Sister Wives’ Christine Brown and Janelle Reveal When They Realized Marriages to Kody Were Over

Sister Wives stars Christine Brown and Janelle Brown have each revealed when they realized their plural marriage to Kody Brown was over, and a lot of it had to do with the children they shared with the patriarch.

For Christine, 51, it came down to intuition. “I didn’t realize anything was wrong, until I knew something was wrong,” she told E! News in an interview published on Thursday, November 23, adding. “And then I was like, ‘Oh, well, then I’m going to do something different now.'”

Janelle’s process was more gradual and came over time. “It was really just that Kody and I really had been growing apart for a lot of years,” the 54-year-old said. “I feel like we had a really great run. But we just kind of started to grow apart.”

Christine was the first of 54-year-old Kody’s four wives to leave, making a clean break in a November 2021 Instagram post where she told fans, “After more than 25 years together, Kody and I have grown apart and I have made the difficult decision to leave,” although she added they would remain a “strong presence in each other’s lives as we parent our beautiful children.”

However, the TLC star wanted better for their six children: Aspyn, 28, Mykelti, 27, Paedon, 25, Gwendlyn, 21, Ysabel, 20, and Truely, 13.

“It just wasn’t the relationship that I was looking for for my kids and it wasn’t a relationship I was looking for myself,” Christine told the outlet. “And then I was like, ‘OK, well, now that I found that, I’m gonna move on, and I’m gonna go, and I’m not going to stay anymore.'”

She went on to find love with David Woolley, 59, after they met online in October 2022. Christine introduced him to fans as the “Love of my life” in a Valentine’s Day 2023 Instagram post, adding, “The first time he held me close, it felt like my soul took its first breath. He’s wonderful and kind, incredible with my children and an adorable grandpa. I never dreamed I could find a love like this.”

Christine and David announced their engagement in April and married on October 7.

Kody’s relationship with the six children he shares with Janelle also played a factor in her realizing their marriage was over.

“When he became estranged from my children, it was like, ‘I think maybe I can actually do something different here,'” Janelle recalled. “Because, look, I would have stayed and stayed and stayed if the kids were okay.” Kody and their sons from sons Gabriel, 22, and Garrison, 25, stopped talking due to their ongoing feud over their father’s strict COVID-19 rules.

Even though Janelle is “glad” about where she is now, she didn’t foresee splitting from Kody, adding, “I thought we’d be married forever.”

“I am an advocate for sticking around and trying to make a relationship work right,” she said. “Every relationship ebbs and flows and I think we really had just hit a point where it wasn’t coming back.”

Janelle and Kody had been in a spiritual marriage since 1993 and ended things for good in December 2022. “Janelle is a strong independent woman and realized she can do it on her own,” a source told In Touch, at the time, adding, she “outgrew him.”