- "I'm gonna leave Kody," Christine Brown declares in the "Sister Wives" season 17 trailer.
- She says "Robyn's more important" to Kody in a confessional interview.
Christine and Kody Brown's marriage will officially end during season 17, based on the trailer released on Monday.
In a clip of a conversation between the estranged pair at the beginning of the trailer Christine, 50, tells Kody, 53, "It's been heartbreaking being your wife for years."
In a solo confessional interview, Christine tells producers, "I feel like to Kody, Robyn's more important." Kody's third wife feels like her husband has been enforcing a hierarchy among his wives for many years and his fourth wife, Robyn, is at the top.
"I agreed to be a sister wife, but I agreed to be an equal wife," Christine says in a confessional interview clip later in the trailer.
"I have decided to leave, I'm gonna leave Kody," Christine declares during a conversation in the trailer, though viewers can't see who she's talking to.
The former spouses originally announced their split to the world via Instagram posts in November of 2021.
Christine became Kody's third spiritual wife when the former couple married in a religious ceremony that was not recognized by law in March of 1994. They have six children together: Aspyn, 27, Mykelti, 26, Paedon, 24, Gwendlyn, 20, Ysabel, 19, and Truely, 12.
Fans of TLC's reality show "Sister Wives" know that Christine has continually struggled with Kody's courtship and eventual marriage to Robyn since season one of the show, which began filming around August 2009 and aired its first episode in the fall of 2010.
On top of continually struggling with needing more attention from Kody in their relationship, in recent years there was tension between the former spouses because of where the family lived.
During season two of the show, Kody moved his four wives and 18 children out of Utah to Las Vegas, Nevada, because they were being investigated in Utah after going public with their polygamous lifestyle. In recent seasons of the show, the Brown family has lived in Flaggstaff, Arizona, where they plan to build houses on a large piece of property.
But Christine wanted to move back to Utah since polygamy was decriminalized there in 2020, as reported by the New York Times. Also in 2020, Kody's strict rules relating to COVID-19 put a strain between him and multiple wives, including Christine.
The Brown's isolated during COVID, with each of the children that still lived at home staying with their biological mothers. But Kody would only visit houses that followed his very strict rules which included disinfecting mail and groceries before bringing them inside, changing clothes after going out, and not traveling or visiting adult children or other wives.
As seen on "Sister Wives," season 16, Christine broke some of these rules to visit Janelle and her kids, travel to the east coast so her daughter Ysabel could get scoliosis surgery, and visit her adult children.
Kody and his first wife Meri have been estranged for many years, so this meant that Kody was only visiting Robyn and her kids for most of the pandemic.
"I'm not ready for Christine to leave," Robyn, who spiritually married Kody in May of 2010, said in the trailer for the new season.
"I would never do anything to this family to hurt it," Robyn adds later in a confessional interview. "I just wish that people could see that."
As for Kody, he can be seen screaming in frustration during a meeting with Christine and his wives in the trailer for the new season. He tells her that she has "never tried" to have a good relationship with "other people" in the family.
He adds that Christine's decision to leave is a "knife in the kidneys" after all of the "sacrifices that I made to love you."
Season 17 of "Sister Wives" premieres on TLC at 10 p.m. ET.