Robyn And Kody Brown's Failsafe Marriage Pact That Angered The Other Sister Wives

The marriage of Robyn and Kody Brown, stars of TLC's "Sisters Wives," is special for a lot of reasons. Robyn is the youngest of his four wives and the last to join the lineup of sister wives. She was often dubbed as Kody's "favorite wife" by her then-sister wives because of their husband's apparent preference for her. After splitting up with his three other wives, all within 14 months of the other, Kody's marriage with Robyn remains the last of his intact marriages, forcing the polygamist to embrace a life of monogamy once again.

Besides being the last of Kody's marriages, there is one more thing about his union with Robyn that has the other wives calling him out for playing favorites.  Their relationship is rocky at best, but Kody and Robyn have revealed that they have a safety plan in place in case they hit a roadblock that their love can't overcome. Kody admitted that he has a failsafe marriage pact with Robyn that will allow them to exit the marriage if they fall out of love with each other. This secret pact sounds like a nice idea for the reality TV couple, but it made the other sister wives downright angry when they learned about it.

The marriage pact at the center of this edition of "Sister Wives" drama is both romantic and tragic at the same time. Kody Brown opened up about the secret marriage pact with Robyn Brown during a December 2023 interview with Sukanya Krishnan on "Sister Wives: One on One." The proud polygamist admitted that he and Robyn were not going to keep themselves trapped in a loveless marriage. They made a promise that if at any time either of them felt they weren't in love with the other, they would, in Kody's words "free each other." Thus, the marriage would be null and they would go their separate ways, with no hard feelings.

While Kody and Robyn thought the pact was a good idea, Kody said his other wives weren't so fond of it when they first learned about its existence. This is mostly because he hadn't ever extended the same offer to them. "I remember after Robyn and I had that agreement, then I went to the other wives and said I have this agreement with Robyn," he stated. "They even got frustrated by, like anybody who wants to leave, you're free to go. And that even made Meri mad."

When Kody Brown let his other three wives know about his and Robyn's secret marriage pact, the conversation didn't go over very well — as you can imagine — particularly with Meri. Meri is Kody's first wife whom he married in 1990. The pair split legally in 2014 when Kody had to divorce Meri to legally marry Robyn, though Kody and Meri still stayed married in spirit. After spending more than 30 years together in a legal and then spiritual marriage, Meri announced via Instagram that they were calling it quits. 

Upon watching Kody and Meri's biggest fights, we can see why Meri was angry to find out that Robyn's pact with Kody would allow his "favorite wife" to escape a loveless marriage. During the revealing interview with Sukayna Krishnan, Meri admitted to feeling angry after she learned about Kody and Robyn's secret "get out of jail free" card for their marriage. She was particularly angry at Kody's lack of thoughtfulness for not extending the same deal to her. "He's sitting here telling Robyn, 'That's the agreement that you and I made, that if I ever felt like that, then I wouldn't hold you in this place,'" Meri said. "Their agreement of, you know, their sacred covenant. I'm like, 'Then why did you not respect me enough as a human being?'"

This isn't the first time Kody has shown favoritism in his relationship with Robyn. As revealed in the special episode "Sister Wives Look Back: How It Started," Robyn was the only wife who Kody helped to pick out her wedding dress.