Grin and Bear It: How to Be Happy No Matter What Reality Throws Your Way (9 page)

Who had I been married to?

Who was I?

What would I do?

Where would I go?

Did I still have any trust for Chris?

Despite the evidence presented, everything inside of me still wanted to protect Chris. When I got to Kathleen’s I was beyond a mess. I definitely went into the ugly cry.

Knowing he’d been caught, Chris called me repeatedly, but I couldn’t talk. I was paralyzed by my fear and hurt.

In a panic, Chris spoke to Kathleen and asked what he should do. Her response was simply, “Show up, Chris.” Chris needed to man up and deal with the chaos he created.

It took me a day or two to actually face Chris. It felt like my whole world had been destroyed. When we finally spoke, I told Chris to temporarily move out so the cameras from our show couldn’t capture what was happening in our home. I did not want to make an awful situation worse. In that moment I thought,
I’ll leave the show and we will go back to selling
The Wannabes.

Chris was my husband, and I was his wife who had taken a vow to stand by his side, for better or for worse. This being said, I was relieved that Chris was gone for a few days. I figured by the time he got back, everything would have blown over and we could start our new life together.

I had no idea what would come next.

I went back to work, hoping I could face the inevitable humiliation with some shred of dignity. It was hard, but I ploughed through, business as usual. By the time I walked into the office Jeff was back to his old self. In fact, he warned me that in certain types of stressful situations, he can sometimes say inappropriate things as his own means of coping. He apologized in advance for his verbal Tourette’s.

“You know, if this doesn’t work out, there are plenty of guys I can fix you up with! My tree trimmer is single,” Jeff said with a smirk. I knew he was joking, trying to lighten up the mood, but I couldn’t muster up enough strength to crack a smile through my obvious and excruciating pain. I hadn’t really thought about life without my husband. I mean, why would I? It never occurred to me.

The producers wanted to interview me that afternoon to capture how I was feeling. A part of me felt obligated to give them what they wanted, but another part felt like I needed some privacy to deal with my feelings. It felt as though a tornado had ripped through my world with no warning. For the most part, the crew didn’t even want to be a part of my misery, but they had their job to do, as did I. When reality television becomes brutally real, it’s devastating. My most private moments were now everyone’s public information. I had no idea what I had signed up for. I even wondered if I was somehow being punished for what I had set into motion by wanting this kind of attention so badly.

As the days passed, things cleared and I suddenly felt extremely betrayed. Who had I been with for all of those years? I didn’t even know the man Jeff described to me that horrible day.

I felt so sick thinking about the humiliation and backlash that would surely come. My family would suffer, his family would suffer, our colleagues would suffer and, despite all the fallout, my initial reaction was to protect him.

A few days later, Chris came home and was ready to talk. I was confused and angry. Maybe I wasn’t ready to move on so fast. I needed time and space to think it all through so I went to stay with my family for a couple of days. I asked Chris to seek counseling from our Spiritual Father at our church, someone who had counseled hundreds of marriages. He knew us pretty well, so I often turned to him throughout our marriage for his insights. This time was no exception. When we met, he asked Chris if there was another woman involved. Of course, Chris said there wasn’t. Our priest is a very wise man. He told Chris that if he had any desire to make our relationship work, everything needed to come out into the open. Chris held his ground, insisting there wasn’t someone else in his life. I wasn’t sure I believed him.

What
was
my future with Chris? This was a question I had never really asked myself, until he was fired from the show. After the counseling session I offered to do whatever it would take to save our marriage, even if it meant leaving the show. Chris told me that wasn’t the solution. He promised to get another job and committed to doing whatever it would take to make things work. Deep down, I believe Chris told me to stay on
Flipping Out
because even though I didn’t have an inkling of the truth, he already knew he was leaving me for good.

Right after that meeting, Chris flew to Las Vegas to do a job and was gone again for a couple of days. Even though things were rough between us, I looked forward to his return and trying to salvage whatever was left of our marriage. When Chris arrived home we went to a birthday party together. It was a small gathering of eight good friends who were all in the know about what had happened. Chris assured everyone there that we were going to work things out—get counseling and try to grow from this experience. He readily admitted that he’d made a terrible mistake and spoke about how marriages go through ups and downs. Since he was no longer involved in the show, there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of what he was saying as there were no cameras rolling—just close friends having drinks and a celebration dinner.

Even though I felt betrayed, I definitely wanted to be with Chris and thought we could work things out with time and counseling. So we decided that night to stay together and give our marriage a chance.

The following weekend would be our first date night together since the illusion of our happy marriage had been shattered. I was excited and eagerly anticipated a romantic evening. When Chris came home that night, he walked through the door and almost immediately blurted out something like, “I’m leaving you. I was never really attracted to you. I have loved you more than anyone else, but I’m supposed to be alone. I am not meant to be married. But I want you to know that I still want to be best buddies.” He really did think we could still work together. But I didn’t see it that way. You can’t be respected and trusted with someone’s dreams if you have deceived them.

“Besides, you’ll probably end up with some doctor!” he said, trying to lighten the moment. I didn’t see the humor at all.

I stood in our living room in tears, listening to what he had to say, with our two dogs at my feet. I looked down at our pug Janet, who had a “get him out of here” snarl on her sweet face. Then she pounced on Chris—as it would turn out to be, for the very last time. “She’s so stupid,” he said. “She doesn’t even know what’s happening.” Looking back, I’m not so sure he wasn’t talking about me. Janet—named after Janet Reno—is one smart bitch. I can’t say the same about her owner.

The next day I called our Spiritual Father and I asked his advice about what I should do. This is a man who does whatever he can to help make marriages work, but this time he told me to have Chris write down the following sentence on a piece of paper: “I don’t want to be married,” and anything else he might have to say and then have him sign it.

“When he does, you are done. It is over,” he said.

He told me that if I ever had a second thought about going back to the marriage, I should go back and read the paper—that it would help bring me clarity. Chris’s letter was only a few sentences long and he typed it in a very small font. It clearly stated he didn’t want to be obligated to me. He signed it with ease. And I accepted it with heartache. But our priest was right. Every time I looked at the letter, I knew my marriage to Chris was over forever.

I am a big believer in life taking you on the journey that you’re supposed to be on. Although I knew it would be painful and scary to be on my own, I also understood it would be far worse if I allowed this kind of behavior to be tolerated and accepted going forward. Something bigger than I can explain carried me through my pain with the hope that there was someone who would love me, though at times I wondered if anyone would ever love me.

I had originally thought losing my marriage meant I was a failure. I was wrong. I don’t know the reason why Chris and I came into each other’s lives—I may never know. But I do know that for whatever reason the ten years we were together were meant to be.

I promise that even if you don’t know it right now, the pain, suffering, humiliation, devastation, panic, fear, and loneliness that may be holding you back, can actually be the road that will lead you to your dreams. I was desperately afraid to be alone and on my own, but I was willing to go through that fear to get to the other side. I really didn’t have a choice. I certainly wasn’t going to die of a broken heart, but there were days I felt like that was a possibility.

I was in a lot pain for months after Chris left. And things didn’t get any easier during that time. I was afraid to sleep and be alone on any level. One of the days Chris was moving out, I noticed a collectable action figure of a man hanging from a tree outside my window. I don’t know if Chris intentionally left it there or if he hung it on the tree when he was moving out and forgot to take it or if it was something else. What I do know is that it totally freaked me out. From that day on, I worried almost every time I walked through my front door.

Most people who go through trying times or tremendous hurt often refer to that period as a blur, and that’s how it felt. I think it’s why most women can’t remember the pain of childbirth. We must be genetically wired to forget agony, or we’d never have more than one child or allow ourselves to love again after heartbreak.

Even after the dust settled in my private life, I still dreaded the episodes that would make my worst secret public. We film our show several months in advance of the airdate, so I had plenty of time to lick my wounds before they were sliced wide open once again. I was paranoid about the show airing and how the story would be told. Especially since I have no control over what the final show looks like, what scenes go in, and which are left out. I prayed every single day that Bravo and our producers would protect me, but I didn’t have a clue of how it would all play out.

Of course, I watched the episodes leading up to that particular show and could finally see the truth about my relationship with Chris. I felt even worse about myself and our life together. I missed all of the signs, mostly because I wanted to. For example, I always thought Chris was an animal lover, until I watched him push one of Jeff’s dogs. No wonder my sweet Janet wanted me to kick Chris to the curb! My dog sensed what I simply refused to see.

When the fateful day arrived to watch this now infamous episode, I was with Jeff and his ex-partner Ryan, at Ryan’s home. They did their best to show me compassion and to be sympathetic, but it didn’t make the viewing any easier. I ran out of their house bawling after the first few minutes. I couldn’t watch another second of that agonizing episode, and have never tried again since. I left Ryan’s house and ambled up the street, trying to escape my feelings. I began to jog before breaking into an angry full-out sprint—much like the runs I used to take when I was at UCLA. About a mile down the road, one of the producers found me. I was frozen in fear. Just when I thought I was moving on, the show had pulled me right back in.

For ten years, I was completely convinced that I had been in a happy, healthy relationship. Of course, looking back, now I suspect Chris wanted to get caught. I believe that he was fed up with being on the show and didn’t know any other way to get out. Worst of all, he chose to let this emotional landslide unfold on national television.

I never thought I would get divorced or that my marriage would fail. It had been a huge fear of mine, especially seeing my mom never truly recover from hers. I vowed that it would never happen to me. And then, suddenly, there I was. I had become my mother and was publicly living out my worst nightmare. It would have been asinine and egotistical to think I had no role in the outcome. I had to take personal responsibility for my contribution to any dysfunctional relationship I chose to be in. I also had to take a step back and try to realize the other person’s perspective.

Jeff once told me that when it came to Chris, I needed to get the earphones out of my ears. At the time, I had no idea what he meant. After watching the second season of
Flipping Out,
it made perfect sense. I’d been blocking out all of the noise and disguising it as beautiful music. Sadly, it took a produced and edited television show in front of my face for me to open my eyes and finally see what I had been blinded to for so long.

THE NANNY-CAM MADE ME LEARN

  1.  You can fail, be betrayed, and totally humiliated on national television and not die.

  2.  The worst-case scenario often isn’t.

  3.  People who disrespect boundaries at work are probably doing the same thing at home.

  4.  I had no idea what to look for in a life partner.

  5.  I am not as smart as my dog.

5

Go Toward the Hit

When America watched my
marriage unfold on national television, what most people didn’t know was that Chris had actually left me once before that final breakdown of our relationship. In 2004, about four years into our marriage, he came to me and confessed that “he couldn’t be married anymore,” much like he would do years later. The weekend before he dropped this first bombshell, Chris and I had gone to a friend’s wedding and had what I thought was a great weekend together. But there was a weird incident where I caught Chris walking another woman back to her room. At the time, though, I didn’t think too much about it. Looking back, I can recall a little flirtation going on, but it was a wedding, people were tipsy, and I shrugged it off as no big deal.

My relationship with Chris seemed fine. We were still affectionate and didn’t really fight a lot, so I didn’t understand where this confession was coming from. The wedding must have brought something up for him that I was unaware of. I really had no idea what he was talking about when he said he didn’t want to be married anymore. Here comes that two-by-four again! Whack!