This Married to Medicine Pal Was the First to Reach Out to Dr. Jackie Walters After the News of Her Husband's Infidelity
Here's what the Married to Medicine OBGYN really thought of the squad's comments about her relationship.
This season of Married to Medicine began with a shocking revelation. Dr. Jackie Walters shared that she had been dealing with the very public aftermath of her husband Curtis Berry's affair, which grabbed headlines in blogs across the Internet.
Though Dr. Jackie has always been open about her struggles and successes on Married to Medicine, this is actually one aspect of her life that she had hoped to keep private. "So let me clarify, I did not want to reveal it. If it had been left up to me, you wouldn't know it. However, since it was revealed to the world that Curtis was in some inappropriate relationship for a period of time, I mean, it's as heartbreaking as one can imagine. I think this was doubly heartbreaking in that I get to share it with the world," Dr. Jackie told Bravotv.com earlier this season. "So finding out that that level of trust has been betrayed is very traumatic. But my own personality is to process inwardly and just kind of figure out what to do next."
Dr. Jackie said she didn't immediately hear from most of the Married to Med crew after the story broke. "Oddly enough when the news hit, nobody really knew what to say, is what I believe. Now, Toya [Bush-Harris], oddly enough, was the first person to send me the text on the day it hit and say 'WTF is this?' And I just responded like, 'Oh, wow.' And she responded like, 'Oh my God, I told you something you didn't know,'" Dr. Jackie explained. "But the other ladies just kind of laid low for a couple of days. Nobody really reached out to me to say anything for maybe 48 to 72 hours, and then it became, 'If I can do anything for you, let me know.'"
Of course, it wasn't long before Dr. Jackie's pals had something to say about what was going on in her marriage. But perhaps fans weren't quite prepared for the impact it would have on the Married to Med couples. "We know that in the girlfriends circle, we all discuss the other girlfriend, and we all do pillow talk. And we go home to our boyfriends or significant others and just have a conversation about the other person. So I'm not surprised that all of the ladies and their spouses had something to say about it," Dr. Jackie said. "What was a little shocking to me was the double standard that was really out there in that men cannot tolerate it. They've been betrayed and damaged and they have post-traumatic stress after an adulterous affair happens. But for the woman, she should get over it and she should forgive and she should fix it is what I think I heard somebody say, [it] was like, 'Really?' So that part was a little bit unnerving. And then to hear another woman give another side to the story to say 'Maybe it is your fault that this happened' was a little bit different for me."
The Married to Med ladies also didn't have any trouble talking about Dr. Jackie's marital issues right in front of her — almost as if she wasn't even there — at the Waiting to Exhale party thrown in her honor in this season's premiere (clip above). "I think infidelity hits close to home for a lot of women, and hearing other women talk about what they would do or could do or should do was just chatter because I think until you sit in that seat, and you are the person who has to deal with infidelity, you really don't know what you're going to do," Dr. Jackie said of her reaction to the buzzy moment. "So allowing my friends to have a healthy conversation with me present was better than having the conversation without me there. So I allow that, and all I wanted was respect from them, and really, the respect to allow me to make my own decisions. But to say what I should do, I would not have allowed. But to say what they would've done in that situation, I chuckle at, because you don't know."
Though Dr. Jackie said that reliving the time right after Curtis' affair this season of Married to Med has been like "opening up a wound that had not completely healed," she ultimately felt the support from her friends at the Waiting to Exhale party. "The party was for me, so that was very thoughtful. And I wouldn't ruin the party because I had French fries, my go-to when life gets tough. They had the cute, little, oily men hanging out," Dr. Jackie said. "But it was cathartic in that they could get it out, and they helped me in the ways that they knew how."
Dr. Jackie opens up more about moving on from infidelity in the video, below.
