RHOC: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Kelly And Michael Dodd’s Relationship

Kelly Dodd joined The Real Housewives of Orange County in season 11. At this time, she’d recently gotten back together with her husband, Michael Dodd, who also appears on the show quite frequently, but their relationship was still tumultuous. Viewers watched Kelly Dodd be extremely candid about the fact that not only is her marriage far from perfect, but she’s also unhappy, so fans weren’t surprised to hear her announce she was divorcing her husband. While they are still together during the current season of RHOC, things will begin to take a turn for the worse. Ahead of that, here’s a look at 10 things you probably didn’t know about Kelly and Michael Dodd’s relationship!

10. Love at First Sight

Kelly and Michael had been together for 11 years! They first met in 2004 at Tao in New York City. Kelly described it as love at first sight. “We hit it off right away. It was immediate chemistry, immediate love right away.” In 2006 they got married and had their first and only child, Jolie, through IVF.

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9. When the Problems Started

In an interview with ET, Kelly gave the run-down on her history with Michael. “I was married to him for a while, [then we] moved to San Francisco. I didn’t like San Francisco. We had problems in the marriage. So, I got a job working at the Orange County Register in Orange County. He let me move…and then Michael was going back and forth,” she said. Unfortunately, the constant back and forth nature of their relationship caused a lot of stress and strain, and they eventually grew apart.

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8. Legally Separated

Five years ago, Kelly filed for divorce from Michael, but it was never finalized. During this time they were legally separated for two years, and Kelly was even engaged to another man! According to Kelly, the reason behind their separation was because Michael was “very controlling.” Even though they still continued to bicker, his controlling got a lot better because he knew she’d leave if it didn’t. “He doesn’t behave that way anymore because he knows I’ll bounce if he does. I was describing him [to explain] the reasons why I dissolved the marriage,” said Kelly to The Daily Dish. “There’s a lot of reasons, but that was one of them. And I don’t like somebody being a control freak. I’m a control freak enough. I don’t need somebody else telling me what to do.”

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7. Kelly Was Engaged to Someone Else

Kelly has been accused of having an affair not once, but twice while on RHOC! First by Shannon in season 11 and then again this season by Meghan. Neither of the accusations have gone any further than rumorville. As soon as she began filming, Kelly was honest with the other women about her past and the fact that she was engaged to another man while separated from her husband, Michael. Of course, she never went through with the engagement and ended up going back to Michael. “I filed for legal separation and met another guy. [We] got engaged, I filed for divorce, and then me and the other guy didn’t work out. I went back to my husband, stayed with my husband. This was three years ago…everything’s back on track,” she said.

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6. Why They Got Back Together

After being legally separated for two years, Kelly and Michael decided to give their marriage another shot. One of the reasons they got back together, even after moving on with other people, was because they’d had such a long history and had built a family together. “It was important for me to keep our family unit together, keep our finances together. There’s just so many reasons of why I went back. There’s not, like, one thing; there’s a bunch of [reasons] why I wanted to work on our marriage, make it work for our family unit,” said Kelly to The Daily Dish.

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5. Why Kelly Stayed in her Unhappy Marriage

During season 10 of RHOC, Kelly very openly discussed how she contemplated divorcing Michael many times, but decided to stick it out because she wanted her daughter to have a family. She was also scared of losing custody of her daughter. One of the reasons she finally decided to go through with the divorce was because she realized that the situation she grew up in — watching her parents fight all the time, wasn’t any better. During an episode of season 12 she said, “Growing up I watched my parents fight so much that I wished they would get divorced. Michael and I, we fight a lot in front of Jolie. I thought keeping the marriage together for Jolie would be right for her because I didn’t want to see her flip back and forth. But it might be okay for Jolie to have a happy mom and happy dad. I don’t know.”

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4. An Addiction

A few months before she announced she would be divorcing Michael, Kelly compared their relationship to an addiction during an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “One month I wanna get divorced, then there’s the next month where I wanna stay married, you know? It’s always evolving. It’s always changing. We kind’ve are, like, addicted to each other, you know? I feel like I can’t live without him sometimes, and he feels like he can’t live without me. So, I mean, you know, we’ve always had that kind of relationship.”

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3. Being on Reality TV Together

One of the reasons many people probably weren’t surprised to hear that these two are getting divorced is because of what has been shown on The Real Housewives of Orange County for the past two seasons. Dodd joined the show in season 11 and right from the get-go was extremely open about her marriage to Michael and that they’d suffered through many marital issues. Marriage problems are nothing new on this show, but it was shocking to hear her speak so negatively about her husband on camera. In season 12 she seemed to be working toward treating each other better, especially when the cameras were around. “I think we came into this season thinking, OK, let’s not bash each other. Let’s not embarrass each other. But you forget that the cameras are on you, and it’s reality, and we do fight and, you know, we do throw jabs at each other. We do push each other’s buttons. Michael and I have our ups and downs. You know, one week it’s good, one week it’s awful,” she said to ET.

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2. Filing for Divorce

After much humming and hawing, Kelly Dodd told the Daily Mail that she’s “out of there!” and her marriage is over. Kelly is hopeful they’re relationship will get better as friends: “But right now we are both miserable and it’s not good for either one of us, let alone our daughter. Over the past several years we’ve had our ups and downs, and lately, it’s been mostly downs.” She later went on ET to confirm the news and said there was no final straw or big ‘ah-ha’ moment, but rather a build up of things. “He’s my family. He’s part of my family, and he always will be, you know? I always want him in my life. We always want to do things together with [our 10-year-old daughter], Jolie, and it was just, we just can’t live together. That’s it,” she said. “It was just, it was not working. I guess everyone has a final straw, I just…it was like, just disagreements all the time.”

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1. They Were Good Friends

Despite all their ups and downs, Kelly feels as though she and Michael will always have each other’s back, but are definitely missing the friendship aspect of their relationship right now. “I feel bad, because Michael is one of my really good friends, and we have a family together. I’m sad — I’m sad I can’t call him all the time and be excited about something. I don’t have that — the friendship element of it, or someone who has my back. He always has my back, but he’s upset with me right now, of course. But he’ll get over it,” she said to People.