Sutton Stracke is opening up about two deeply personal topics that continue to shape her life after divorce: her painful experience with a Catholic annulment and why she believes women must be far more involved in their finances long before a marriage ends.
During a candid conversation with Kiki Monique and Dorinda Medley, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star revealed that the annulment process was far more emotional than viewers may have realized.
Kiki admitted she was stunned when Sutton first discussed receiving a letter from the church, explaining that many listeners had the same misconception. “Both Dorinda and I thought annulments were for like people who went to Vegas and made a mistake. It’s not for people who’ve been married for decades and have kids,” she said.
Sutton clarified that there’s a major difference between a legal annulment and a Catholic one. “Yeah, there’s two different kinds of annulments. There’s some states where if you have been married like under a year, you can go get an annulment and annul it so it never legally happened. That’s a different. A Catholic annulment is with the church.”
Dorinda immediately understood the weight of that distinction, noting, “Which is more painful in a lot of ways.”
For Sutton, the experience cut especially deep because of her relationship with the faith itself. “This was a very tough one for me, because I became Catholic to get married and then I’ve really embraced the Catholic church and you know, raised my children Catholic,” she shared. “So this one hurt because you know why?”
Dorinda gently pressed further, asking whether Sutton ever confronted her ex-husband about the decision. Sutton confirmed that she did. “I did say, you know, ‘Why are you doing this?’ He said, ‘I think we’ll be closer.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ But, you know, I didn’t get it.”
The annulment also forced Sutton to confront how it might affect her children, particularly her middle son. “I really need to talk more about it with my middle son, Philip. He’s very, very Catholic. Very Catholic,” she explained. “My younger son is very open-minded. They’re all Catholic, but he’s more cool. Philip is staunch, so I need to talk when I have some time alone with him, talk to him about it.”
While Sutton emphasized that the decision was ultimately between her and her ex-husband, she admitted it has shifted how she views her place within the church. “It does change my view, kind of where I am in the church,” she said. “And I’m definitely not Sutton Stracke in the church. So that feels weird. You know, they took away.”
Dorinda summed up the sentiment from a fellow Catholic’s perspective, saying, “I think it just it feels heart—it feels—it’s not, I know it’s not, but it feels heartbreaking as a fellow Catholic.”
Sutton didn’t disagree. “It was heartbreaking. It feels heartbreaking on many levels. Heartbreaking on many levels.”
In a separate discussion, Sutton turned her attention to another issue she feels strongly about: women understanding their finances, especially in marriage and divorce. She revealed that she didn’t fully face her own financial reality until years after her divorce. “I had been divorced three or four years, I can’t remember. And I had really just faced doing that,” she said. “And so I kind of loved having a platform to talk about it.”
She explained that conversations with other women quickly showed her how common financial blind spots are. “I can talk about being divorced or being even married and like get your stuff together. Like understand your finances as a married person. Understand your finances as a divorced woman,” Sutton said. “Like women can sometimes lean too much on men.”
Dorinda agreed, adding that the topic remains surprisingly taboo. She recalled being shocked during her own financial proceedings. “He goes, ‘Do you know that most women have no idea where their checking accounts are?’ And two, something like only 20 at that time, about 21% of women have a will. Women don’t do wills. Isn’t that frightening?”
Kiki admitted the conversation hit close to home, revealing, “I actually decided on New Year’s… this year I’m going to make a will because, it’s you never know.”
Dorinda shared that her own life experiences forced her to confront the issue. “The only reason I have one now is because I’ve been divorced and I’ve been widowed that I have to have a will.”
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