Watch: Sister Wives’ Janelle Brown Goes Public With New Boyfriend 4 Years After Kody Brown Split
Sister Wives star Janelle Brown knows the moment she realized she could no longer, er, stomach life with Kody Brown.
And, no, it’s not because she was only interested in his “nice pecs and great six-pack abs,” like the father of 18 once claimed on the long-running TLC series.
As Janelle cracked on the show’s Oct. 11 episode, “At one point Kody said, ‘Well, she just liked me for my pecs and my abs.’ I’m like, ‘Well, you didn’t always have those.'”
What he did, however, possess for the first few decades of their nearly 30-year union, was the affection of his kids.
“Kody’s children were his soulmates,” acknowledged Janelle, who shares Logan Brown, Madison Brush, Hunter Brown, Gabriel Brown, Savanah Brown and the late Garrison Brown with Kody. “His children were his center of his universe back then.”
It’s not as if she felt that he didn’t love her or fellow sister wives Meri Brown and Christine Brown, she recounted, “But his children were his joy. He loved them and he was a really good dad.”
Until he simply wasn’t.
Because for the 57-year-old, what truly divided her and Kody wasn’t his love for sole remaining wife Robyn Brown or his inability to move forward with building their shared Arizona property.
“I think the biggest thing for me started when he really started to be hard on my children, wanting them to conform to his opinion, wanting them to act a certain way,” Janelle explained. “That’s when all of a sudden I’m like, ‘OK, I don’t know if I can do this anymore.’ It was a burden to stay married.”
And having officially flown the coop, nesting inside her new North Carolina digs, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be caged into a new romance.
“The relationship that I had was so much work,” she explained while meeting with a relationship consultant during the Oct. 11 episode, “and I just don’t want that anymore. And I have friends that are like, ‘Oh, it’s not that hard when you find the right person.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know.'”
Janelle Brown/Instagram
Though now she may know that she knows, hard-launching her romance with new boyfriend Pete in August.
And, yes, she feels they may have something really special, with the local checking off several of her must-haves.
“I don’t want a man of few words,” she stressed to the consultant, noting that “kind is the most important thing. Looks are, like, whatever.”
In fact, Janelle continued, she had a strict pretty-boys-need-not-apply policy.
“Kody was also kind of obsessed with looking good, and having everything in his life have this certain kind of look and have it be just so,” Janelle detailed, noting she’d be “very gun shy” should she encounter someone with a similar mindset.
Outside of that, “It would have to be somebody who is very family-oriented,” she added. “Personality matters more to me than anything. Then there’s the thing about where I’m never moving away from my house.”
She is, however, willing to open up her heart. And she’s not the only Sister Wives star settling down. Check out the other cast members who discovered love is meant to be shared with someone special.
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Meri Brown/Instagram
Janelle Brown/Instagram
Instagram/Mitch Thompson
