Settling into a brand new regular was no simple feat for Braunwyn Windham-Burke, her girlfriend, Jennifer Spinner, and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Sean Burke — however they’re making it work.
The trio convenes on digital camera for the primary time in an unique joint interview with Page Six, breaking down their uncommon dynamic and their dedication to co-parenting seven kids.
“Obviously, it’s uncomfortable and awkward, however we do spend time collectively,” Braunwyn, 45, tells us from her Newport Beach, Calif., home, nestled subsequent to Spinner, 38, on an enormous L-shaped sectional with Sean sitting close by.
“They get alongside fairly properly,” the “Real Housewives of Orange County” alum continues, admiring the friendship her estranged partner and present associate have constructed.
However, she provides, “Things between [Sean and I] haven’t been nice.”
Braunwyn — who got here out as a lesbian in December 2020 — lastly filed for divorce from Sean final October, opening the door for them to argue over the whole lot from funds and future custody preparations to cleansing habits.
“Braunwyn’s excessively OCD,” Sean claims. “I can clear this home for hours … I’ve been doing it for all the day earlier than she will get again as a result of I do know her stage of [cleanliness] is insane, like Q-tip-in-the-corner sort of insane.”
The businessman elaborates, “And then she will get again and simply blows up at me for 2 hours. ‘Everything is destroyed!’ There will probably be, like, one piece of clothes left on the chair.”
In moments resembling these, Sean is grateful to have help from Spinner, who helps him “steadiness logic over craziness” amid chaos, he says.
“I like Sean,” gives Spinner, who started relationship Braunwyn in the summertime of 2022. “We method issues very equally and I discover him very simple to problem-solve with. Like, if something comes up, we are able to simply sort out it.”
Sean boasts that he and Spinner are “fairly grounded,” whereas referring to Braunwyn as a “volcano.”
Meanwhile, Braunwyn solely feels able to erupt when chagrined by this alliance, she tells Page Six.
“They generally tend the place the 2 of them gang up on me and I hate it,” the blonde magnificence admits earlier than addressing Spinner straight, “Because he places me down so much and then you definitely’re like, ‘Yeah.’ And I’m like, ‘No, you may’t do this.’ I hate it.”
This evaluation compels Spinner to reply. “Well, I feel it’s not ganging up,” the nonprofit exec says. “I feel it’s simply two individuals of the identical method making an attempt to teach somebody.”
As a toddler of divorce herself, Spinner feels outfitted to supply emotional support to Braunwyn, Sean and their expansive brood in occasions of dissension.
“My dad and mom are divorced and I do know what it’s wish to be just a little child when your dad and mom are within the midst of determining what a divorce going to appear to be,” she says, taking a beat to applaud the dad and mom for all the time placing their kids first.
“They’re all the time targeted on the youngsters, that’s their No. 1. That’s what they share,” Spinner notes. “But it’s very easy within the warmth of a second to have a dialog and never understand that the youngsters are essentially absorbing all of that.”
When tensions flare, she is comfortable to mediate or play “referee,” as a number of members of the Burke clan have described her.
Although Spinner advocates for everybody — particularly the exes kids, Bella, 22, Rowan, 20, Jacob, 17, twins Caden and Curren, 9, Koa, 8, and Hazel, 5 — she clarifies that she is “Team Braunwyn,” even when it doesn’t appear apparent.
“I like her to demise, I’ll all the time defend her and take her aspect,” she says.
“[But] I can see when she’s making a dynamic that isn’t honest or giving Sean the area that he wants to truly have a dialog and she or he lets me minimize her off and be like, ‘We’re not doing this proper now.’”
Braunwyn confesses that she does “take heed to” Spinner, whom she respects for contemplating her kids when conciliating battle.
“You put the youngsters first. No matter what, you’re all the time on the youngsters’ [side],” she tells Spinner, visibly emotional. “You say you’re on my aspect, however you’re all the time on the youngsters’ aspect first. And I like that about you.”
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Although Spinner helps Braunwyn and Sean keep peace at dwelling, she has no authorized pull because the pair fleshes out a custody settlement in court docket.
“I would like joint authorized, however [sole] bodily custody of the youngsters as a result of I would like them to be in Tennessee,” says Braunwyn, who’s gearing up for an April transfer to Franklin, Tenn., along with her youngest kids and Spinner.
The plan is for Sean to remain on the new dwelling when the ladies are away, a type of “nesting” the household has turn into accustomed to since Braunwyn determined to separate.
“I would like them through the faculty days … getting them to highschool on time, homework, after-school actions. I would like that as a result of I’m good at it,” she says. “I’ve been a stay-at-home mother for 22 years So I truly excel at that a part of parenting.”
Meanwhile, she desires Sean to be there for the “weekends and journeys and no matter” as a result of “he’s a extremely enjoyable, nice” dad.
“I would like him to have the ability to do what he does finest, which is prepare dinner pancakes and have a good time,” she tells us. “And then I can do what I do finest, which is the scheduling, the remembering, the permission slips and docs appointments.”
Spinner — who exchanged vows with Braunwyn in a “pretend” Las Vegas wedding ceremony on Valentine’s Day — then chimes in to defend Sean, “Let’s not reduce Sean’s parenting.”
He then shares his personal tackle the matter, asserting he has “had a a lot stronger position within the children’ lives than” Braunwyn offers him credit score for.
“I see them just about daily, even when Braunwyn’s on the town. Which I like. I like being with them. There’s no complaints there, however I’m there so much,” he says. “And I all the time have been.”
Sean feels that he took on much more accountability all through Braunwyn’s many pregnancies and her earlier habit struggles. (She has been sober for greater than three years.)
“[That] has made me be in a job of being a big guardian for a very long time,” he says, justifying his want for joint bodily custody.
Again, Spinner tries to revive concord.
“I feel you each complement one another … I feel you guys will get to a spot the place will probably be joint. I feel you’re each nice and may have equal time with the youngsters,” she says. “But it’s not my choice.”
Regardless of how issues shake out, Braunwyn and Sean’s children can recognize all of the love of their lives.
“It’s like three adults which might be loopy about them,” Spinner notes. “So they’re getting love from three locations and a focus from three locations — and sweet from three locations.”
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