Christine Brown warned us many months ago.
Heck, she came right out and said it.
And yet: The news still hit like multiple tons of shocking bricks on Tuesday.
The Sister Wives star really has walked away from her spiritual marriage after well more than two decades.
“After more than 25 years together, Kody and I have grown apart and I have made the difficult decision to leave,” Christine shared on Instagram.
“We will continue to be a strong presence in each other’s lives as we parent our beautiful children and support our wonderful family.
“At this time, we ask for your grace and kindness as we navigate through this stage within our family.”
Christine and Kody have six kids together – Asypen, 26, Mykelti, 25, Paedon, 23, Gwendlyn, 20, Ysabel, 18, and Truely, 11 — although it’s unclear how much time the latter really spends with them.
To long-time TLC viewers, this decision comes as a surprise.
They likely have believed for awhile that plenty of trouble exists between Kody and Christine, but they never thought Christine would actually take this sort of drastic action.
However, she came right out this winter and said she was miserable.
On the most recent Sister Wives season finale, Christine said she can’t stay in this relationship any longer… not after Kody nixed her idea to move back to Utah.
“I can’t do marriage with Kody anymore,” she told Meri during a stroll on this dramatc April episode. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”
As it turns out, Christine was dead serious.
Last month, she sold her home in Arizona and really did move back to Utah.
She simply did so on her own.
Late on Tuesday, meanwhile, Kody reacted to the splt.
“Christine’s decision to leave comes with a great deal of sadness,” Kody he wrote on social media, adding:
“We enjoyed many years together and I have a large amount of respect and admiration for her.
“Although we are moving forward on different paths, we will always remain committed parents.”
Doesn’t sound like someone who is all that broken up about this break-up, does it?
News of Christine and Kody’s breakup comes about six months after the couple celebrated 27 years as a romantic item.
They were introduced to viewers way back in September 2010 when Sister Wives hit the air.
In addition to Christine, of course, Kody has also been in long-term relationships with sister wives Meri, Janelle and Robyn; the latter of whom is his only legal spouse.
The end of the marital line, according to Us Weekly, stems from this marriage to Robyn.
“She’s been in the process of leaving him for a while. The big reason why she split from him is because Kody has been completed devoted to Robyn [Brown] for the past five or six years,” an insider tells this tabloid.
“That hasn’t changed at all.”
Throughout the first several months of the COVID-19 outbreak, Kody did, indeed, remain almost entirely at Robyn’s house, a point of contention that will be explored on Season 16.
Here’s a preview:
“[Christine’s] really hurting. She really loved Kody. She gave him her all in hope that he would love her,” the source added Us, emphasizing that the coronavirus pandemic played a major role in the split.
“Kody has not been around at all. He used COVID-19 as a big excuse to not be around family.
“It’s been his ticket to freedom essentially.
“This destroyed Christine because she really tried to give her all to the marriage.”
Sister Wives Season 16 premieres on Sunday, November 21 at 10/9c.
It should be mighty interesting to see how Kody and Christine interact on these episodes now, don’t you think?