' Flip or Flop' 's Christina El Moussa Opens Up About Her Painful Divorce: 'I Felt Like I Was Drowning'

It’s been nearly two years sinceChristina El Moussasplit from her ex-husband, Tarek, and while theFlip or Flopstar is in agreat placenow, the split took aserious tollon her at the time.

“I felt like I was drowning,” Christina, 34, says in the latest issue of PEOPLE. “I was doing whatever I could to stay above water and just get through the day.”

In 2016, following an “unfortunate incident” where Tarek, 36,fled their home with a gunonto national-parks property, prompting a helicopter and 11 officers to respond to the scene, the pair separated, leaving the fate of their reality show and million-dollar home in limbo.

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In the aftermath, “a lot of people were thinking, ‘What’s going to happen?’ Tarek and I were so tied together on everything: real estate, the show, our children, our house. It was so stressful, and everyone was worried that it was going to explode.”

Despite the drama, there was no explosion and the pair continued working together while co-parenting their daughter, Taylor, 7, and son, Brayden, 2. “Somehow we managed to build something even bigger than we had before,” she says.

For more on Christina El Moussa, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Monday.

source: people.com