FACT: Meri Brown seems very unhappy these days.
ONGOING RUMOR: Meri Brown is about to leave Sister Wives.
NEW REASON TO BELIEVE THIS RUMOR: A source who knows something about these kinds of situation has spoken out on the subject.
Kristyn Decker is author of Fifty Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies.
Her parents were in a polygamous marriage and she was involved in one herself, prior to finally getting out after over three decades as a member in this kind of relationship.
Oh, and she's also Christine Brown's aunt.
Does this mean Decker knows absolutely everything there is to know about polygamy in general and the Browns specifically? No.
But it does make Decker is a more reliable source than just some anonymous tabloid insider, you know?
Earlier this week, Kristyn did her best to warn her niece against polygamy, labeling the lifestyle as an abusive cult.
Now, however, she's shifted her focus from Christine to Meri, taking note of Meri's Instagram account and the many trips she appears to be taking on her own and making an educated guess about the reality star's future.
“That’s the beginning of her leaving,” Kristyn tells Radar, adding of her own experience:
“That’s what I did. I had to start taking care of me. I started going to plays, parties and movies, I would find friends."
For several months now, Meri has been taking photos of herself on cruises... on walks... simply standing in the woods.
And she's been including with these photos cryptic captions that continually make it appear as if she's trying to take stock of her life and is thinking about making some major changes.
Most prominently and obviously?
That she's ready to walk out on her marriage.
As Sister Wives fans know, Kody and Meri’s marriage hit a very rough patch when he divorced her to marry fourth wife, Robyn, Window in 2014.
He then ended their legal marriage to adopt Robyn’s children from a previous relationship.
Fast forward to 2016 and Meri getting caught in an embarrassing catfishing scandal, something that created even more of a rift between her and Kody.
“It’s hard to be here and work on these relationships in the family,” Meri said on an episode from this past season of the show, adding:
“I’m looking in from the outside. I don’t feel like I have a husband and wife relationship.”
Kristyn - who has appeared on Sister Wives in the past - told Radar that she's considered driving to Meri’s bed and breakfast to speak with her, but is worried she would be “shunned."
Instead, she's therefore offering some advice from afar.
And that advice amount to this:
GET OUT NOW, MERI!
“If you don’t behave you will be treated badly,” Decker says.
“Like Kody with how he’s treated Meri. He’s a polygamist, he has the say and power. He’s the God of his kingdom.”
And this is what she previously told the same website:
Polygamy is a system of abuse overall. Mental, emotional, and spiritual. The groups believe their leaders are the right ones and the others are wrong.
Overall, polygamy is a system that’s harmful to men, women, children and society. You will live in polygamy and the women will be submissive.
The women must let the men have other wives or they’ll go to hell.