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What is the 'catfish' incident? 'Sister Wives' star Kody Brown says it drove wedge between him and Meri Brown

#SisterWives Kody can not get past the cat fishing. Not the actual catfish , but the idea that Meri wanted to be with a new man. The marriage is over and Meri needs to just leave, move on and be happy"

The saying 'time heals everything' might not necessarily be applicable when it comes to the situation between 'Sister Wives' stars Kody Brown and his first wife Meri Brown. 

The recently aired episode of TLC's popular reality show gave us an up-close look at the couple's troubled marriage. Although wedding anniversary celebrations are usually romantic, Kody and Meri's was anything but romantic. In fact, the 'Sister Wives' patriarch subtly told his first wife that he doesn't harbor any romantic feelings for her, and accused her of being 'unlovable'. While all of us collectively gasped at Kody blaming his wife for their failing marriage, the 52-year-old explained that ever since the infamous 'catfish' incident, Meri's and his relationship hasn't been the same. In case you're wondering what the catfish incident is that tore this couple apart, then we got you covered.

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What is the 'catfish' incident on 'Sister Wives'?

The infamous catfish incident took place over six years ago. In 2014 Kody and Meri got divorced so that he could legally marry Robyn Brown and become her children's legal guardian. Although the divorce was just on paper, it still took a huge toll on Meri who felt devastated.

So, she turned to the internet to seek some solace. She ended up connecting with a stranger on the internet and began falling in love with that person assuming it was a man. Later, Meri found out that she had been catfished by a female fan. When Meri shared this with the world in 2015, it ended up ruining her relationship with Kody. The couple went for several therapy sessions, but Kody emotionally fell out of love with Meri.

He later admitted that he no longest wanted to be intimate with her after the catfish incident, unfortunately, despite the many therapy sessions the reality star still seems to harbor the same feelings even today. In an earlier episode, Kody shared how after the catfish incident he felt his marriage with Meri dissolve. He said, "About five years ago, Meri and I were in a bad place. She basically asked me to stop staying at her house and ultimately what happened is she went through an experience where she was catfished by a person pretending to be somebody else." The online relationship turned out to be "extremely exploitative and abusive". "And from that experience, Meri and I sort of saw our marriage just dissolve," he revealed.

He echoed similar feelings even on the recently aired episode when Meri tried to get close to him and rekindle their marriage. This left fans wondering if Meri and Kody's marriage was done for good. A fan tweeted, "#SisterWives Kody can not get past the cat fishing. Not the actual catfish , but the idea that Meri wanted to be with a new man. The marriage is over and Meri needs to just leave, move on and be happy." 

Many fans felt that the couple should just split and live their lives separately rather than stretching out their painful, loveless marriage. A fan commented, "This conversation is so hard to watch. Kody is the worst kind of man & Meri needs to walk away. He is literally telling her over and over that he doesn’t want to be with her #SisterWives." "Kody doesn’t want to look like the bad guy so he blames Meri for their relationship not progressing but in reality he’s just done and doesn’t want anything to do with her romantically. He needs to be a man and let her go completely #SisterWives," wrote another fan.

'Sister Wives' Season 15 airs every Sunday at 10/9c only on TLC.