Mama Mia!
Melissa and Joe Gorga’s marital troubles came to a head on Wednesday’s episode of ‘The Real Housewives of New Jersey,’ when Joe announced that he and Melissa had ‘drifted apart’.
“It’s just life, it’s okay,” he added.
The couple’s bickering over dinner exploded as Melissa walked ahead of Joe to get to their car at the end of the night. (Yes, really.) Joe claimed that Melissa was no longer the housewife he married and at one point warned her, “Be careful what you say because I’ll never talk to you again.”
Melissa, 42, started yelling back that he was “spoiled” and that she had “kissed his ass” for years.
The outburst was a turnaround from before, as she tried to reassure Joe by saying, ‘If I’m having some success in my own personal life, that’s not against you. Let your wife have something of mine. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you. “
Fellow “RHONY” cast members Margaret Josephs and Jackie Goldschneider – and their respective husbands, Joe Benigno and Evan – tried to de-escalate the situation in the car and offered support to the pair when they returned to the house on the Gorgas coast.
As the two buried the hatchet to celebrate the late Giacinto Gorga in Wednesday’s episode, the argument returned in the mid-season ‘RHONJ’ trailer, in which Joe told Melissa he was ‘done’ with their marriage.
Envy boutique owner Melissa and Joe married in 2004 and share three children: Antonia, 15; Gino, 13; and Joey, 10.
Melissa acknowledged to Page Six in February that the couple was “going through a rough patch like a year and a half” that “started just before the pandemic”.
“I feel that as I become more and more independent in certain ways, it really is a struggle for him,” she added. “I hate that. It shouldn’t be a struggle and it is. We’re really going through it and we’re very raw and real and honest about it.
“The Real Housewives of New Jersey” airs Wednesday nights at 9pm ET on Bravo.