According to Christine, their union began to “disintegrate” as far back as when she was pregnant with their youngest daughter, Truely, in 2009 while season one of the family’s reality show was being filmed.
“I still had to produce some sort of income, so I was working at night and Aspyn, in fifth grade, was tucking the kids in bed at night,” she explained in a solo interview on Sunday’s episode, referring to her eldest daughter with Kody. Christine added that Aspyn, who was 10 years old at the time, was “running the house.”
“I asked Kody, I said, ‘I need your help,’ and he goes, ‘I can’t do that, I’m in other houses,’” she said. The Brown family lived in one big home with attached apartments at the time. Christine said when she pointed this out to Kody, he still refused to help her with their kids.
At the time Christine was pregnant with Truely, she and Kody and Christine already had Aspyn and four other children: son Paedon, and daughters Mykelti, Gwendlyn, and, Ysabel.
In his own solo interview, Kody told the cameras that the behavior Christine was referring to “never happened.”
“She wasn’t wanting a fairness with the other wives, she was wanting more,” he said.”Because she was asking for stuff that I couldn’t give her because I had other wives and other children to be tending to as well.”
Christine and Kody announced their split in November after more than 25 years of “spiritual” marriage. Sunday’s season premiere of “Sister Wives” season 17, titled “It’s Over,” was mostly dedicated to the initial conversation the former couple had about ending their union.
During the discussion, Christine also brought up the fact that Kody has rarely visited her household even before his strict COVID-19 rules prevented him from staying over.
“Let’s just say we’ve lived here for 800 days,” Christine said in her solo interview, referring to Flagstaff, Arizona, where the family has lived since 2018. “He went hiking with us once. He’s been kayaking with us twice, one time he didn’t even get in the water. That’s three times he’s gone with us. Three out of 800.”
In response to Christine’s claim, in his solo interview, Kody said, “I don’t have time to play like she has time to play. I’ve got a lot of work to do and a lot of responsibilities.”
“It’s like what are you doing all day? It’s certainly not cooking and cleaning because then…” he added, before giving up. “Listen, there’s nothing to say here.”
This isn’t the first time the show has shown cracks in the relationships between Kody and his kids with Christine.
On season 16 of the show, viewers saw Kody decide not to travel to New Jersey when Ysabel got surgery for scoliosis because traveling was a danger during COVID-19. Instead, only Christine went with their daughter.
“I think his priorities are a little screwed up,” Ysabel said of her father’s choice at the time.