The cast of Love & Marriage: Detroit brought their A-game for Season 2. The third series in OWN’s L&M franchise puts younger couples in the Motor City on display, showing what it’s like to balance marriage, parenthood and entrepreneurship.
The couple that had everyone talking in Season 1 was Kristina Bowman Smith and her husband Brandon. Kristina is an influencer, and Brandon runs an artist management company in the city. Their marital drama took center stage as Brandon focused on work and seemed emotionally disconnected as Kristina tried to repair what was broken.
Kristina was the central point of drama in Season 1 as her co-stars accused her of being less than a good friend, and even being fake and manipulative, which she says is bogus. Simultaneously, she also felt devalued in her marriage. With reality television being a mirror for its stars, she says she realized she needed to change some things.
“I feel like after watching Season 1, I felt like there were a lot of areas that I can grow in,” she told Blavity’s Shadow and Act in a recent interview. “I felt like I didn’t speak up enough for myself that I was a bit passive when it came to other individuals speaking on me,” she says. “So I think that I really went back into my bag, my emotional maturity bag, and I came out a lot stronger and I think that everybody is seeing that in Season 2.”
Season 2 picked up with Kristina and Brandon’s marriage hanging on by a thread. Despite seemingly being on better terms at the Season 1 reunion, in the premiere episode, Brandon moved out and said he wanted a divorce. While Kristina didn’t want her marriage to end, she was tired of the emotional rollercoaster of the past 11 years the marriage brought and decided it was time to put herself first. Whatever the outcome would be, it would be.
As for why Brandon wanted out of the marriage, he told us he was at a point of not seeing any possible solutions for their issues. “I just got to a point where I felt like we see the world so differently that I don’t see us being able to do this. I just was hopeless,” he explained.
By Episode 3 of the new season, surprisingly, Brandon asked to move back in and work on their marriage, saying it got a sign from God. Brandon explained he woke up late one Sunday and missed Church. So he streamed it online and felt the message was directed to him. “Right when I pressed play, the pastor was like, ‘Don’t you leave that marriage?’He said, ‘Stay put.’ And from that moment forward, I was like, ‘Well, God is directly telling me to stay. So I’m gonna put my flesh into submission. I’m gonna find a way to get myself together and to be here. I have realized a whole lot about what love really is and it’s less of a feeling and it’s more of an intention,” he asserts. But that wasn’t enough for Kristina.
She says that in order for her to remain committed, she needed to feel that her husband wanted to stay married because he wanted her and their family, and not just a directive from God.
While battling their marriage drama, the Smiths have put on a united front in Season 2 to go against their co-stars, whether that means as a collective or individually. Both say they were open to reconciling any broken friendships, but for Kristina, it wasn’t at the top of her list. Season 2 focuses much on the state of their marriage. In Episode 5, Brandon gifts Kristina with a ring upgrade, and vows to be better husband, which she says is long overdue.
With a newfound commitment to each other, one would wonder if there’s a breaking point for either of them in the marriage, and they both say yes. “I’m also to the point where there’s just things that I will never in my life again settle for,” Kristina says firmly. “There was a person that I was before I got married. Then there was a person that I became as a wife and as a mother and as a person or as a woman trying to fight and do everything to save my marriage. And I feel like I compromised a lot and I let a lot of parts of me go.”
Brandon says he refuses to continue the cycle. “I feel like we’re both, we’re both at a point to where we’re not gonna continue to go in circles. So we’re either gonna do this or we’re not,” he says.
Watch the full interview below where Kristina speaks on social media chatter about whether she feels Brandon throws tantrums to get his way, Brandon’s response to the conversation, their co-stars and more on their family life.
The midseason finale airs Oct. 12 on OWN.
The post ‘Love & Marriage: Detroit’: Brandon And Kristina Bowman Smith On Trying To Repair Their Marriage on Reality TV appeared first on Blavity.
