The end of an era. The moment Teresa Giudice and Joe Giudice chose to part ways after 20 years of marriage aired during the season 10 finale of The Real Housewives of New Jersey on Wednesday, February 26.
The episode, titled “Family Reunion,” showed the longtime couple reuniting in Italy after the businessman left the U.S. for Europe in October 2019 amid his deportation drama. Teresa and Joe, both 47, were joined by their daughters Gia, 19, Gabriella, 16, Milania, 15, and Audriana, 11. Teresa stayed with the pair’s daughters at a hotel, while Joe remained with relatives.
Joe pursued Teresa on various occasions throughout the episode. During their first night all together, things got awkward when he attempted to share a bed with his now-estranged wife. “I need to go back up to the house and grab my things,” Joe said, in which Teresa replied, “Are you sleeping here tonight? Huh?”
The New Jersey housewife then asked if Joe wanted to stay with their daughters, but he pointed out that “the beds are little.” To this, Teresa asked, “I mean… Were you expecting to sleep with me?” Joe, for his part, said: “I mean… we’ve got 20 years in our marriage.”
Things took a turn for the worse when Teresa brought up her feelings on their marriage following the Italy native’s prison and ICE stints. She noted it’s “kind of weird” to be romantic with one another because they “haven’t been together in almost four years.” She also questioned how their marriage would work while she’s in the U.S. and he’s in Italy.
“Well, you get in a plane and we meet places, that’s all. And we have fun. And that’s what we do. We make things work,” Joe proposed, while Teresa argued, “The past five years have been really dark. You’ve said a lot of hurtful things to me — you wish you’d never married me, and all this other stuff. It just makes me think about a lot of things.”
Joe eventually got to the point where he asked Teresa straight up if she wanted to end their marriage. She responded, “I mean, do you want me to lie to you?”
Us Weekly confirmed in December 2019 that Teresa and Joe had called it quits after being married for two decades. At the time, a source told Us that the estranged pair had no plans to divorce just yet. But they “decided it was best for them to separate” during their Italy reunion.
“Neither of them wanted to be in a long-distance relationship,” the insider revealed. “Joe has been dating in Italy, Teresa is busy taking care of their girls right now. They harbor no ill will toward each other and will continue to coparent their kids.”
On February 22, Joe noted via Instagram that he knew his marriage was over the moment Teresa didn’t want to sleep in the same bed with her. “My ‘AHA moment!’ That was my moment of insight,” he wrote, captioning a clip from the finale. “I felt rejected.”
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs on Bravo Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
