garrison added. “And we said no, this is about us trying to figure out how to do this and adjust to your new Christmas rules so we can all do this Christmas exchange because we’ve been doing it for 20 years. She used COVID to make Dad exclusive and turned herself into the victim, saying it’s our fault.”
“She was gaslighting everyone into treating her with special treatment,” Gabe explained.
Sister Wives season 18 airs Sundays at 10 p.m. EST on TLC.
