Ashley Darby’s time has officially come.
In an interview with The Daily Dish this week, The Real Housewives of Potomac star confirmed that she has filed for divorce from husband Michael after 10 years as husband and wife.
The announcement comes more than two years after Darby told People she was separating from her spouse.
“Signing divorce papers is bittersweet. My friend put it this way: Leaving a marriage is like leaving the house you’ve made memories in for years,” Darby told The Daily Dish via email last weekend.
“Right before you close the door for the last time, you think about all the incredible things like your kids and the lasting memories, and then you just have to close the door and move on.”
Ashley and Michael have sons Dean Michael and Dylan Matthew Darby.
She accepts that separated husband and wife will always maintain a special relationship with each other.
She added, “Even though I’m not romantically invested in Michael, he will always have a very special place in my heart.”
“It’s a love I can’t even begin to explain, especially sharing our two amazing sons, Dean and Dylan. I am incredibly inspired by our future – best wishes for more healing, prosperity and change!
Darby continued, knowing that she has been separated for a long time, but divorce is a more “official” step altogether:
“I have the freedom to live life my way, and I’m very excited to see what that looks like.”
It is noteworthy that Ashley is 29 years younger than her future ex.
But he insisted in 2022 that the age difference played no role in their breakup.
The couple then said, “We know there will be a lot of speculation about why we have made this decision.”
“People will be quick to assume that the reason is too much intrusion of reality TV into the most personal parts of our lives, age gap issues, cultural problems or differences in child-rearing.
“Pieces of all of these may have influenced our pure love for each other, but no single reason is the root cause of our mutual decision to go our separate ways.”
Ashley and Michael hope to have their paperwork submitted, signed and completed by the end of the year.
On season 9 of The Real Housewives of Potomac, Ashley said that she and Michael are “cordial and co-parenting”, later telling Bravo in a separate interview:
“Michael and I are doing great at co-parenting.
“There was a point where we were doing ‘parallel parenting.'” Parallel parenting is where you don’t really talk at all. So thankfully, we’re not doing that. Co-parenting -Nurture is a little different in the sense that we actually communicate. We celebrated Halloween with the kids the other day, which was nice.