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\n Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty\n <\/p>\n
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\u2019d gotten engaged, she was hoping I was going to say I\u2019d dumped him. At our wedding a couple of years later, her partner turned to her and said, \u201cI guess this is really happening, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/a>, and most of the friends I\u2019ve made in adulthood are either single or still blissfully in the honeymoon stage with their spouse. It\u2019s not like most people are posting their relationship problems on Instagram, just the highlights: wedding photos, vacations, pregnancy announcements, family portraits. I didn\u2019t have that \u2014 I didn\u2019t want that \u2014 but I didn\u2019t think divorce was an option.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> 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\u2019t 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<\/a>) while their husbands rode off into the sunset with their new, younger girlfriends. In recent years, though, there\u2019s been a clear pivot on the network\u2019s most popular franchises. Where the focus was once on housewives, it\u2019s now on rich, hot divorc\u00e9es publicly healing from toxic relationships and living their best lives. It might sound silly, but I\u2019m confident that, had I seen this on my television when I was deciding whether to leave or stay, I would have left much sooner.<\/p>\n As headline-making breakups began shaking the Bravo universe to its core, I tuned in weekly with the fresh empathy of a person who\u2019s been there and was starting to come out the other side. First came Erika Jayne and Tom Girardi, whose split coincided with Girardi\u2019s 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\u2019s decade-long relationship exploded in a cheating \u201cScandoval\u201d that turned Madix into the people\u2019s princess and the queen of Love Island.<\/p>\n Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright\u2019s<\/a> demise played out on Vanderpump spinoff The Valley, which premiered in 2024, after years of viewers watching Jax\u2019s infidelity, substance use, pathological lying, and anger issues wreak havoc<\/a> on Cartwright\u2019s mental health. The Valley also introduced us to Jesse Lally, one of Bravo\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t know what else to do.<\/p>\n