Sophie Stanbury Has Been "Extremely Angry, Extremely Happy, Extremely Hurt" During Her Divorce
The #LadiesOfLondon mom opened up about the ups and downs of her split.
Sophie Stanbury has been on an emotional roller coaster this season of Ladies of London, and she has taken viewers along for the ride. We've seen her struggle in her relationship with sister-in-law Caroline Stanbury, dance on top of bars, and, of course, deal with her separation and eventual divorce from her ex, Alex Stanbury.
But the decision to put the ups and the downs of her life out there wasn't an easy one for Sophie at first. "It was really hard. It was a big decision to figure out whether to share my story and my life with the public or not. I think from the British point-of-view, it's very unheard of. It's not the done thing," she told The Daily Dish in December. "For me personally, I was absolutely petrified, but it was a really cathartic experience."
Sophie said her separation from Alex has been filled with just as many emotions as we've seen play out on Ladies of London this season. "You go through phases of being extremely angry, extremely happy, extremely hurt, extremely liberated, extremely lonely. There's so many different feelings that go through you when you're going through a separation. And I really tried to handle them in a kind of demure, appropriate way," Sophie explained. "And I'm sure at times I didn't, because you do have those moments of anger where you just throw something out there or object to something or you protest about the way somebody else is treating you or treating them or whatever."
It was particularly difficult for her to watch back the episode featuring her son Finn's 3rd birthday party when she expressed that she felt like Alex wasn't around enough. "I think this episode, in particular, is really painful to watch, and I definitely regret, perhaps commenting on Alex not being there, because at the end of the day, he is there and he is a great dad and the boys adore him being around and he's around as much as he can be," the mom of two said.
When The Daily Dish caught up with Sophie in late December, she said that her divorce from Alex was not yet finalized, but they're ready to move on. "It takes a long time to settle and to settle with your feelings and to figure stuff out. So I think we're now in a good place with each other where we can settle things really amicably rather than knee-jerk reactions to things and having a negative resolution," Sophie explained. "And I think we've come full circle. We've come through the negative highs and lows, we've been through the positive ones, and now we're really on an even keel with it. So now we're at the point where we're gonna finalize things and draw a line under it."
But Sophie said the separation was still very raw for her this season, especially when she was overcome with emotion during the ladies' final dinner in Scotland. "We were sitting around that table in Scotland, and I could see Caroline and Cem [Habib] and Juliet [Angus] and Gregor [Angus] and Marissa [Hermer] and Matt [Hermer]. We had hung out so much together as friends on-and-off camera, to not have Alex in that moment was totally heartbreaking for me," she told The Daily Dish during a separate interview in January. "But, unfortunately, when you've been through something that's quite brutal, it sometimes just comes out of you. It was that moment when we were all sitting around the table and I was thinking, 'God, I feel like someone's really missing here.' I'm not saying that I wanted to get back with Alex in that moment, but it just really hit me in that moment that that part of my life is over and now Caroline and Cem were moving away. I just felt really like, 'Oh God, how am I gonna do this on my own?' So yeah, it was a bit painful."
Sophie said she feels like she and Alex have come a long way since they first decided to break up. "Alex and I are in a great place now. It's taken time, and we've had a lot of stuff to figure out. I think the initial separation, you both go so far apart so quickly, the communication is not as good. And I think now, we've really come to the point where we are talking, we are communicating, we are figuring things out and making plans," Sophie shared with The Daily Dish in December. "We're friends again, which is really nice. So hopefully, we'll stay like that."
Watch Sophie open up more about her relationship with Caroline and Alex, below.
