Jenelle Evans is explaining her decision to separate from David Eason after months of thoughtful consideration.
“Me and him, we were going through rough patches for a while and I was sick of it,” Jenelle, 32, exclusively shared with Us Weekly while celebrating her return to Teen Mom: The Next Chapter on Thursday, June 13. “It’s hard to try to get out of a situation when you know you both own the house and you’re both on the same deed. Then you’re telling each other, ‘We should take a break,’ but then who’s going to get out of the house?”
According to Jenelle, there was a “little window of time” where she was “available to file what I needed to file.” According to court documents obtained by The Sun, the reality star ultimately filed for separation in February after six years of marriage.
“After debating this for a while, I would say about six months to a year, I finally had a little window of opportunity,” she explained to Us.
As soon as news broke of her separation, Jenelle said she remembered people on social media questioning the timing of her decision, with some saying, “She should have gotten out of that situation a long time ago.” If you ask Jenelle, there are a lot of factors that come into making such a big decision.
“It’s a lot more than just getting out and dropping everything and I wasn’t about to abandon my house and leave, so I just had to be strong,” she explained. “Now, I hope that everyone can see that I moved on from that and that I’m doing good with just me, myself and my three kids.”
On Thursday’s episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, Jenelle traveled from her hometown in North Carolina to Florida and met up with cast member Briana DeJesus. She also took time to look at houses as she figured out what’s next for her family.
Jenelle — who shares son Jace, 14, with ex Andrew Lewis, son Kaiser, 9, with ex-boyfriend Nathan Griffith and daughter Ensley, 7, with David — has already noticed a change in her kids after the separation.
“The kids are a lot happier. I can tell,” she said. “All of our anxiety has gone down tremendously and mentally, they are happier. I’ve actually signed them up for camp so they’re doing great right now.”
Fans first met Jenelle when she appeared on 16 and Pregnant in 2009. She later appeared on Teen Mom 2 before departing the show in May 2019 after David shot and killed their family dog.
Jenelle hopes her return to Teen Mom: The Next Chapter will offer viewers a new perspective on her life that appears to have changed for the better.
“I think I deserve a spot on the show because I have been through so much growing up as a kid and I just feel like it was such negative vibes back then that now it’s completely different,” she explained. “I feel like I’ve matured and grown up a lot and I’m really excited for people to see that side of me.”
Teen Mom: The Next Chapter airs Thursdays on MTV at 8 p.m. ET.
