'The Valley' aired its season finale on Tuesday, and lots of answers about the pair's separation were answered.
Fans are finally getting an inside look at what really led to Brittany Cartwright's decision to separate from her husband, Jax Taylor.
On Tuesday's season finale of The Valley, tensions reached a boiling point between the couple, whose separation was made public in February.
Months before that, though, The Valley was catching all of the pair's marital woes, leading up to the opening of their bar, Jax's Studio City.
"As much as I want to have a kid, even I don't know how me and you can bring another baby into this world if we actually don't fix these things in our relationship, because I don't want this for our future," Brittany told her husband of baby No. 2, who they planned to join their 3-year-old son, Cruz.
Even despite her concerns, the bar's soft opening went off without a hitch, and Jax declared, "The future's looking pretty bright."
Six months later, though, news broke of Brittany and Jax's separation, and the cameras were picked back up to catch the fallout.
"I didn't see this coming," Jax cried in a confessional. "I never thought I'd be in the position I'm in right now."
In a conversation with his pal, Jason Caperna, Jax noted of his and Brittany's separation, "There's no affairs, there's no cheating, there's no abuse, there's none of that. I'm so triggered. My fuse is this big." Because of that, Jax said that "it's not looking good" for a reconciliation."
Brittany agreed with that assessment, telling the cameras, "We were already having issues all summer long, but once the cameras stopped rolling, things seemed like they were getting worse and worse and worse and worse."
"So, about six weeks ago, I separated from Jax. I moved into an Airbnb with Cruz because Jax would not leave the house. I just feel like that shows how selfish Jax is. The fact that I had to move out with Cruz instead of him moving out. Especially being from Kentucky, a man doesn't do that."
The situation, Brittany told friends Janet Caperna, Michelle Saniei and Nia Booko, became "too toxic" for her and Cruz one night.
"He was going out to the bar and stuff, coming home and having these horrible hangovers that would make him mean as a f**king snake," she said. "I'm asleep. Next morning I wake up to Jax barreling in. Me and Cruz are together in my bed, by the way. He comes in [saying,] 'Why is Luke [Broderick] texting me right now asking me if he needs somebody to talk to because of everything I'm going through?'"
"Finally, after he's already been screaming at me for hours... I packed me and Cruz up and we got the hell out of that house," Brittany continued. "I just kind of hit this point where I started noticing everything that he did to me. It just hit me like a ton of bricks or something. And then I was just kind of like, 'What am I doing? Why am I here?'"
In a confessional, Brittany added, "It's been very public, the pain that I've had to deal with. I just can't deal with it anymore."
"I feel like I'm mainly at the tipping point, but I'm not all the way there yet," Brittany told her friends. "I don't want to let my family down. I fought for them to like him so much. I don't want them to be disappointed in me and stuff 'cause I don't want to upset them."
The estranged duo met up for a conversation next, and, while Jax appeared to be calm for the chat, Brittany was quick to call him out for his behavior.
"You're not just going to get away for the way you treated me for all these years because you want to sit there acting all cool, calm and collected. You're not," she told him, before the camera flashed to Brittany's conversation with some friends, in which it was alleged that Jax called her fat, said she was lazy, and claimed she wouldn't have friends if she ended their relationship.
Jax tried to insist that he was making changes, including scheduling a doctor's appointment, but when Brittany found out he'd only done so a day before the cameras resumed filming, she called him out.
"This is all a front," Brittany insisted to the cameras. "This is what he wants everyone to see and believe that he's actually going to do these things to change. I bet you money he will not do it."
In fact, Jax revealed he did not go to his appointment.
"Do you want me back? Or are you just going to sit there and let me go? Because I will go!" Brittany told Jax. "You took away my safe space. You took away all of that from me. I had to uproot myself and my child."
"Why haven't you done anything? Why haven't you changed?" she questioned. "You screamed at me, said horrible things to me, that I had no friends here, that nobody liked me here."
Jax denied as much, but Brittany continued.
"As soon as these cameras drop, you're going to text me a million text messages and talk horrible to me. You're going to rage text the s**t out of me," she claimed. "Be real! Be real! I don't know how to talk to you anymore. It sucks. I feel freaking weird even being in my own bedroom."
In a confessional, Brittany continued expressing her frustration.
"Who just lies for attention? He does!" she said. "I've come into my own. I make a lot of money. I just feel like I have woken up. I feel so much stronger now. I know I'll be OK. I know my worth, and I know I do not deserve to be in a relationship like this. What was I thinking, staying with him this long?"
"I wouldn't have Cruz if I would've gotten rid of him a long time ago," she continued. "So now I just think, now that I have Cruz and I've woken up from the situation, I just feel like, for his sake, and for my mental health, I just can't stay here anymore."
As for where their relationship stands today, Jax recently revealed that he and Brittany have agreed to see other people amid their separation.
"Part of taking some time apart means exploring other people," he said on his When Reality Hits podcast. "All marriages are different, but this is what is good for our marriage. This is something we talked about and we are on the same page. We have a couple of rules with it, but this is what we are exploring."
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