Getting back to a good place. Amber Portwood went through a horrifying experience over July 4th weekend when she was arrested for domestic abuse against boyfriend Andrew Glennon. However, that’s in her past — and now, she’s moving ahead.
“I really had to go through something terrible in order for me to kind of sit back and say, ‘Hey, this is what I need to work on. This is how I work on it. And no more excuses. It’s time to actually do the job and get it done — one by one and not putting too much on myself,'” the Teen Mom OG star, 29, tells Us Weekly in the latest issue, on newsstands now. “I think once I started doing it that way and really working hard on it in the best way that I could, I learned to truly, truly love myself in a sense.”
Portwood shares 22-month-old son James with Glennon, 35, and 11-year-old daughter Leah, with ex Gary Shirley. Throughout the entire process, she knew that her kids were the only thing she was focused on.
“I think that one thing that people are going to see within this next season is me just completely changing, in some aspects, of how I do things differently when it comes to my family and how I relate them back into my life,” she says, noting that her relationship with men has also changed. “I feel like I had this very immature outlook on filling that void in my heart. I needed to fill it with some sort of love and the main focus I had was men at the time.”
After everything that happened, she began to put her full trust in her family and friends. Plus, she didn’t need someone romantically to “fill a void” when she had a great group — and her own positive spirit.
“My children are my main priority always, even though it might be hard for some people to think that,” she said. “I truly just try to think of my family, think of my beautiful children and what I need to do next so I can be here for them and be the best mom I can be. I did a major change within myself and within my life in a little less than a year and I am happy. It’s a blessing in disguise as well as one of the hardest times in my life.”
For more from Portwood, pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands now.
Teen Mom OG returns to MTV Tuesday, March 17, at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Brody Brown
