'Real Housewives' Prepare To Celebrate Gay Wedding

Kids and adults on "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" learned a little something about what it is like to be gay and the stress that can come with being open about it with family members and friends on Sunday night's episode of the Bravo show.

This week, viewers watched as the Laurita family and Caroline Manzo prepared to celebrate the wedding of Manzo's brother, Jamie Laurita, and his longtime partner, Rich. The wedding planning was underway at Jamie Manzo's home outside Chicago and several housewives were invited, including Jacqueline Laurita and Towaco resident Teresa Giudice.

Giudice and her husband, Joe, left the kids with the babysitter for the weekend and headed to Chicago, despite the . It is mentioned several times that former housewife Dina Manzo is a felt absence, as she and Jamie are very close. The reported excuse is that Dina has to work, but the tension between her and Caroline seems to be the underlying context.

“I hold Teresa responsible for a lot of relationships in my life that are hurting,” Caroline said. “Of course I fight with my brothers and sisters; I fight with my parents. The difference is, she puts the wood on my family’s fire. I put the lid on hers.”

But this also gave her the opportunity to take a break from , who, earlier in the episode reached out to Giudice via text message to ask if they could see a therapist together.

Giudice is not particularly keen on the idea.

"We're old school Italians, we don't believe in therapy," she said in an off-scene interview.

But while Jacqueline Laurita seemed to think therapy may help mend the relationship between Giudice and Gorga, she did not think it would be effective if Giudice does not believe in it.

"Personally, I'm a big believer in therapy, but if you're not into it and you're just going to blame-shift the whole time, it's not going to be effective," Laurita said.

While half the castmates were preparing for the wedding in Chicago, the Wakile family was getting ready for a night of partying at a beach rental house in New Jersey. But before they headed down to the beach, Kathy Wakile talked to her sister, Rosie Pierri, about how their relationship grew stronger after Pierri came out as a gay woman and said that it may have the same effect on her kids if Pierri talks to them.

This season has seen a lot more of Pierri, who was a fan favorite last season. One might theorize that the producers encouraged her to film more because of this reaction, but Wakile offered a different explanation.

“Rosie and I have had our ups and downs,” she said. “She’s always put a distance between us, but now that she’s much more comfortable with who she is, we can tell each other everything. And I think that’s really important with family.”

Wakile sat down with Pierri and told her how happy she is that she came out, because it brought them closer together. The two discussed telling Wakile’s two kids, Victoria, 17, and Joseph, 15. Even though they acknowledged that the teenagers probably know already, Pierri believed the official message should come from her.

“I know they’re going to be fine,” she said. “They love their Aunt Rosie.”

At a pizzeria later in the episode, she brought it up. Rather than it being a big, dramatic scene, she made it very personal, talking about her late father and his expressing his fear that she would end up alone just before his death.

“After that, I felt really guilty. It was all built up. And I was finally just shouting it,” she said. “And that’s how I came out.”

"It's not something I woke up and said, 'Oh, I'm going to do this because it's cool.' No, it's something I was born with. God made me this way."

A tear-filled Victoria nodded her head as she listened to her aunt, Pierri, talk about her struggles, but afterwards, Joe Wakile asked his aunt if she has "gay-dar," helping her identify other gay people, to lighten the mood. 

Despite the tension, and the suspicious coincidence that Rosie came out to her niece and nephew the same week as Jamie’s wedding, it is the truly honest moments that make this episode so unique in this season and possibly in the show’s run. While there are some almost cliché comments made about gay marriage being legalized and God making gay people, both Rosie and Jamie opened up about their struggle to be openly gay in a traditional Italian family.

 “With all the struggles I’ve been through, I can’t be anything but real,” Pierri, who admitted she denied her sexuality until she was in her 30s, said.

Equally touching was the very real reaction of their very accepting families.

“I hear all these stories about other people and what they’re going through,” Wakile said, breaking out in tears. “And I can’t help think that my sister went through those same things.”

In Chicago, Jacqueline Laurita began to grow concerned about comments Joe Giudice, who was once accused by former castmate Danielle Staub of making homophobic remarks, could make about gay people. Giudice lived up to Laurita's fears after making a sexual remark about gay castmate Greg Bennett on a bus. Giudice apologized and gave Bennett a kiss on the forehead, but Manzo was not happy and said, during an off-scene interview, that Giudice is not the man she once knew, even accusing him of having a drinking problem.

Still, she held her tongue on the bus because she is fearful of what may happen if she reveals her true feelings for Joe and Teresa Giudice.

"I am very conscious of the fact that I cannot allow myself to let my feelings show regarding Joe and Teresa because Teresa will take that opportunity to ruin that wedding and I am a ticking bomb," Manzo said.

The wedding will be shown on next week's episode which will air on Bravo at 10 p.m.

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