Former ‘Real Housewives of Potomac’ stars Monique and Chris Samuels are officially divorced.
via People:
Documents for the divorce have been sealed, but a judge signed off on the judgement after the pair’s final hearing earlier this month. PEOPLE has reached out to the pair for comment.
Monique, 39, and Chris, 46, wed in March 2012 and are parents to daughter Milani, 8, and sons Christopher, 10, and Chase, 4.
PEOPLE exclusively revealed on June 20 that Monique filed for divorce from the former NFL player. Per the docket, Monique filed a complaint for absolute divorce on April 14 before filing an amended complaint for absolute divorce on June 15. Hearings continued throughout the summer.
The exes’ marital woes took center stage in season 1 of Love & Marriage: D.C., and occasionally came up during their four-seasons on RHOP. News of their split first broke during BravoCon in October 2022, when PEOPLE exclusively reported the former pair had separated after 10 years of marriage.
That same month, Monique and Chris chose to address the matter in a lengthy YouTube video, saying, “It’s no secret that Chris and I have been struggling in some areas of our marriage and anybody who watched Love & Marriage: D.C. last year, y’all saw the arguments, y’all saw everything that was going on.”
“It was a lot of confusion, it was crazy building up to that 10-year marker of our marriage and when you’ve been married that long and when you have things that you’re like, ‘Listen, this is being unmet or I’ve been unheard’ you start to get frustrated and it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, is this what life is going to be? I can’t take it anymore,'” she continued. “So what y’all saw on Love & Marriage: D.C. last season, it was my cry for help.”
Despite their issues, the two assured fans at the time that they were “absolutely not” separating, but were partaking in solo therapy to work “on their personal issues.” It was in those therapy sessions that Monique eventually decided to walk away from the relationship.
“I was in therapy and my counselor asked me, ‘What is it that you want? If you could have the ideal marriage, if you could have everything you want from a marriage, what is it that you want?’ And she told me to write those things down,” she recalled during an Instagram Live in July. “Then, she told me, ‘If he is unable to do those things for you, and he is the same that he is now and he never changes, are you able to live life with him for the rest of your life?’ And she was like, ‘I want you to think about it. Next time we meet, we’ll talk about it. I don’t want you to answer right now.’ “
From there, Monique “took two weeks writing down all of the pros, all of the cons, and really, really thinking about it,” she said. Afterward, “I just got to the point where I was in a place where I was so miserable,” she admitted.
“It wasn’t just all on him, it was also just with myself, dealing with my own issues and trauma, understanding myself and why I respond and react the ways I do, going through my childhood,” she explained. “Y’all, I’ve done some work. I’ve been doing some work and it wasn’t easy. It’s not easy to look at the things about yourself that you don’t like and you don’t love and say, ‘You know what, I’m going to love the bad parts of me, I’m going to love the good parts, which is easier. But even the things that I don’t like about myself, I have to really embrace that and love that.”
Self-love hasn’t been easy. “Oh, my God. It has been quite a ride. But I was determined to really do the work and grow,” she said. “And the more I grew, and the more I started to realize myself and I started to create boundaries for myself, that’s when I knew I am no longer the person that I was when I walked down that aisle 11 years ago.”
“You get to the point where you just accept the fact that this is the fact. Like, this is where it is, you know?” she added. “And that’s what led me to the point where I was like, ‘You know what, I think [this] is what will be best.’ “
While Monique realized their problems weren’t surmountable, she didn’t go deep into what they were, instead just saying that they were “bickering at each other and we’re not able to communicate” to the point where they were “sometimes not even talking to each other.”
“We are where we are regardless without y’all knowing that information or not knowing that information,” she said. “This is what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to say things that will paint a negative image of him nor will he paint a negative image of me because at the end of the day, what’s good is that going to do? Me trying to defend my actions and defend why I am where I am and put that out on social media really does nothing for us and it does nothing for our co-parenting relationship. I know the reasons why and he knows the reason why and we are where we are and that’s it.”
In fact, their children and her desire to be a good example for them only justified the decision to divorce for Monique. “I was thinking like most people, ‘Okay, we’re going to stay together for the kids.’ But that never works because staying together for the kids means that you’re giving them a terrible example of what a relationship should be like,” she said on Instagram.
Now, her kids are getting a healthy example of what a relationship is, she said.
“My children notice a difference in how we’re able to parent with us not focusing on the marriage. We’re focusing on ourselves and we’re focusing on our children,” she said. “I know that right now, I am being a far better example of self-love for my children not than I ever have in our life.”
“It’s not been the easiest decision to make, but it’s where we are and we’ll continue being a family. We’ll continue to co-parent in a way that’s loving,” said Monique. “At the end of the day, there’s only three people I care about and that’s Christopher, Milani and Chase. That’s it.”
We wish them both the best.
