Taylor Armstrong on Whether or not Daughter Commemorates Father’s Day After Dad’s Demise (Unique)

Fourteen years after the dying of her ex-husband, Russell Armstrong, Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Taylor Armstrong is reflecting on how she and her daughter, Kennedy, navigate Father’s Day and why they select to not commemorate it.

“We don’t,” Taylor tells PEOPLE solely. “She was 5 when he handed, and he labored nonstop. He was a real workaholic.”

“He would go to work earlier than she would even be up within the mornings, and he would come house after she was in mattress and he or she didn’t actually spend a lot time with him,” Taylor says. “So I assume in some methods, fortunately, that loss wasn’t as vital as it could’ve been if she had been older and so they had much more interplay. So I don’t actually consider it as a day to commemorate the loss.”

Taylor, 54, and Russell married in 2005, and welcomed daughter Kennedy that very same 12 months. Nevertheless, their marriage was tormented by abuse which Taylor first publicly addressed throughout season two of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

All through the season, stress mounted as Taylor confided in castmates about her worry and emotional instability. In a single pivotal episode — typically referred to by followers because the “tea celebration” episode — she broke down sobbing, revealing on digital camera that she was in an abusive relationship.

Behind the scenes, Taylor endured bodily and emotional violence. In July 2011, she filed for divorce, citing abuse. A month later, Russell died by suicide. He was 47.

Within the years since, Taylor has labored to reclaim her identification and create a secure, completely happy life for herself and Kennedy, now 19. 

A part of that journey included discovering love once more, and in 2014, she married attorney John Bluher, who later adopted Kennedy.

“When John requested me to marry him, I mentioned, ‘I’ll marry you, however you can not change me,’ ” she says. 

“And that’s one other factor after I communicate at universities, or to individuals basically, is I modified a lot in my first marriage as a result of once you’re coping with an abuser, it’s a continuing attempt to maintain the lid on the boiling pot.”

“And so that you’re always altering to attempt, otherwise you assume that you just’re going to by some means maintain him from boiling over,” Taylor explains. “So your hair is just too lengthy, your hair is just too brief, your costume is just too lengthy, your costume is just too brief, you giggle an excessive amount of, you don’t giggle sufficient, you speak an excessive amount of, you don’t speak sufficient. You’re always toggling between behaviors.”

The truth of that fixed shapeshifting turned painfully clear when she watched her first season of RHOBH again.

“We used to get the DVDs upfront as a result of we’d weblog on BravoTV.com, so we’d ship in our feedback previous to the present airing. And after I first began watching myself on the present, I assumed, that doesn’t even appear to be me. I had became such a mechanical ghost myself, like a Stepford Spouse persona,” she says.

“And when one in every of my finest mates I’ve identified for years, he mentioned, ‘I don’t know who that lady is on the present, nevertheless it’s not you. And I don’t know what’s happening in your life, nevertheless it’s weird.’ I imply, I’ve at all times been tremendous sarcastic and fun-loving and I didn’t know who to be anymore as a result of Russell would say to me, ‘I don’t like this, I don’t like that.’ So I might attempt to be within the center, and ‘I don’t like this good friend.’ And so I might attempt to not be round that good friend, nevertheless it by no means modifications.”

“Whenever you’re with an abuser, nothing’s ever going to be okay,” she continues. “Your hair’s by no means going to be the suitable size, and your costume isn’t going to be the suitable size. It’s at all times going to be one thing. You’re by no means going to giggle sufficient or an excessive amount of. There’s by no means going to be a time when they’re approving of you. It simply is a continuing. So ultimately, I simply turned this ghost of myself, and that’s one thing that after I married John, I simply mentioned, ‘I’m simply now determining once more the best way to be the particular person I was earlier than my first marriage. And so that you’re simply going to need to let me be the Gemini that I am, all eight of me.’”

In case you are experiencing home violence, name the Nationwide Home Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is offered 24/7 in additional than 170 languages.