Alexis Bellino's Marriage Started "Getting Toxic" Prior to Her Divorce

The last time we saw Alexis Bellino on The Real Housewives of Orange County, she was happily married to Jim Bellino. But upon her return to the series to catch up with her friend Emily Simpson, we learned that Alexis and Jim had decided to call it quits, and she's now in love with a new guy named Drew Bohn. The RHOC couple finalized their divorce in August 2018 after 14 years of marriage.

Alexis recently told PeopleTV's Reality Check that she never thought she and Jim would ever be in this position. "I thought Jim was gonna be my forever. When I took those vows, I honestly didn't think divorce was going to be an option," she said. "But when it starts getting toxic enough in the relationship and between two people that it bleeds into the family or it's just too much, I think you have to take a step back. I had to pray for a long time about it."

Some people may chalk Alexis and Jim's divorce up to the reality TV curse where many high-profile couples ultimately break up after appearing on-camera together. "Well, Jim and I have two different opinions about that. For me, the show didn't tear us apart more because it actually gave me something that was my own and it gave me a career. I wasn't just a wife, a maid, a nurse, a mom, a taxi driver; I actually had something that was for me again," Alexis explained on Reality Check. "But I know he feels that the show probably brought the marriage to more of an end faster, or just to an end."

Alexis said that she's hoping Emily and Shane Simpson don't suffer the same fate as their marriage goes through some ups and downs this season of RHOC. "I just said, 'Girl, it's very similar, and it's scary to me, and I am just here for you. And I just want you to do whatever you can to save your marriage because on the other side of it, divorce isn't easy,'" Alexis recalled a conversation she had with Emily after watching an episode earlier this season of RHOC. "There's many nights I cry myself to sleep. Drew and I both still do because we miss our kids, and neither of us would be in a divorce situation like selectively, like we wouldn't have wanted to be where we are. I feel for her a lot."

Luckily, Alexis has seen a change in Emily and Shane since this season of RHOC. "They're doing a lot better now, just so you know. Things happen, and there's definitely ups and downs in a marriage," she shared. "But I just did want to reach out to her and let her know I saw some similarities, and I was here to support her."

Alexis doesn't want Emily to have to experience the hardships that divorce brings. "Well, I'm not gonna say it's always been picture perfect because at the beginning of the divorce, it was definitely, and through the divorce process, it was definitely rocky, tumultuous, hard, so many emotions," she shared. "I mean, anyone going through a divorce knows everything I'm talking about. You're crying over the loss of your family. You're crying over sharing your kids."

However, the exes are now on the other side of that difficult time. "But in the end, now coming full circle, we've been through it all. It's been a year-and-a-half now. We've worked out a good friendship, and I think we'll always be friends 'til the day we die because we have three beautiful children together that we have to bring through this world. And the best way to do it is to be friends, right?" she said. "So you've got to put all the animosity and resentment behind you, which we're both doing, and move on. We got a divorce for a reason, and obviously we're better off as friends now because we're not under the same roof."

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