“A lot of people look at it as because I waited so long, it means I have no confidence,” Meri said, before explaining why knowing her “value” allowed her to work on her marriage

Meri Brown is setting the record straight on her commitment to her marriage to former husband Kody Brown.

The Sister Wives star, 52, exclusively tells PEOPLE why choosing to fight for her marriage to Kody, 54, was a way to dispel falsehoods about her character and her self-confidence.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions about me, personally, because people are always telling me, ‘You don’t know what you’re worth. You have no value.’ Just really derogatory [things] about me,” she says, explaining how her willingness to stay in the plural marriage has caused some fans to question her self-esteem. “And it’s like, no, actually, I know what I’m worth, and I know what my value is, and I know what my values are.”

“This is why I worked to try to save my marriage for so long. A lot of people look at it as because I waited so long, it means I have no confidence,” she continues.

Contrary to what others may think, Meri says her “confidence” is what allowed her to take her time in figuring out her marriage.

“I think that’s a huge, huge misconception,” she adds. “I 100% gave it my all. I did everything in my power that I could do. And if I would’ve walked away any sooner, there would’ve always been a question in my mind of, ‘Did I do everything that I can do?’”

Now that Meri is “very confident” that she’s done “everything” she could to the best of her ability, the TLC star says she’s “very at peace with the timing of it and how it all played out.”

In January, Meri and Kody addressed their split publicly in a statement via Meri’s Instagram. In it, the bed and breakfast owner noted she had “no animosity toward Kody.”

Meri’s marriage isn’t the only Sister Wives split that’s taken place in recent years. Christine Brown was the first to leave the plural marriage in November 2021. Janelle Brown also revealed she had separated from Kody in 2022 during the One on One conversations. Robyn Brown is the last sister wife to remain in a marriage with Kody.

On Sunday’s episode of the hit reality show, Meri reminisced about the early days of her marriage to the Brown family patriarch and the “disappointing” ways they’ve grown apart.

“I know the person that he was when we got married. I know that the couple that we were,” she said as moments from their 1990 wedding flashed on screen.

Though she and Kody have grown apart, Meri admitted that she’s “proud of myself” and the “person that I am.”

She also acknowledged, “It’s just sad to me that he couldn’t see that there is value to, you know, three decades of history.”

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