Chloe Madeley on her marriage breakdown and new beginnings
WORDS: ARIANA LONGSON.
Chloe
For the first time in over a decade, Chloe Madeley rang in the new year as a single woman. Chloe, 36, initially remained quiet after the end of her marriage to James Haskell in September. But now she’s admitted, ‘I feel free, happy and calm. I’ve felt so much better since we decided to call it a day.’
Now the dust has settled, Chloe has opened up for the first time about the ‘big decision’ to end the relationship, saying that it ‘stopped being good’, and how her parents, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, helped her through this tough time…
Shock split
While the couple’s break-up came as a surprise to fans – their fly-on-the-wall reality show was airing when they announced the news – Chloe says it wasn’t a decision that they made lightly.
‘We really, really tried our best. But, ultimately, his life was going in one direction and mine was going in a completely different direction,’ she’s revealed. ‘It became very hard and it just stopped being good. It was quite bad. We have a daughter, so we’re not messing around. This is a big decision. We talked about it for months. What were we going to do? Could we figure it out? And ultimately we made the decision.’
The personal trainer, who tied the knot with former rugby union player James, 38, in 2018, added, ‘If you think of relationships, you have pillars in place to hold them up and I think we just found we didn’t have enough there to hold us up any more.’
The separation came 13 months after the pair welcomed their baby, Bodhi, and Chloe has explained that, ultimately, she and James ended their relationship for the sake of their daughter. ‘I think people seem to think that you should stay together for the children but, actually, we made the decision for Bodhi more than anything,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t good and we want her to feel like she has a happy, healthy and loving family unit. Making that decision is really hard, but once it’s done, it’s done.’
While Chloe has made it clear that there is no going back – when asked on Instagram, ‘Is there a chance you and James will get back together... it’s so sad,’ she replied, ‘James and I are not together an
