Meghan King Edmonds Opens up About the Challenges in Her Relationship with Husband Jim's Ex-Wives and Children

Meghan King Edmonds opened up about the challenges of navigating her relationship with husband Jim Edmonds' ex-wives and his children during a recent interview with Page Six.

The Real Housewives of Orange County alum shared that she had several reservations about going out on a date with Jim back in April 2013, including the fact that he was a former MLB player and 15 years her senior, in addition to already being the father of four children and in the process of divorcing his second wife, Allison Jayne Raski. “I never dated athletes,” Meghan told Page Six. “I thought they were too immature and full of themselves. I kept talking to my sister, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I should go. He’s so much older than me, and he has all these kids.’ And [my sister] Julie was like, ‘You’re not going to marry him. Who cares, just go.’”

Though Jim was still legally married to Allison at the time, Meghan told Page Six that she believed that they were both ready to see other people. “She was in a full-blown relationship months before Jimmy and I went on our first date,” Meghan said. “That guy, she’s married to right now and they have a baby.”

But when Meghan's relationship with Jim started to become more serious, she claimed that she began receiving phone calls from Allison, who would say things like, “she wanted [her] husband back. She’ll always love him.”

Meghan alleged that comments like that from Allison have been a "theme ever since" in her relationship with Jim. Allison did not respond to Page Six's request for comment. “I honestly could not fathom any relationship with Jimmy’s children or ex-wives as anything but loving because I knew how I love and understand love,” Meghan said. “Now I have since understood that that’s not how everyone operates, and so that has been extremely difficult for me.”

After tying the knot in October 2014, the RHOC couple traveled back-and-forth between St. Louis and Orange County to help care for Jim's daughters from his first marriage, Lauren and Hayley Edmonds, on the West Coast as his first wife, LeAnn Horton, battled colon cancer. LeAnn passed away in July 2015.

Hayley would eventually move in with Meghan and Jim in St. Louis for a short time during her junior year of high school. Meghan always took her role as a #CoolStepmom seriously, as we saw on RHOC, and she has been open about the rough patches she has hit in her relationship with Hayley in the past. However, Meghan's relationship with Lauren, Hayley, as well as daughter Sutton and son Landon from his marriage to Allison, appears to be in a good place in recent months.

As Meghan works on her relationship with Jim following his cheating scandal, which grabbed headlines in June, she is concentrating on the well-being of her family, which also includes the children she had with her husband, 1-year-old twin sons Hayes and Hart and daughter Aspen, who will turn 3 in November. “My kids and my family are everything to me," she told Page Six. "I’m just focusing on the things that matter.”