How Kody Brown Tried To Trick Christine Into A Formal Custody Agreement

When Kody Brown realized that his wife Christine intended to leave him, he tried his best to make it harder for her to do so. Fans of "Sister Wives" remember his demonstrative "knife in the kidneys" outburst in which he claimed he tried so hard to love Christine before making a grand exit from her back porch where all the wives were seated to discuss her departure. Yet that wasn't the only last-ditch tactic he tried to elicit guilt and fear. He went as far as to blatantly lie about state custody laws in order to scare Christine.

A big part of Christine's decision to leave Kody revolved around his decision not to accompany their daughter Ysabel to have major surgery miles away in another state. She stopped respecting him when he broke their daughter's heart. "I really find it hard to stay with a guy who I don't respect," she said (via Insider). "I needed more communication, more trust, and I realized we didn't really have a partnership."

Christine shared that she also felt degraded when he refused to have an intimate marriage with her as a punishment for her so-called bad behavior. By the time she was ready to leave, her decision was set in stone and she tried to work out custody with Kody, who attempted to intimidate her yet again.

On an episode of "Sister Wives," Kody threatened Christine, as per ET, and said, "You and I have to actually have a child custody agreement in place, or the state takes her, essentially becomes the owner of her." 

Christine seemed perplexed and reminded him that their union wasn't actually a legal marriage, but he didn't miss a beat. "Doesn't matter; in this case we've got an issue where we've got to have a child custody agreement in place, basically just say 50/50 agreement that we just work out the details all the time," he tried to explain. "Otherwise, you're going to get a lawyer and the government involved state government. The lawyer's going to take all the money you have."

Despite Kody's intimidation, Christine saw through his lies and said she was never trying to keep Truely away from him. "Does he not understand I want him to be around his kids? I'm not going to fight him on that," explained Christine. She went on to say how all she ever wanted was for him to be around Truely and spend time with her. She explained that what he said didn't make any sense and that the reason behind his accusations was that he didn't trust her.

Kody didn't even try to mask his outright lie to Christine and revealed in the confessional what he planned to do by fabricating the story about legalities. "I just started getting creative about it," he said (via Insider). "I just don't know what to do. Christine's like, 'Why do we need to do this?' And I'm like, 'Because the rulebook says?'"

Later on, Kody admitted that he felt threatened by the divorce process. "There is this thing in the man-o-sphere where it says, 'If you're getting divorced, you're going to get screwed, bro.'" It's an unusual comment, particularly because, as part of a plural family, Christine and Kody were only spiritually married and never legally married.

Christine is now living in Utah closer to her children, and she is engaged to David Woolley. Most of all, she is free to enjoy her life without being under Kody's control any longer. "An enormous weight has been lifted," she said (via ET). "Living my life every day, day-to-day, I would say it's so much better. I think because I'm so much more grounded. I just like me, and I like my life so much better now."