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Ever since she filed for divorce last October from husband of 10 years, Freddy Harteis, Jeannie Mai has been very forthcoming on The Real about the epiphanies she’s had when it comes to that relationship. She most recently shared that due to the ugly turn their divorce proceedings took due to money, if she knew then what she knows now about Harteis and whom he’s allegedly shown himself to be, she wouldn’t have married him in the first place.
Now she’s saying that just a year into their decade-long marriage (they were together overall for 13 years), she started to feel as though she’d made a mistake. She says it’s a common feeling.
“One thing I noticed is, if it’s been a year since — Hand to heart I swear, any woman who has been divorced, in that year, you know. You have red flags if it’s not going to work. I did. Isn’t that real guys?” she said as the audience clapped in support. “You know what I’m saying? You know what I’m saying.”
“That women’s intuition,” she continued. “And I’ve said it before. I knew a year, for sure.”
So the sensible follow-up question is, why let another nine years pass before throwing in the towel if her intuition was telling her something wasn’t right? Jeannie blamed it on the fact that she wanted to see through what she started, and she also didn’t want to hurt Freddy.
“I’m still having that conversation with myself. You’re always going to ask, ‘Damn, why did you wait so long?’ But as a woman, and I’m proud of this trait I have, I’m loyal as [inaudible],” she said. “I really am. And when I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. And it’s another human being who put all of his hope into trying to make it work, so you’ve got to try! And so, as much as I’m proud of myself, I’m also like, you don’t have to wait so long when you know what’s right for you.”
Co-host Adrienne Houghton backed up Jeannie’s sentiments by saying that every person she knows who has been divorced has said the same thing — they had an inkling early on that they were in too deep with the wrong person or were originally pressured into getting married.
Jeannie said earlier this year on a previous episode of the The Real that it took prayer and going inward for her to realize it was time to move on.
“I love God. So when you get married, divorce is not an option. You try as hard as you can to make it work and there comes a point where you have to be honest with yourself to realize that you’re just not happy, and everything you do is only drawing you guys farther apart,” she said at the time.
“So it takes a sense of discernment, prayer, support from friends and also being real with yourself, to really just trust God still… he’s still there, and let go,” she added. “And it wasn’t until we actually…made the decision and took the distance apart, that I realized we are happier and truer versions of ourselves apart than we are together.”
