Previously on Sister Wives...
This whole thing with Kody and Christine
has just floored me.
I'm trying really hard not to cry.
Are you angry with her?
Are you struggling with her?
It's not what I would've expected
from Christine to just walk away.
We need to kind of carry the torch
'cause he's been kind of carrying it and he's tired.
Life is heavy on him, like he doesn't smile,
he doesn't laugh.
I don't recognize him.
- How's it going? - How are you?
I really, really would like to have an amiable divorce.
You know, and be able to talk to him about stuff.
I'm not feeling like I'm in a great place.
So Gwendlyn's not gonna be here for Christmas?
Uh-uh.
I was sick during her birthday.
And you were also out of it.
She was...
Was she thinking that was funny, too?
What are you gonna do?
Like, you can either laugh about things
or cry about things.
And if you can't look back with a sense of humor,
what a waste.
Well, I'm not laughing.
I'm not laughing here. I'm not laughing.
I haven't been laughing with her leaving.
I'm not married to him anymore.
It's so freaking awesome.
I've really struggled.
I've been pretty grouchy. Very, very angry.
So you're still, kind of, angry and stuff?
We were talking with Janelle the other day.
I literally lost my [bleep].
I just survived a really, really dark place.
I understand that.
You don't give a [bleep] though.
Look at you dismissing it.
Okay.
Would you ever have any empathy for me?
Can we just keep talking--
When you're in pain, I try to understand you.
Kody.
Janelle, this is a really bad idea
for you to walk off on this one.
Well, you... All you're doing is yelling at me.
Yeah. I've got anger issues.
I don't wanna be here.
I don't wanna be here with her.
I know that Kody's mad.
I've known that Kody's been mad for a long time.
I mean, it's just obvious.
He just... He just is always mad.
Christine herself, her face doesn't bother me.
It's what she's doing with our children,
talking behind my back about the reason she left.
Kody can get mad at me about a lot of things.
He can name-call me. That's just fine.
When he sits there and he tells me to my face
that I am pitting his children against him.
No, no. That is not true.
I am their sounding board.
They get to talk to me about things
that are hard and I listen.
You get me in the wrong place
and I'm just venom and vitriol.
So sometimes you still hate me.
It's okay.
I don't want you to pretend, there's no point in that.
I think it gives you satisfaction
if I did hate you.
- It doesn't. - Are you sure?
It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking.
I really think about him less
than he thinks I think about him.
I don't really even think about him that much.
Oh, my gosh.
I wish I was more ambivalent but--
You don't have to pretend.
I don't want you to pretend, there's no point in that.
I drive by your house
and I'm having these, like, literally anxiety attacks.
Coming back to Flagstaff is hard.
It's so hard.
I think she's Machiavellian.
She plays nice
while stabbing you in the back.
The evil thoughts I had about you.
- Yeah, that's okay. - You know, like,
you know, but I...
And I was just, like, eh, you know?
So is grief over me leaving more than anything?
- It's grief of, um-- - Just that it's over.
Something's over.
Hmm. Even more than that.
It was bigger than that. It was my big picture.
It's like he's trying to blame me
for destroying his big picture
but doesn't see that his actions
over the course of 10 years
is what has demolished his big picture.
You can't just pick favorites.
You can't just stay at one person's house
and expect to still have a big picture
of a big, huge, happy, big family.
We don't even have relationships
with most of the people in that picture.
My relationship with Christine was bad,
is bad because of me and Christine,
not because of Robyn.
Well...
I'm really sorry. This was never my intention.
She's trying to say it's heartbreaking.
She's acting like, in every way possible,
that her life is better than it has ever been.
I've thought about doing breakup counseling with you,
like, hey, we're done.
Let's get in a place where we can be functional,
'cause I don't wanna sit here and--
Post-breakup counseling?
- Yes. - What for?
Well, maybe all I need is grief counseling.
Well, listen, I gotta get in a place
where I don't hate you.
So I never speak bad about you to my children.
- Oh. That'd be great. - That's my worry.
If you need to have some sort of, like,
post-breakup counseling with me,
that's fine.
The whole thing is very heartbreaking
and it's very sad.
That's why I'm talking about counseling.
If we go through something counseling.
- Oh, sure. - We get over it.
We shake hands.
We go, "Hey, have a good life."
I think counseling would be good
for Kody, some... In one way or another.
Kody's dealing with a lot right now.
I mean a lot.
I sometimes wonder how he's able
to keep his head above water.
I would do counseling
with anybody in the family that wanted to do it with me.
I would do it with Christine.
I'm open to talking to someone.
I feel like we're gonna do this
for the rest of our lives.
You know, be in each other's lives
for the rest of our lives still just 'cause, you know,
we have kids together and everything.
Well, I'll ask Pat...
if she's actually practicing in Utah
and we can set something up.
- Sure. - But I gotta ask a counselor
if that's even a good idea.
I feel like, yeah,
I need to figure out how to forgive her.
That'd be a good idea.
But am I ever gonna trust her? Probably not.
Kody's been bringing up
going to counseling and therapy for years.
We're not going to do it.
I'm just gonna flat out tell you.
We're just not going to.
I think sometimes Kody in his sort of,
like, optimistic way of looking at the world,
his mental sunshine kind of thing,
that he sometimes will miss
some of these red flags.
Even when Christine moved his stuff out,
I really think he thought, "We'll figure it out."
For years, I cared.
Whatever he needed. Whatever he wanted.
I wanted to be the best wife ever.
Even when it didn't matter to him,
I would have done anything
he needed me to do.
But I'm done.
I'm done.
I'm not going to do a thing for him anymore.
I just wanna eventually be able to just be friends.
It's more like how do we move forward
and be able to be in each other's company
and enjoy each other's company.
But I'd rather just come from a sincere place
of just being friends.
I don't know if that's naive.
I don't know either.
There is no way for me to enjoy her company.
I don't understand that she says that.
I've seen Kody over the last few years
just get angrier and angrier.
Like, I don't want to sound like a jerk,
but he's, like... I've really...
Just watching him and...
seeing how he responds to things,
he just seems very angry.
All right.
Thank you for meeting out with me.
Well, okay.
I don't even know what to think
about that conversation.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm just super grateful
that I'm not married to him anymore.
Oh, my gosh.
He's a lot. He's just so intense.
I'm gonna take off. Thanks for lunch.
- Well, see you... - Okay. Thank you.
I'll let you know next time I come in town with True.
All righty.
It'll be like in a couple weeks.
- Sounds great. - All right.
- Thanks. - Thank you. Thank you.
One of the things that is confusing for me
is that I don't see the deal-breakers
between Kody and Christine,
but I don't mean to cast judgment,
but I...
And maybe it's just my perception,
but I don't see
where either one of them did something
so heinous and horrible
that it just had to end.
And I can't seem to kind of understand.
I just want it to be done.
I just wanted to get away from her.
It was just...
I don't need any more of this.
This was their first Thanksgiving
in their new house and I really wanted
to be part of it.
Janelle has decided
that she'd rather hang out with Christine.
We're not working like a family.
We're acting like enemies.
It's Thanksgiving...
and I'm at Robyn's house with Meri and the kids.
I don't have my whole family together again.
This is the second Thanksgiving in a row
that we are not all together.
Truely, Ysabel,
and Paedon and I are gonna go to Aspyn
and Mitch's house for Thanksgiving this year.
They're lovely hosts.
I'm super excited.
They prepare wonderful food.
- Such a Mom thing to say. - I'm rubber and you're glue
- whenever I think them-- - I didn't say that.
- Everybody said it. - You said that. You said that.
I said it because all of us said it.
You used to say all the time.
You'd be like, and then, we would...
Then you would insult us and I'd say it back to you
and you'd be like "I already said it."
Maddie and Caleb just bought their first house.
Like dating life, I'd go, "Excuse me?"
And you would go, "Why, did you fart?"
This was their first Thanksgiving
in their new house and I really wanted
to be part of it.
So that was an extra fun bonus.
Don't do that.
You're tenderizing it.
Okay. Look, we're gonna rub some oil.
- Okay? - Rubadub-dub.
Rub that oil on it.
You don't wanna rub it?
Rub the oil all over the breasts.
Mmm.
All over the skin and the turkey. Okay?
My little... My babies that are there, Maddie, Caleb,
the grand babies, Hunter, Savannah, and Ysabel.
It was really fun.
Very different than the Thanksgivings
I've had for many, many years, but it was fun.
Okay. It's kinda sticky, right?
It's supposed to be sort of...
It's supposed to be sort of sticky?
Today for Thanksgiving we're going over
to Aspyn and Mitch's house.
We're not filming it
because it's Mitch's family's year,
but Aspyn and Mitch said that we could come over
'cause there's just a few of us.
Janelle's making my rolls this year
for Thanksgiving at Maddie's house.
Best compliment ever, right?
Okay.
- Too much flour. - What's gonna happen?
Have they already risen once?
No.
The dough is a little bit sticky,
but you're supposed to be able to handle it.
So if you can't handle the dough,
you just need to add a little bit more flour.
- Okay. - Oh, it's okay.
It's okay.
It was, like, I almost couldn't--
Okay. All right.
So this will be okay. All right, cool.
You know, it's just one more piece
that makes this Thanksgiving feel a little bit
more family oriented to have Christine.
Even if it's for just a little bit to reassure me
that the rolls are okay.
- We're serving our kids. - Do you wanna get maybe--
There was a piece where I kept thinking,
I'm really, really enjoying myself here.
Should I feel guilty that I'm enjoying myself here?
This represents a really big break
in our family tradition.
I mean, I had all these mixed thoughts going on,
but I really was happy to be here.
It was a really great day.
We were having a lot of fun.
It was just...
It was perfect really.
Our family has been hurting
for a long time.
We've done our best to...
be as okay as possible,
but there's still hurt feelings from 12 years ago.
It's just everything's been accumulating
and accumulating for years.
It's at a breaking point.
Sorry, it's just at a breaking point.
The big shakeup wasn't caused by Robyn.
It was caused by the fallout of going public.
And that decision was made by our family
before we met Robyn.
You know, I was set to have the holidays
with the family here in Flagstaff.
But there's this huge looming problem.
You know, I basically told the kids
what their dad was requiring of them
in order to come to Thanksgiving.
That's what I did. I delivered the facts.
I delivered what he said. He needs to do something here.
He's the head of the family.
He wants to be the patriarch.
This is part of that role.
I made the mistake
of not managing my family properly
and Christine has left.
And Janelle has decided
because we're not in the greatest place
that she'd rather hang out with Christine.
We're not working like a family.
We're not a family.
We're acting like enemies.
We're all separated.
Except for Meri and Kody and I are together with my kids.
You know, my three older kids when I told them
that we were gonna be separate for Thanksgiving again,
they dealt with feelings of rejection.
They've dealt with feelings of hurt and heartbreak.
The question was asked why don't they care
and I...
They've dealt with that heartbreak before.
To just reminding them
that it's not necessarily personal,
apologizing to them
for the being innocent parties in this,
that they're getting hurt by this.
I wish we would've gotten things
straightened out before now.
There's been a lot of offense,
a lot of struggle, a lot of heartache.
Um...
and I don't...
I don't know what to do about it.
And I hope that over the next month
or over the next year,
I can get these things straightened out
and just find peace and love...
with my family.
Everything's changing.
And I guess I'm at peace.
I'm in a very peaceful mood.
I'm surrounded by people who are not offended by me
right now.
I'm just sad about it.
I'm just sad about that this is what our family
has turned into.
Our holidays are not the big family function
that they used to be.
It's just sad.
More than anything, I am grateful right now
for where I'm at
that I have love and devotion
with a portion of my family
and I hope that I can get more of that
from more of my family as we move on.
I just finally went why am I trying here?
Everybody was trying to deflect
but it just kept spiraling.
And it was done.
With some of the things that were said and expressed,
I don't know if we ever come back.
I don't think Robyn's ever lived
a plural marriage honestly.
We just had Thanksgiving yesterday
at Aspyn and Mitch's house and it was lovely.
So last year was more impactful for me
when we did Thanksgiving separate
because I was choosing to just leave
even though I'm still living in Flagstaff.
But this year is probably more impactful for Janelle
because I think things...
Well, things are just more strained between her and Kody
and everybody in Flagstaff
but this year, like...
we're just easygoing.
Paedon came into town for Thanksgiving
and his favorite meal is mock tapioca pudding,
so we're going to make that together.
I'm gonna make him make it with me.
So separating an egg,
you just carefully break it in half.
You don't wanna get any of the yolk
in with the white, otherwise it won't mix.
Mock tapioca pudding was a recipe
that I believe my grandmother gave my mom
and it became a comfort food for all of us kids.
So I do have to... How are you...
How are you feeling about me living here and stuff
and about divorce and everything?
Mom, I'm so happy you live here.
No, I love it. Paedon, you're so happy here.
I never moved to Flagstaff.
I actually moved to St. George.
I started working in St. George
and then I joined the military.
I believe I was at basic training
when everybody moved to Flagstaff.
Paedon's my only son, like, biologically
and he's right smack dab
in the middle of all these girls.
Um, and he's actually doing really well in life right now.
He lives in St. George, Utah. It's about four hours away.
There's always a lot to catch up on.
There's a lot... Always a lot to talk about.
And he's a talker.
He just loves to sit and have conversations.
So, yeah, it was just, it was time to leave
and it was only, like... Yeah.
And I told him I couldn't be, yeah,
and, like, I just wanna be friends.
I just wanna be friends with you.
I think we're better friends than anything else
and I just wanna be friends.
And his relationship with you kids,
I always hope it gets better.
Like, what do you think about that?
Sorry. I didn't... Yeah.
- It's-- - I know.
No, Mom, it's okay.
And it's meant a lot to me to hear Mom open about this.
Not just talk about it, but talk with me about it
knowing that she trusts me with this information.
So Dad's had COVID now.
Robyn's had COVID. They've all had COVID now.
They got very, very, very sick,
sicker than most people get. So--
It's because their immune systems are terrible.
- Stop it. - Okay. Okay.
All right. Stop it.
His sarcasm is not helping his anger.
He's just been sarcastic
and I don't want him to be rude.
Him just saying, yeah, and they lived,
that's not fair.
Dad didn't really like what I was choosing
but I had...
I make the choices that I make because I--
My mom's kids and Janelle's kids
have chosen a side.
To the best of my knowledge, all of us chose my mom.
Okay. Dad and choosing Robyn's family for Christmas
because we want to do a Zoom call.
That whole thing got blown up out of perspective completely,
and I'm hoping that that one can get fixed.
A few weeks ago, Logan texted
a group chat of the siblings
that he wants to do a sibling gift exchange.
And somebody said, okay,
let's tell all the parents about this.
And Robyn gets involved in the conversation
and says let's do a video chat.
It's hard for the kids
to just jump on a call at the drop of a hat.
They're not opposed to it.
They just wanna have it scheduled.
They were amiable.
They just didn't see
how they could make it really work.
I was pushing for the video chat
for the sake of the kids.
When I was getting all this pushback,
I just finally went,
"Why am I trying here?"
And I was like, "Fine, I'm out."
You know, this is an effort in futility.
So we're even at one point,
she said my kids don't even remember
who their siblings are.
And Hunter was like, one video call
is not gonna help that.
And it got blown out of proportion
that they didn't wanna hang out
and then suddenly no one wanted to hang out
and then all of these hurt feelings
about when Robyn first came into the family
and came out and, it's like oh, my gosh.
Then it just turned into this whole big,
like, kind of squabble
between my kids
and a bunch of the other kids.
It really just got blown out of proportion I think.
Everyone's emotions just ran super high.
Gwendlyn tried to lighten it all up
and that went really bad.
Everybody was trying to deflect
but it just kept spiraling.
And it was done.
With some of the things that were said and expressed,
I don't know if we ever come back from it.
So when this text thread was going on,
I was just ignoring it.
I wasn't gonna pick sides one way or the other.
Janelle and Christine's kids have already chosen
Janelle and Christine.
I always wanted to have the family
have Christmas together.
It was a horrible day.
I think Robyn jumped to conclusions too fast.
It's just another example
of them not wanting to be a family with us.
It's been like this from the beginning.
By the time the whole thing was over with,
my older kids Dayton, Aurora, and Breanna,
did not feel comfortable
being involved in the gift exchange anymore.
My children came away saying,
"Look, what the heck happened?"
When we first went public,
the purpose of going public
was to say polygamy works.
I don't think it works in my family anymore.
My kids and I think it's heartbreaking and stupid
because we don't understand.
And here it is just another reaffirmation of everything,
all the messages we're getting
that we're the outsiders and we're on the other side.
We're not.
We refuse to be.
We don't know what else to do.
I know that you kids have really struggled
with his choices.
It's very frustrating.
I know.
I'm trying to, like, make it
so he can have a relationship with his dad.
But his dad has picked sides.
His dad is doing Christmas with Robyn and her kids
and Meri.
But he's picked sides.
In front of Paedon, I'm gonna say I think
we can work all this out.
I think everything's going to be fine.
Is it going to be?
No.
Yeah.
Yeah, good.
Good.
It's really important for wives and mothers
to help those relationships
that the dad has with his children
because he's not there all the time.
It is my responsibility to be a mom
and to be a mother and it's my favorite thing
that I do in this life.
It's his responsibility
to create a good relationship with his children
and it always has been.
You have an amazing friend
and...
it's not like where you are.
Thank you.
I love it.
Once again, I feel like our family is just dividing.
I think we're looking at a permanent separation.
All right. Thank you.
Hey, when are you moving up here
since we're up here now?
- A while. - Yeah?
It'll be... It'll be a minute.
I know you have your commitments.
- It's fine. - Yeah, a few commitments.
It's always nice to see you.
I don't think Robyn's ever lived
plural marriage honestly.
Because as soon as...
as soon as she came to the family,
even before they got married...
I just don't wanna go down that route.
It just doesn't help with anything.
I left Kody
because I could see he had favorites.
Well, when you have a wife that's a favorite,
your other kids are gonna see
and they're gonna have a hard time with that.
It doesn't mean that they don't accept her
but they don't accept as much as Kody did then I guess.
Just... God.
You're gonna go in and get your ears pierced.
How are you feeling right now?
I'm feeling very anxious.
I kind of have a confession to make,
is, I went and got my ear pierced
when I was a sophomore in high school.
What?
We're fumbling through the holidays.
And it's been really sad
because we didn't all gather for Thanksgiving.
It seems like
there's this lack of real desire to get together.
But right now, I'm excited
about my experience with Aurora
and I'm looking forward to that.
- Aurora, you're gonna go in... - Yes.
and get your pierced.
How are you feeling right now?
I'm feeling very anxious,
butterflies in my stomach but I'm very excited.
I used to have an unfavorable opinion about ear piercing.
The original paradigm that we were coming from
and our family agreement was
that we wouldn't have piercings.
When I first married Meri, she didn't have pierced ears.
And her mother and I chatted about it
and Meri's mom was like...
Grandma Bonnie, was like piercing ears is against,
you know, the gospel,
the word of the gospel, like,
you're not supposed to pierce ears.
I know that in the church that I grew up in,
that was, like, a big thing.
You just don't pierce your ears.
If God had wanted holes in your ears,
He would've put them there Himself,
you know?
Jill's coming into the family, hey,
you know, we're not gonna have pierced ears
because our church leaders don't like it, you know.
I even took my earrings out
and I know it seems like a silly thing
but you know what, when you're trying to live...
righteously and have a faith
and you wanna embrace your faith,
there are little things like that.
When I met Christine, she had two piercings
and I'm kind of weird about...
Squeamish about piercings in a way,
so, like, two piercings was like, oh, too much.
He told me how he hated earrings
and I had two on each ear,
so I stopped wearing earrings forever ago.
I wanna do my family right,
you know, we're gonna "play by the rules"
type of thing.
And then Robyn comes to the family
and Robyn's got piercings
and her dad took her to get 'em.
He told me that his other wives
had given up their earrings.
And it was right around Christmas
and I found out what a grump he was through Christmas,
and he hated the commercialism
surrounding Christmas.
And it was always like this pressure
to make sure that everybody got something special.
And so I made him a deal.
I will take out my earrings
and I'll never wear them again
if you'll be happy and jolly,
you know, it's from Thanksgiving until New Year's.
My attitude gradually changed about it.
Robyn started the...
My sister wives' closet
and I went, "Hey, this whole earring thing
has gotten stupid."
So I'm okay with, you know,
like I don't want a whole bunch of piercings,
but with piercings.
Kody got over it
'cause I mean, I'm obviously wearing them.
I don't know what changed for him.
I just decided I really liked them
and I was gonna put them back in.
And I was over 18,
so I wasn't breaking any rules.
And, you know, Kody didn't really care,
but he... We still kind of felt
like we needed to enforce the same rules
for the older kids as we did the younger kids
so we kind of held to the 18.
I still don't have pierced ears.
That is purely just because of my skin,
I'm allergic to all medals,
so I'm just not gonna mess with it.
This will be the first time
I've ever gone with one of my daughters
to get their ears pierced.
For some reason it never occurred to me
that my mom wanted to pierce...
Get my ears pierced.
I allowed myself to think about it for myself.
And then me and Dad started talking about it
and had this big huge conversation about it,
and so now we are here.
Woo-hoo.
She was completely bought into what I was saying
and she thought about it a lot
and discussed it with me and her mom
and said, "I wanna do it."
It's kind of the benchmark
'cause Aurora wasn't going to pierce her ears
out of respect for me.
And I didn't want my daughters having their ears pierced.
And my value or my perspective on that
has changed completely.
And so now I'm going with Aurora,
kind of like a...
Sort of a...
An experience, a daddy-daughter experience,
and we're gonna go get her ears pierced.
Because of the COVID restrictions,
Robyn and I both can't go.
They'll only allow me to...
Or one of us to go, and Aurora picked me.
And to be honest with you, maybe Robyn
might have promoted this a little bit
because she has this real great memory
of her and her dad
going and getting her ears pierced.
You're getting nervous.
I could tell you're all almost like shaky.
I am very nervous.
All right. Well, let's go do it.
But I am all right with needles,
so I think I'll be okay.
It won't... It won't take long.
- Let's go. - Okay.
I'll be honest, I don't know
when all my older daughters,
when they got their ears pierced.
I don't know if they did it,
you know, while they're still home.
I don't... I don't actually remember.
I think all of our children,
all of our girls waited until they were 18
to pierce their ears.
Kody had me on a video call,
so I got to watch her grimace.
I've had a deep appreciation for how much
Aurora has respected my authority as the father
and the head of our home.
I just appreciate the respect she's given me on that level.
Wow.
Let me see.
Wow.
That is so cool.
It was just really cute and fun and it was...
And Kody being so sweet and positive about it,
it would've been so fun to have him
have this experience with each of his girls.
I kind of have a confession to make,
is, I went and got my ear pierced
when I was a sophomore in high school.
What?
You did?
Now you cut.
What?
You little hypocrite.
So, yeah, I got my ear pierced
when I was a sophomore in high school.
Yeah. I knew Kody had a pierced ear.
Like he was so...
Like, he wanted to be the rock star.
Kody was in this small town
and he wanted to be the big town guy
and I think he just was like...
He was trying to be that guy.
I remember Kody telling me
that he got one of his ears pierced
when he was in high school.
I feel like I could be wrong,
but I feel like it was like kind of a dare.
My sister and I are at a jewelry store
in a shopping mall
and we're with one of her girlfriends or something.
I'm like, "Dare me to do it."
And my sister doesn't even say anything.
And then I do it and I'm like,
"Well, you dared me," you know?
Got it on Saturday night.
I did my best to hide it.
Monday, I wore it to school,
I had my heyday, took it out,
made my mom cry.
I had a lot of fun
going with Aurora and getting her ears pierced.
It'll be a memory locked in forever,
just like the memory of when I got my ear pierced
and I'm glad I don't have a pierced ear anymore.
I don't know what the future is
for Kody and I.
He's getting... angrier and angrier
and he's getting sharper and sharper,
and more black and white with me.
Gosh. I mean, her and Kody,
I didn't think they were that bad.
I go to Flagstaff every 10 to 14 days.
It's just business related and then it's really nice
'cause then I can see Janelle, and Savanah,
and Gwendlyn, Gabe and the boys and stuff,
and it's awesome to see everybody.
- Hey. - Oh, hey.
So I just had to order this new Christmas tree
'cause, well, the...
Mine is way too big for this apartment.
- You got a tree. - Yes.
- Is it pre-lit and everything? - Yes.
'Cause I've decided life...
- Oh, my gosh. - is too short
to wrap your own lights.
I adore Janelle.
I'm so glad that I have a friendship with her.
Janelle and I got closer and closer...
really a lot since we moved to Flagstaff.
And with me leaving,
she's just been so supportive.
I've been there for her like she has been for me
'cause she's been extremely
supportive of me leaving.
- It was fun. - So you had a fun Thanksgiving?
- Yeah, it was fun. - And Ysabel,
how's Ysabel doing?
- Good. - Is she okay?
- Yeah. She is. - Okay, good.
She calls me like she misses me so bad sometimes--
I think she's... I think she's struggling
that first semester in college.
Even Logan who lived in Las Vegas
was like, "I'm gonna drop out and come home, Mom."
They all have that that first semester.
There's some discussion about--
Are you talking about next year
going to Maddie's again?
See, I don't know.
I know everything's really separate right now,
but it can't stay that way,
- right? - Yeah, I don't know.
- Really? - I have no idea.
Like, I just don't even know.
So I just am taking it day by day.
It's really just about, I need respect.
Like Kody saying this?
Yeah.
You know, Kody always was a really engaged father.
It's one of the things I admired the most about him.
When COVID happened,
the relationships with my children,
my boys especially really broke down.
And I think that kind of opened the door
for some of the older complaints
to start coming up again.
I'm sort of stuck in the middle.
My boys feel like there's been a definite favoritism
and preference on time and energy
poured into the different households.
I'm really frustrated when people are talking
like this happened the past 25 years.
I've always wanted a relationship with my kids.
As they grow older, these relationships,
they go both ways.
During COVID, things shifted.
I made it empirically clear
that I did not need the boys to apologize.
I just need to communicate with them and talk
and sort of clear the air of all these rumors
going on in the family.
I look at Kody and I think,
"Come on, can you just have a little bit of compassion?"
You know, don't draw such a hard line.
So I'm not optimistic.
Everything's still separate then.
Mmm-hmm.
And I think everyone... The kids
are just kind of tired of pretending
that everything's okay.
I don't think it's one-sided.
- It's not one-sided. - There's no one bad guy here.
- Nope. No. - I just think this maybe
goes back to when we blended families.
We somehow missed something.
Blending a family is hard work
and here we are, we have a plural family
so it's even harder
'cause of all the different dynamics.
My children remember a lot of hurts.
I know that they tried very hard
to integrate everybody,
but maybe there were always cracks.
Now it's all blown apart.
When a new wife joins the family,
you go through this process of adjusting.
There were some people that were willing
to make the adjustments and were welcoming
and then there was a lot that weren't.
When Robyn came in, the family,
the only people who welcomed her warmly
was just me and Meri.
Mykelti has been talking a lot
to Robyn's kids and Robyn
and they've just expressed a lot of frustration
over when the family's blended, how they felt.
It's all really unfortunately more messy than I thought.
And it is really sad.
There's gotta be some sort of a joke
about how many sister wives
- Yeah. - does it take to assemble a tree.
Could you see how there's that little notch?
- Yeah. - And there's a little thing.
- Ready? - Okay.
Watch this magic.
Oh.
Here we go. Okay.
- All right. - So it's harder to line up than you think.
It's... It is.
- Let's cut this off now. - Okay.
- Where's your... - Here.
It's very, very small.
It's just a cute little tree.
So let's see if the couch fits.
Sure.
Christmas trees are a fun thing.
They're a happy thing
and I get to change the color.
Technology is a amazing thing.
The tree is great there. I love it.
And the dog beds can be--
The dog beds are there and they're cozy.
- I don't know where the dog beds usually go. - Yeah.
I don't either, but 'cause they usually sleep on the...
They sit on the couch unless Kody's here.
We have kind of different rules when Kody's here.
The dogs aren't on the couches.
When Kody wasn't over,
oh, we play,
we play like crazy.
We'd have popcorn for dinner
sometimes for goodness sakes.
There's so many things we always do different
when Kody wasn't around versus when he was there.
It was really funny.
We go to bed later when he's not there.
It's kind of a fun perk of polygamy.
It was like either just the two of us
or the three of us.
We would just go to a movie
or go to dinner or something,
you know, just make it pretty simple and basic.
I do wanna ask, and I don't know
if it's too personal or anything like that,
but...
you and Kody are fine then?
You and Kody are good
as far as your relationship goes 'cause--
No, we're... We have to...
I think what's happened is the kids,
like when everybody moved out,
I think it was just kind of one of those things
where all of a sudden, we're like,
oh, I don't know.
How do we do this, just the two of us?
I don't know what to do.
We're both sort of like, okay, did we...
Do we keep working for this? Do we...
What... Keep working with this, what do you mean?
Like, I don't know. Like, I mean, I don't know.
He seems so set
about the kids respecting him
and my kids are like, "What?"
I'm not gonna sit here and try to put together
this relationship post children leaving
when there's not a whole lot in common.
I don't even know who this guy is anymore.
Like I just don't see that it's really worth the work.
Everybody's angry.
Everybody's angry, right?
Even in troubled times,
we still were able to get together and put distance...
Like differences aside and we're putting aside--
And now they're on this big... They're beating this big drum.
We can no longer sweep it under the rug.
I'm like, okay.
Now that Robyn and Kody and the kids
have all had COVID,
and there's no longer this need to separate
for fear of the disease.
We can't get together until we sort this all out.
Now, that's their new drum.
It's the new excuse to keep everybody apart.
So there's a lot of moving pieces
and there's a lot.
And I'm worried that we're not gonna do the work
because everybody's so angry.
- Kody is so angry about this. - Yeah.
He's getting... angrier and angrier
and he is getting sharper and sharper
and more black and white with me
about these kids need to respect me.
Ew, really?
It was just getting harder.
It's just... It's just getting so hard,
like it's getting really complicated.
- Ah, Janelle. - So I don't know.
Like, I mean we're not... We're not getting divorced.
We're not walking away.
But it's like I don't know what to do.
So I don't know.
I'm so sorry.
You know, it's interesting
'cause there is a lot of...
unsettledness in the rest of my life.
But, you know, with my children and with Christine,
it seems to all be kind of normal.
It's like... It's like stable.
It's how it always was.
- We'll see you later. - All right. See ya.
It's heavy. It feels really, really heavy.
It's super great to see her.
And her and Kody, I didn't think they were that bad.
Gosh,
things are pretty rough right now.
With Kody at odds with my children
and Kody and I at odds in our relationship,
really kind of gave me a time
to kind of reflect on what I needed
in my relationship going forward with Kody.
Kody and I weren't in that great a place
going into this situation.
And I don't know what the future is
for Kody and I really going forward.
Can it be saved? I have no idea.
Next time on Sister Wives...
You have cheated me
out of my contact with my family.
Kody, in the very beginning, I kept--
No, no. No, you make this excuse forever.
- But I've-- - Shut your [bleep] mouth
and let me talk to you for a minute.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You won't... You keep cutting me off.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't expect you
to try and help us co-parent the kids.
Don't you dare point your finger at me.
I've been here day long,
in and out for all these years without your support.
- No. You stay and talk. - No, I'm done listening to you.
You stay and talk.
No, I'm not going to
because you're not listening.
You're not listening to me.
And I'm not going to.
Okay. So we're done? - Goodbye.
you.