“No one’s close to Meri. The only reason that you guys are seeing Meri is because she’s on a TV contract,” Kendra exclusively told Us Weekly. “Meri has been out of the picture. Nobody is close to Meri. Meri has her own world, her own circle of friends. She doesn’t even live by that, I would call it, the moral code anymore of her faith. She’s very open and honest about it. She doesn’t hide it. There’s no secrets out there. She doesn’t care. She’s an open book.”

Despite Meri’s separate existence from Kody, 52, and the rest of the family, she seems to remain optimistic about reconnecting with her husband. “The only thing she’s still hanging on [to] is the fact that she loves Kody and they may, at some point, have something they don’t,” Kendra claimed. “That is long dead, and yes, she created that for herself.”

Kendra, who is close friends with Robyn Brown, confirmed that Kody and Meri, 50, no longer have much in-person contact. “They don’t see each other anymore. They only see each other for, like, basically filming purposes or, I mean, maybe a holiday. I’m saying maybe because it’s not even a thing,” she alleged. “Over the past year, definitely not even 100 percent because of COVID. There’s no relationship at all. He does not trust her. He doesn’t want to be in a relationship with her.”

Kendra believes Meri’s standing in the family is her own fault. “I’ve witnessed her behavior in person. I’ve witnessed her moodiness and hatefulness and, like, jealousy — like, deep-rooted jealousy. And she has no accountability for that,” she told Us. “She instead allows herself to be put on a pedestal. … Everyone thinks poor Meri, poor Meri, poor Meri. They don’t take for a minute to pay attention to how she possibly treats people because they don’t show it at all. … I don’t think she makes herself available for any of that. I think she’s very stubborn. As a matter of fact, I know she’s very stubborn. She’s not going to let certain things be filmed. She won’t go into that, and she’ll just knock them. She’ll be like, ‘Sorry, I’m not doing that.’ It’s made it really hard for that family.”

Meri admitted during a February episode of Sister Wives that she thought her marriage to Kody was “dead” and “over.” She later told Us her comments were “taken out of context.” Although she noted she is “at peace” with where they stand today, she confessed: “Any improvement that we can make on the relationship between me and him, I think it would be great.”

As for Kody, he told Us in February that he did not think it was his place to suggest divorce. “I feel like [my wives] need to understand that — that they can leave,” he said. “If it’s not working for them, they can leave. Nobody’s going to be a prisoner here.”

Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.

With reporting by Diana Cooper

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Erin Crabtree