Ashley Marston has revealed that she is still in love with her estranged husband, Jay Smith after their tumultuous time on 90 Day Fiance. The reality star posted a selfie in which she was crying on Sunday, explaining that it came from back in May during her birthday party in New York City. She attributed the tears and the running mascara to her divorce from Smith.
“This year has been tough. This photo was taken accidentally the night of my birthday party in New York City. We had just split and I filed for divorce for the second time,” she explained.
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Marston’s prolonged caption told the story of that night, where she said that Smith “showed up to my party, unannounced. We were civil and had an appearance the next day so it was okay. He said Happy Birthday. He had drinks and hung out with his friends.”
However, when she left the party, Marston said “the tears came pouring out” as she felt the weight of her divorce at last. The couple fell in love right before fans’ eyes on Season 6 of 90 Day Fiance, and they split up soon after. To Marston, this amounted to a personal “failure.”
Marston wrote that she cried all the way back to her hotel room that night, which she was sharing with her friend, Carina Passalacqua. Passalacqua cried with her, she said, but as “a true best friend,” she “didn’t even ask” why.
“I’m not blaming all this on him. That’s not why I’m posting this,” she went on. “I just want men and women to both know it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to cry it out. It’s okay to not be strong all the time. It’s okay to fail. What’s not okay is to let it destroy you. You can, and you will, get back up and begin to pick up the pieces.”
As fans of the show know, Marston met Smith while she was on vacation in Jamaica. Despite their age gap and their different nationalities, they decided to try and make it work, with Smith moving to the U.S. for the 90-day window allotted to engaged couples.
Marston and Smith filed for divorce back in January but reconciled soon afterward and called the divorce off. However, in April, Marston filed for divorce yet again, claiming that Smith had cheated on her. Three months after that, she sought a protection from abuse order against him.
Smith was arrested in July, but Marston dropped the protection order and the divorce yet again, deciding to give it one more try. Finally, their most recent split came in October, when Smith allegedly got another woman pregnant.
90 Day Fiance airs on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on TLC.