Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty
Something that surprised me when I announced my divorce was how many friends finally felt comfortable telling me that they disliked my ex-husband and that he was never good enough for me. One even confessed that, when I called to tell her we’d gotten engaged, she was hoping I was going to say I’d dumped him. At our wedding a couple of years later, her partner turned to her and said, “I guess this is really happening, huh?”
I was only 33 years old when we split; until then, I thought that our relationship was pretty normal. Sure, I felt lonely and miserable. But I figured that was just how marriage went. Nobody in my family is divorced, and most of the friends I’ve made in adulthood are either single or still blissfully in the honeymoon stage with their spouse. It’s not like most people are posting their relationship problems on Instagram, just the highlights: wedding photos, vacations, pregnancy announcements, family portraits. I didn’t have that — I didn’t want that — but I didn’t think divorce was an option.
Around the time my life blew up in 2020, a similarly seismic shift was happening on Bravo. The Real Housewives of Orange County debuted 20 years ago this month and made for such compulsively watchable television that spinoffs in over a dozen affluent cities followed. Divorces from the early days of Housewives are scandalous and stuff of pop-culture legend, but they weren’t primary subject matter for the series or its offshoots. And the ones we saw were often tragic, leaving committed homemakers heartbroken (and just plain broke) while their husbands rode off into the sunset with their new, younger girlfriends. In recent years, though, there’s been a clear pivot on the network’s most popular franchises. Where the focus was once on housewives, it’s now on rich, hot divorcées publicly healing from toxic relationships and living their best lives. It might sound silly, but I’m confident that, had I seen this on my television when I was deciding whether to leave or stay, I would have left much sooner.
As headline-making breakups began shaking the Bravo universe to its core, I tuned in weekly with the fresh empathy of a person who’s been there and was starting to come out the other side. First came Erika Jayne and Tom Girardi, whose split coincided with Girardi’s embezzlement case, where he was eventually convicted of stealing millions of dollars from his clients over a decade. The Vanderpump Rules anchor couples have all parted ways since 2022; Tom Schwartz and Katie Maloney separated amicably, while Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix’s decade-long relationship exploded in a cheating “Scandoval” that turned Madix into the people’s princess and the queen of Love Island.
Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright’s demise played out on Vanderpump spinoff The Valley, which premiered in 2024, after years of viewers watching Jax’s infidelity, substance use, pathological lying, and anger issues wreak havoc on Cartwright’s mental health. The Valley also introduced us to Jesse Lally, one of Bravo’s more sinister characters. I looked on in horror as he treated his wife, Michelle Saniei, with such disdain that learning she filed for divorce after filming wrapped on season one was a genuine relief. I was, and still am, the first of my friends or my family to get a divorce, which felt scary, lonely, and confusing; much like Cartwright and Saniei, I was trapped in an emotionally volatile situation but didn’t have the experience or language to understand what was happening to me until it was too late. I left in the middle of the night because I didn’t know what else to do.
On the season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills that’s currently airing, all but one of the Housewives are dealing with a divorce or its aftermath — including returning Bravo superstar, stylist, and fashion entrepreneur Rachel Zoe, who split with husband and business partner Rodger Berman after 18 years. On Real Housewives of Potomac, Ashley Darby divorced her much older husband, Michael, after years of viewers and her castmates telling her, “What are you still doing with this man?!” Fans similarly cheered on Housewives separating from two terrible Todds late last year: Kandi Burruss’s husband, Todd Tucker, and Bronwyn Newport’s husband, Todd Bradley. Meanwhile, Paige DeSorbo and Craig Conover’s breakup played out over two seasons of Southern Charm and Summer House, and the new episodes of Summer House are leading up to what audiences already know is coming: Amanda Batula and Kyle Cooke’s divorce after four years of marriage. The men on Bravo famously have a Peter Pan problem; much like Batula with Cooke, DeSorbo left Conover because he was one of the network’s many “manchildren” who wouldn’t leave their partying ways behind and grow up.
Meanwhile, the women are thriving. All of the aforementioned Bravo ladies either have moved on or are living out their healing “journey” before an audience of millions. A few remain friendly with their exes, but the majority are navigating custody and alimony disputes, defamation threats, and other legal red tape. The aftermath of divorce is messy whether you’re in the public eye or not. There’s screaming, crying, denial, self-pity, and blame — all coming and going in unpredictable waves.
I acted out in the same ways as many of the Bravo ladies did, but without the added bonus of being on-camera. I drank too much, numbed out with weed or Xanax, had crying fits at fancy work dinners, avoided my feelings by becoming a beast at my job by day and staying out late partying by night. I lost my composure around friends who were just trying to help, who in hindsight I wish I leaned on more for support instead of carrying the weight alone. I assumed there was no way any of them could understand, but watching this sort of betrayal and devastation unfold so frequently on TV recently has made it clear that it’s a much more universal experience than I thought.
When I was deciding whether to leave my marriage, I stayed for years longer than I should; I convinced myself that dishonesty and disrespect were just par for the course. I look at photos of myself from that time and feel deeply sad, seeing now what I couldn’t back then. I look like an exhausted shell of myself, skinnier and sallower than I was as a literal cancer patient. He stuck with me when I was sick over a decade ago, something he held over my head as a reason I could never leave him. I can’t even remember the lies I told people in my life to cover up what our relationship was really like, as if they couldn’t see the giant red flags flying all around me. I only started to realize my own unhealthy people-pleasing tendencies once my marriage was in the rearview, and I’m still working to fix them while dating. (Easier said than done!)
On Bravo, it’s been similar: Even if a star’s castmates tried to help her see the truth, she wasn’t ready to hear it. DeSorbo, for instance, tried to softly tell Batula many times that Cooke was dimming her light and that calling off the wedding would be much easier than eventually getting a divorce. Batula went ahead with the wedding anyway, but maybe seeing her story played out on TV will save another woman from misery (and expensive legal fees) down the line.
The breakups on Bravo aren’t as clean as mine has been, because they’re contractually obligated to interact with each other. When I finally bailed, I had fully resigned myself to being the villain in my ex’s story. I’m sure most of the friends we shared have heard some twisted tales about me, and in every one, he’s the victim. The Bravo men are all masters at this, but luckily for their former partners — and women stuck in similar dynamics watching at home — the truth is caught on tape. Their stories make it clear that getting into a bad marriage is nothing to be ashamed of, and that my divorce didn’t make me a “failure.” We’ve witnessed men embarrass their partners and wives on Bravo for two decades. It’s cathartic that we now get to watch them break free.
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