Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau’s relationship is on the mend, with a source claiming that they are officially back together.
After filing for legal separation in May 2017 after 12 years of marriage and later pushing back the court trial which would make them legally separated, the former couple whose romance began as an indiscreet teacher-student relationship in the classroom has reportedly reconciled.
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“They’re back together,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE. “They’ve worked through a lot of issues in the past year. They just needed to take a step back and realize what they mean to each other. Of course there are still issues, like all marriages, but they’re very much together.”
Their highly publicized relationship began with a kiss in 1996, when she was 34 and he was her 12-year-old sixth grade student. That kiss, which Letourneau later described as feeling “very right,” soon led to a sexual relationship that became public after Letourneau’s husband found a love note written to Letourneau from Fualaau.
The controversial relationship sent Letourneau to jail not once, but twice, with Letourneau receiving a light sentence of six months in jail with three of those months suspended after she pleaded guilty to felony second-degree rape of a child. She was again arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison after she was caught having sex with Fualaau in a car. She was released from prison in 2004.
By the time that Faulaau was 15, Letourneau had become pregnant with his child twice, later marrying and going on to raise their two daughters together in Washington.
In May of 2017, Fualaau filed for divorce, asking for a clean split of their assets. Leatourneau dragged her feet during the court proceedings, only responding to Fualaau’s court filings after a judge threatened to grant the legal separation without her response. In her own court filings, Letourneau said that she did not agree with the decision to separate, claiming that she “believes in reconciliation, is reconciling and reconciliation is possible.”
In October, it was reported that the couple had chosen to push back their court trial, which had been set for earlier this year. Currently, the new agreed upon date is Feb. 19, 2019.
In a May segment of A&E’s Autobiography, David Gehrke, a friend of the couple, claimed that they were “in counseling” and still “living together” as they worked “on their problems.
Letourneau, who now works as a legal assistant, and Faulaau, who works in a home improvement store and as a part-time DJ, currently live in Des Moines, Washington, where they are raising their daughters.
