The '90 Day Fiancé' season 1 star gets candid about the issues in her marriage to Russ.
90 Day Fiancé star Paola is struggling when it comes to her marriage to Russ. ET's Melicia Johnson spoke with the pro wrestler about the couple taking a break this year from their marriage and the issues they're continuing to work through.
Russ and Paola starred on the first season of 90 Day Fiancé, falling in love while Russ was working in Colombia. They got married in 2013 and share a 2-year-old son, Axel. In August, her manager confirmed that they were on a break to In Touch after Paola's tweets hinted that not all was well in their marriage. One tweet that month read, "People asked me why I don't take pictures with my husband, and my answer is... I just don't like to pretend. #youareguessingright."
"Russ and I's relationship has always had ups and downs," Paola tells ET. "When I tweeted that, I meant it and I actually wanted to take a break. I feel like we have so many things to work on and we're trying. We're trying. We're doing what we can to stay together and to make it work for our son, but sometimes it is really hard."
"And it's really hard to have a relationship in the spotlight," she continues. "No matter what you do, people are always questioning and attacking you for not knowing, so I'm trying to keep what we're doing private to avoid more drama because it's enough, the drama that we have at home, to try to bring the drama from people outside."
Paola acknowledged that she's reached her "breaking point" when it comes to her and Russ' relationship.
"I don't want to say it's just about our son because that would be really sad to say it's just our son," she notes about what's keeping them together. "I think all the memories and the time together, we have been together for eight years. But I can feel sometimes that love isn't enough. There is a breaking point, someone can only take so much."
"I always try to protect his image," she says of Russ, noting that she doesn't really tell the whole story in her social media. "He keeps messing up. He drives me insane because I do try and it's just a lot and I've been trying my best. You get tired of trying. It's exhausting."
A main issue she shared between them is her feeling that Russ has gotten comfortable in the relationship.
"I feel like I've been the motivator of this family to do things, something to get us out of this monotony," she says. "And sometimes I need motivation and it's hard because I'm always the one to always push. And it's like, I don't want to keep doing this for so long. Sometimes I can't, I just get tired of that. There's just a point where I don't care to do it anymore."
The future of the relationship is up in the air.
"If you ask me today, I'm very not optimistic," she says if their marriage. "I just came back from a long weekend, I was working. I was exhausted mentally, physically, and I just came back a mess and again, to be the motivator again when I'm exhausted from a long weekend at work, it's like, 'Oh, do I want to keep doing this? Do I need to keep doing this?' And I just don't want to. Maybe it's today that I feel like I don't want it anymore, I don't know, but it is too much."
Paola admitted to feeling pressure to stay with Russ given fans' attachment to them.
"Even if I wanted to get a divorce, just to think about the backlash I would receive because people always think that it's my fault, everything, and nothing that anyone could blame on Russ," she says. "It's very stressful not being able to make a decision without thinking about the outcome of social media, how people are going to react."
Paola did clear up her October Instagram post reading, "For the girl who tried to get in the middle, you will need to do so much more to take away my crown! #yesIknow," noting that Russ has not been unfaithful.
"Something happened recently with a 'friend,'" she explains. "I've been seeing the same person try to do things that would get my husband's attention. And recently she really did something to piss me off. And that person knows that message was directly to her. ... What bothers me is you have friends and you trust these people, and then suddenly you turn your back and they are just trying to flirt with your husband. And it's ridiculous. I know my husband would never, but it stresses me to be be in a position like that and not be able to trust someone."
But when it comes to her career, Paola, who's represented by Dominton Talent House, is thriving. She made her debut as a pro wrestler in May, going by Paola Blaze.
"One of the things that I love is I am able to do things like in normal life, I wouldn't be able to do," she says. "Getting into the ring, doing some jumps, some flips. I don't know, I feel like it requires a lot and I push myself physically too to do things that I'm not expected to do."
And training is no joke.
"I normally train for four hours a day and you practice what you want to do in the ring, what your gimmick, what your persona feels like in the ring," she explains. "It's like a science fiction movie and let me tell you this, the punches are real!"
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