In real time, Joe Giudice is penning sweet tributes to his daughters from Italy. On The Real Housewives of New Jersey, he was still in ICE custody.
Even behind bars, he found ways to say hurtful things to Teresa that crushed her spirit.
“I’m so f–king drained,” Teresa lamented on The Real Housewives of New Jersey while speaking to her brother, Joe Gorga.
Just because her husband was still in ICE custody didn’t mean that they couldn’t have other marital problems, too.
“Like, today,” she described, “Joe said the craziest s–t today. I can’t.”
“He said to me, ‘I just want you to know I feel nothing for you,'” Teresa revealed. Oof, that is deeply toxic.
“He told me,” Teresa recalled, “he’s like, ‘Go find somebody else. I won’t even be mad.'”
In recent phone calls, a still incarcerated Joe had claimed that he never wanted to marry Teresa in the first place.
Even more hurtfully, he had claimed that no man would, on account o fher “baggage.”
Folks, that is not healthy or okay for any couple, not even in a heated moment.
“If he’s saying all these negative things to you,” Joe reasoned, “why don’t you just move on in your life?”
In response, Teresa just sighed and gazed at nothing in the distance, looking defeated. Joe didn’t stand for that.
“No, I’m serious,” he insisted.
This is not the first time that Teresa’s loved ones have suggested that she consciously uncouple herself from her husband.
Joe then recalled: “Gia just said, ‘I don’t care if you guys are together.'”
“Maybe ’cause she feels it,” Teresa suggested.
“Like,” she said, “we bicker.”
“I don’t want the kids to live through that, you know?” Teresa said. “I don’t know.”
At this point, after Teresa has described how toxic and nasty her marriage has become, Joe can’t hold back any longer.
“You wanna know the truth?” he asked. “I never thought you guys had a good relationship.”
Joe expressed: “I just didn’t see him treating you the way you should have been treated.”
Sarcastically, Teresa replied: “Thanks for telling me now.”
We all know that people in toxic relationships are often not ready to hear the truth until they’re in a specific mood.
Joe explained: “I’m just telling you now because you’re in this situation.”
“You gotta get happy in life, you know what I mean?” he suggested. “I don’t know what you’re doing.”
Teresa confessed that, honestly, neither does she.
In a confessional, Joe Gorga tackled the topic of his brother-in-law’s behavior and of toxic masculinity, if not in so many words.
“Joe’s always gonna be arrogant,” he lamented.
Joe characterized: “He’s rough, he’s tough. He doesn’t know how to open up and be a man.”
“You know what a man is?” he asked. “When he can look at you and say ‘I love you. You’re amazing. You’re beautiful.’ That’s a f–king man.”
In other news, Margaret Josephs through a big, shiny party.
Remember with Jennifer started a needless conflict by repeatedly calling Jackie Goldschneider “cheap” after learning about her family money?
Yes, apparently that Jackie served her kids the pizza that they wanted meant that she was being tight-fisted, in Jennifer’s view.
That had resulted in a near-physical confrontation with Melissa Gorga. Utensils were thrown. It was not pretty.
While Jennifer barely said hello to Melissa, she did go to the party with the intention of sincerely apologizing to Jackie.
Joe Gorga brought up the incident to Jennifer’s husband, Bill, as if he were somehow accountable for her behavior. (Really just to stir up drama)
Bill was a little apologetic at first, but then Joe implied that Bill wasn’t boning Jennifer often enough or well enough to keep her calm.
That was enough for Bill, who just walked away while Joe tried to get him to engage in the pointless conflict. Charming.
