Sister Wives Recap: Janelle Accuses Kody of ‘Using’ Her for Money While He Claims He Feels ‘Disrespected’

Housing continues to be a sore subject in the Brown family on Sunday’s episode of Sister Wives. After Christine Brown leaves town for her new home in Utah, the sale of her old house falls through.

Kody is keen on finding a way to keep the house in the family, suggesting to his second wife, Janelle, that she buy Christine’s old house before they build Janelle’s new home on the family’s Coyote Pass property. Janelle notes that she can’t afford to buy both Christine’s house and then to build on the property, calling out her husband for his insistence on her making the purchase.

“All Kody talked about was how much he was sad that he was losing this house that Christine had. He loved it,” Janelle says in her confessional. “He didn’t want to lose it. So it sort of felt like he was using me and my buying power to save this house that he loves.”

As Kody continues to press the issue, Janelle gets more and more upset, firmly telling Kody, “I don’t have a house. I want my own house.”

She thinks that buying Christine’s home will slow down her new build process and will leave her “stuck” in a house that’s not the one she wants.

“He’s not listening at all to the reasons I can’t do this or don’t want to do this,” Janelle says of Kody. “It’s almost like he feels like if he keeps telling me, he’s going to steamroll me and I’ll lay down and be like, ‘OK, we’ll do it.'”

“I’m not trying to force her into anything,” Kody disagrees in his confessional. “I’m trying to have a conversation. She’s going to do what she wants. She always has.”

Kody, who says he doesn’t want to live in the RV with Janelle anymore, and is clearly annoyed by her refusal to entertain the idea of buying Christine’s home.

“If she can’t work with me to solve the problems, then she gets to solve the problems on her own,” he says, dismissively. “And the way she’s going about it with buying the RV, with moving out there, with this whole charade, it’s not working.”

Later in the episode, Kody continues to discuss his tense relationship with Janelle, saying, “I’ve been left feeling pretty disrespected. I’m not going to break my back to work for you when you don’t respect me. I’m just not. Janelle needs somebody who will break their back to get this project done and that’s not me right now. Men don’t feel love from women who don’t respect them. I feel like Janelle struggles to respect me or show me respect. That might be an unfair statement. Maybe it’s just the way we argue. If you don’t respect me, don’t bother with the love. It just doesn’t work in my world.”

The tensions between the couple have been building over the past few episodes of the show as Christine’s divorce from Kody has played out. Janelle, who has long been close with Christine, has offered her former sister wife support and comfort amid the messy breakup, often at the detriment of her own marriage to Kody.

As Christine moves out in this week’s episode, Janelle is in tears watching her friend leave.

“I’m good until I think about it. It’s not the end, it’s just the end of a chapter, a big, big, chapter, the end of the book, maybe,” Janelle says. “All of the sudden my whole world looks different.”

Janelle adds that her relationships with her other sister wives, Robyn and Meri, aren’t as strong as the one she has with Christine.

“Christine was always the heart of that relationship for me. I’ve struggled with Meri and we’ve worked for a lot of years to try to figure ourselves out,” she says of Kody’s first wife. “And Robyn, there’s a lot of problems. And Christine truly is, in my head, the definition of a sister wife.”

It seems that Kody and Janelle’s problems will only intensify in next week’s episode, as the preview has the couple once again at each other’s throats.

“We haven’t been acting like a married couple for most of our marriage, Janelle,” Kody tells his wife while they’re out together.

“I’m spitting mad now,” Janelle says in her aside interview.

“Maybe this is not a good fit. Maybe this doesn’t work,” Kody says, adding, “It feels like we’re unraveling.”

Janelle seems shocked by the conversation, adding, “I’m thinking what the hell am I doing here?”

Kody once again compares his other relationships to his marriage with Robyn, saying, “I have somebody in life who’s fundamentally loyal to me,” prompting Janelle to respond, “I’m not going to become Robyn.”