"In a marriage when there's a fight or an indiscretion, nobody wins if they leave," says the former "Real Housewives of Orange County" star.
Meghan King Edmonds is convinced her husband, Jim Edmonds, didn't physically cheat on her with the woman he was caught sexting last month.
On Monday, the former "Real Housewives of Orange County" star gave a lengthy and heartfelt update on the status of her marriage following the scandal, saying she knew in her heart there was "no physical relationship" between the Fox Sports broadcaster and alleged baseball groupie, identified as Jennifer Villegas, because Meghan "saw how gross she was."
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View Story"The second I saw her photo I saw she was disgusting," the mother of three told DailyMail.com. "I saw how gross she was and I knew, 'All good.' I knew he would never touch her. That helped me. Then I knew it was just a sexting thing. The pics she sent him were all highly filtered and she had sunglasses on, body parts were altered. It was all very sex related."
Meghan said that Jennifer told Jim "they had met in the past. She made up some story about how he helped her 10 years ago by carrying some stuff to her car or something."
"Then she wanted to know about his workouts," Meghan continued. "Then the naked pictures started coming. They never met 10 years or so ago either, that was a lie. I can't relate to somebody like that because I'm not immoral."
Of her feelings toward Jennifer, Meghan said, "She doesn't really mean anything to me. She's just like a function of my husband's bad decision. I don't want to think about her and I have nothing I want to say to her. Do I feel deep emotion about her at this point? No."
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View StoryMeghan explained she found out about Jim's indiscretions "the same day" and "the same way that everybody else did."
"A person I don't know forwarded me a link on social media. I clicked on it and read it," Meghan explained. "When I read it, I had a feeling, I knew in my gut there was truth to it. I was shocked and I took a shower."
At the time, Jim was in New York. She said, "We FaceTimed and he came clean and told me everything."
"He was extremely emotional, crying and remorseful. He wanted to fly straight back to be with me but I told him that I did not want him to do that until he had finished working, so that's what he did," Meghan said, adding that they continued the conversation in person once he was home. "I felt at the time that those revelations would be the tip of the iceberg, that a lot more would come out. I was actually very scared, too. But as we talked I just wanted to get everything out, get the truth out and start to build."
To Meghan's surprise, "there turned out to be a lot less to come out. There was no physical relationship. He only met this other woman when she stalked him one time."
Meghan went on to call Jennifer a "con artist," though she did not reference her by name at all during the interview.
"She's gone after so many baseball players. She was out to get some money and she got it, then she was on to the next one," Meghan claimed. "It was a baiting kind of thing. She would do that and move on. Believe me I am still mad at him but once I figured that out, what she was like, I was able to pull our family together. It actually made it more bearable."
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View StoryDespite her efforts to keep her family together, Meghan said her children -- daughter Aspen, 2, and twin sons Hart and Hayes, 1 -- were able to tell something was up.
"They picked up on the anxiety in the house," she said. "I'm an open book and I think it is important to be open and honest with the whole family but on an age appropriate level. With my daughter, when we would say our nightly prayers I said to her, 'We need to pray for mommy and daddy, that we learn to love each other so, so much again. Because we do love each other so, so much and we need to learn it again because we are so, so sad right now.' That was hard."
However, in spite of the public heartbreak and embarrassment, Meghan never wavered from wanting to stay married to Jim.
"We're still married, we're still together, we're not separated. I know my engagement ring is well known! I'm still wearing it. I've never stopped wearing it," she said. "We're in the family home, we're in the same bed. We're not having therapy, we're talking."
Meghan said her faith and her family are what have gotten her through the devastating situation.
"I pray that things get back to what it was like before but better. We don't want things to be the same or worse. We only have one place to go and that's better," she said. "In a marriage when there's a fight or an indiscretion, nobody wins if they leave. If I left, I wouldn't win. I don't win by staying. The only way to win is to work through it. It's not about right or wrong because everyone is hurt."
"I'm a mom, that's my strength and I need it," she continued. "With fame, I've discovered the highs are very high and the lows are very low. I have had support from the housewives but my main support network are my close friends and family here in Missouri."
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View Story"My family is the ultimate example of a loving, supporting family and they know how to support my husband and I as a unit without condemning his actions," she added, noting, "Jim has to go away and work and at least he's on TV so I know where he is! I've just got to have faith that he's not going to screw up. But I know he's not going to screw up. He really wants to make this work."
Meghan also said she has not reported Jennifer to the FBI, despite earlier threats. Instead, she wants to pour all her energy into her marriage and her children -- one of whom, Hart, has irreversible brain damage.
"His brain damage is not progressive," Meghan told DM. "We don't yet know how it will affect the rest of his life, like speaking in sentences or his physical abilities. He looks very normal to a regular person. He chases after his brother and sister. I'm just hoping that all the early intervention stuff we're doing now is going to help him and [that] by kindergarten he won't be doing any more therapy at all. He will essentially have grown out of his diagnoses."
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