The Rules According to Teresa

This is when Ashlee decided she needed her independence and moved to California all on her own. You got to give her credit for having the strength to do that. You will be thrilled to know that she is doing well and has learned a lot of life lessons the way she needed to learn them, which was through her own experiences. There are always lessons to be learned in life, but she has come a very long way and I am very proud of her for how far she has come. My strong-willed child is growing up, and we have never been better in our relationship as we are now. Life is a challenge, but it is good! I just visited with her in California and she will be coming to visit me at the end of the month again for a couple of weeks. I'm so excited!

I relate to Lauren's struggle to lose weight as I am sure plenty of other women do. I know exactly how she is feeling. It is not always about your willpower, although I think my problem is. Sometimes it's a combination of your genes, your body type, and your body chemistry along with your body's ability to process and breakdown food. It can be a life-long struggle. Luckily Lauren has now lost a lot of weight and looks absolutely amazing! She feels much more confident about herself now and that makes me so happy. Check her out in the new US Weekly telling her story, since it is hers to tell.

As far as Teresa's bankruptcy goes, Teresa was right when she said that declaring bankruptcy does not mean that your life ends and you should go crawl up in a hole and die. You are allowed to start your life again. Did it appear to anyone as if Teresa was really afraid of being poor? There seemed to be no shortage of money to me. I knew Teresa worked hard, but I also knew the bankruptcy had not been approved and there were some crazy stories in the press going around about her that worried me. I was trying my best not to judge some of their life style choices during that time, although I do admit, at times it was very hard not to. It is especially hard to avoid staying out of each other’s business during filming, because we’re together so much. I was very confused at the time, because I was reading one thing in the tabloids about her life and then I was seeing something completely different in the way she was living in her real life. As a friend, I was really worried about what was going to happen to her and her family. I was also upset from reading about her life in the tabloids along with the rest of America instead of my "best friend" opening up to me about what was really going on so that I could be there for her. Even if she didn't need me, at least she could help to ease my mind.

Teresa and I had talked a few times about how she got paid for these articles, with the exception of People magazine and that she had two more covers coming out in In Touch after her vow renewal cover. She did share with me some of the stories she wanted to put out there about herself, but when new stories came out in the tabloids, I didn't know anymore what was true or what was not true. I didn't want to pry into her business by asking her about them, but at the same time, I wanted to know because she was my friend. I cared about her and everyone else in America was reading these tabloids and talking about it while I knew nothing. It was crazy that she would talk to the tabloids but not her "best friend" or family about her life. How would you all feel? Really think about that. I was supposed to be her best friend, you'd think she would mention them to me. It never seemed to occur to her that I was worrying sick about her. How could she expect everyone to ignore it? How could she not think about addressing it with us or be offended if we asked any questions about it, especially if the articles mentioned one of us? It was like a hit and run.

I was wondering if Teresa was just profiting from people's pity by benefiting from a big media scam while she was really living the high life or was my friend really in trouble, denying it to herself, suffering in silence and getting deeper in debt. I was starting to not respect her choices, and I really felt like I didn't know who she was anymore. I felt like I was always trying to justify her actions to everyone. So much about her life was being fabricated, so I had no idea what was real anymore. From what I was hearing from some of our mutual friends, I was starting to question whether or not our friendship was even real or if she just needed me as an ally on the show. I heard she wasn’t pleased with me because I wasn't joining her army in her fight against her family. Who in their right mind would help her fight her family, especially when we all had to work together? A true friend would help bring them back together. A true friend would never expect me to harm her family and start another war between them. As far as the fight on the deck, please take note that before Caroline showed up, Teresa and I were going back and forth for 5 long hours! I was exhausted at that point. I had NO IDEA that Caroline was going to show up. It was not meant to be an ambush at all, although I do understand how it must have felt to Teresa. I felt like I needed to get her to open her eyes to the reality of certain situations she was creating, and I wanted her to be real with me for once and for all to my face. I wanted all my questions answered. I couldn't take it anymore. There were a lot of things said on the deck that day that you didn’t see. What's important and all that matters is that Teresa and I know what was said and all you need to know was that it was the turning point in our relationship.

You can always go back to my Season 3 blog An Eye Opener (pages 9 and 10) to understand a little more about the point I was trying to make to Teresa about her responding to Danielle's tweet. She was off our show and out of all of our lives. I could not be upset, however, if Teresa changed her mind and wanted to be friendly with Danielle again, but I wanted her to notice that she doesn't play by her own rules. I would never fault her for being anyone’s friend that I am not friendly with, because my battles are my own to fight. I actually prefer it that way. If you agree with me about someone, then that is a bonus. What annoyed me was that Teresa had been trying to fault me for being friendly with Danielle, when Danielle had issues with my family all while Teresa had been friendly with her as well, until she did things to offend HER personally. The truth is that Teresa didn't shun Danielle for me or my family like she tried to make it seem, but she shunned her for things that Danielle did and said about her personally. Teresa considered it disloyal for me, but yet it's OK for her to want to be friendly with Danielle when it benefited her. It was OK for Teresa to invite Danielle to our dinner on the Season 1 finale knowing her other friends hated her. It was also OK for Teresa to choose to say hello to Danielle at the Posche fashion a couple of years ago when she knew she was doing horrible things to me and my daughter. (I never got upset with her over that.) Teresa also considers it OK for her to publicly thank Danielle on Twitter for coming forward to expose Melissa for talking to her two years ago back when they were fighting. Teresa considered me "disloyal" in her rule book when I was friendly with Danielle or when I wasn't agreeing with her on matters concerning how she was dealing with her family, but when it benefited Teresa, she could reach out to her. Define your definition of "loyalty" Teresa and stick to it! That was the point I was trying to make on that topic.

Teresa's rules always seem to change when it came to applying them to herself. I was trying to point out how hypocritical she was being. I told Teresa to just simply ask Melissa if the rumor was true and then ask, "What made you hate me that much that you would talk to someone that hated me so much?" I told her to ask her why she did that, hear her out, and then let it go like she expects everyone else to do when she's in the wrong. "Why not just let it go?" I asked. I only said that to make a point. Asking Melissa about it would have been better than thanking Danielle publicly for coming forward with this information and drawing more attention to someone that was jealous of everybody and was deliberately trying to hurt Teresa's family for no good reason but to be rotten. To be fair, Teresa had been guilty of the same thing she was accusing Melissa for, and I wanted to make her see that. There were a few people that really disliked Melissa that Teresa had no problem talking to and about her, but again, that was OK and her loyalty rules didn't apply to herself.

Teresa and I had a talk over the phone the night before our talk on the deck. It was right after she tweeted to thank Danielle for her information and then told her she wasn't surprised. I told Teresa that, in my opinion, it made her look worse than Melissa because she was trying to "out" Melissa for something she did two years ago when they weren't friendly with each other. At this point in time, Teresa was trying so hard to pretend that she wanted peace with her family and I was getting tired of trying to help Teresa cover up the fact that she really didn't. I just wanted her to give her family a fair shot at working to resolve their issues. I wanted peace for her, especially while filming. I wanted peace for all of us.In that phone call, I also reminded her that Danielle was trying desperately to get back on our show and trying way too desperately to stay relevant. By responding to her, she was only feeding her and bringing her back to life. Danielle had tried to hurt us all, including Teresa. We had all agreed after the Season 2 reunion that we wanted to keep Danielle out of our lives and out of our mouths. I reminded Teresa of that and she agreed with me, so that is when she changed her tune the next day in her Bravo blog stating that she (all of a sudden) "didn't believe" Danielle and told her if she had the "proof" to "show it or shut up and leave her family alone." Which, in my opinion, came off more as a challenge to Danielle than trying to silence her. I think she was hoping Danielle would make the proof that Melissa had talked to her public and everyone would hate Melissa again because she saw how people were starting to like her and she didn't like that.

It appeared to me that as much as Teresa claimed that Danielle was her worst enemy and Melissa had conspired with her, it was more important for Teresa to expose Melissa by challenging Danielle, even though it could hurt everyone else in the process by bringing her back into our lives. It wasn't like Melissa talked to Danielle recently trying to hurt Teresa. It was two years ago when they weren't getting along, and I knew that Teresa was guilty of doing the SAME thing. I wanted Teresa to see that she was accusing her brother of holding on to resentment and rehashing the past while doing the SAME THING herself! Again, her rules change to benefit her. I'm not AT ALL saying that it was right for Melissa to talk to Danielle. I admitted that I thought it was wrong, but Teresa was also trying to hurt Melissa by exposing whatever she could about her in the present and not just in the past.

When you look at Season 4, you can see how supportive Melissa has been in trying to keep the peace between her and Teresa and between Teresa and her brother despite Teresa's insults to her. As far as I could see, Teresa was the one doing and saying things to and about her family and coincidentally things kept being slipped into the tabloids about her family as well. In other words, Teresa would do little things to try to sabotage her family and friends like putting things about them in articles, sabotaging potential business opportunities, etc. all while claiming that she wanted to be one big happy family again. I was getting tired of hearing about it all the time, and I didn't want to be a part of it anymore. It was becoming very overwhelming for me. I couldn't get through to her, and it was getting harder and harder to justify her behavior and explain mine. Teresa never used the words to me, "I don't want you to be friends with Melissa or Kathy!" But she DID imply it. What she DID say was, "Whose side are you on, my side or Melissa and Kathy's side?" and, "If I am your friend, why won't you call them out?" and, " If you were MY friend you would say (this) or (that)!" or "Don't say (this) or (that)." What Teresa wasn't getting was that when I saw her family saying or doing something wrong, I DID tell them my opinion. I mostly disagreed with Joey's name calling (garbage, bitch, etc.) and I felt like he owed her an apology as well. I truly cared and wanted them to get past their issues, but Teresa would never let up or let go of anything and then she would put the blame entirely on everyone else without taking any accountability for her own actions. At this point in time, I rarely spoke to her family so I didn't know them well enough to get too deep into a conversation about it with them and they were never bashing Teresa to me. It was frustrating to me, because I really wanted peace between everyone while filming. (As much as possible, at least.) I just couldn't see the end in sight to their bickering and it was filling up my head. Don't forget I had to work with all of these people, and I hated all this negativity and the pressures on me to do and say things that were expected of me. I had my own things on my plate and I didn't need to eat all of their sh-- too! It was overwhelming. Besides all of that, she never seemed to care about anything that I was going through. It was too one-sided of a friendship, and she became too high maintenance. I still loved her, I still cared, but I was still hurt.

I snap a little bit in next week’s episode. I felt rejected by Teresa. I felt like she was being so fake. I'm not proud of my behavior, but you will witness the "angry and hurt" me. I would like to call next episode my a--hole episode. We ALL have one. Enjoy!

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