Selling Sunset‘s Christine Quinn is in a much better place after enduring an “unhealthy” marriage and “dehumanizing” split from ex Christian Dumontet.

Addressing the end of her marriage, Quinn told PEOPLE that she had “no choice but to leave” her Los Angeles home and begin anew with her 3-year-old son in her home state of Texas, after her three-year marriage came to an end. 

“I really didn’t have a choice,” Quinn said. “I was granted an emergency protective order so my ex couldn’t come to the house. He violated that, and would keep coming back.”

Dumontet, who also goes by Christian Richard, was arrested in March 2024 following a domestic incident in which the couple’s child was allegedly injured. A temporary restraining order was put in place and, that May, Dumontet was taken into custody a second time after showing up at their home. He was charged with misdemeanor assault, child abuse, and violating a restraining order.

Quinn shared that in the wake of his return to the house, she went from staying in a hotel to “couch surf[ing]” with friends, claiming she no longer had access to her bank accounts, credit cards, and email address, because her ex allegedly “commandeered” her phone number. 

“People really don’t know this. I was hacked out of my entire life,” she said. “I was stripped of my entire life overnight — I literally had nothing. And it was dehumanizing.” 

Getting emotional, she added, “I was completely resourceless.”

The reality star and real estate agent introduced Dumontet to Netflix’s Selling Sunset in 2020, with their relationship progressing over several seasons of the show. Their wedding was featured as the centerpiece of the series’ third season. But though the former couple’s marital issues first made headlines with Dumontet’s arrest, Quinn now says their issues go much further back.

“There were times where my husband, literally, where I had to go to work and he would lay himself under my car,” she claimed. “I would sit for an hour until I finally missed a meeting and gave up and would go back inside, or he would shut the gates down so I couldn’t leave. It was bad.”

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She continued, “Everyone sees the incident that occurred, but this is something that had been going on for a while. This is something that had been under the surface for a long time. It was extremely unhealthy, and I like to think that I’m extremely resilient — and I am.”

She explained that Dumontet’s behavior impacting their son was her breaking point.

“There are certain things that I could tolerate, and it got to a point where it was affecting my son, and that wasn’t okay,” she said. “I was like, ‘Okay, I can deal with this, I’m an adult.’ But bringing him into the chaos and everything that kind of ensued, I was like, ‘No, this is not okay.'”

An attorney for Dumontet did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.

Following the initial domestic incident, Dumontet filed for divorce from Quinn after two years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for their split. Both he and Quinn requested full legal and physical custody of their 3-year-old son.

In January, Quinn told PEOPLE that the divorce proceedings are still ongoing and noted that she is “very optimistic that it will be finished soon.”