Bethenny Frankel Tried to ‘Exit’ Her Relationship With Dennis Shields 1 Week Before His Death

Bethenny Frankel is making a shocking confession about her relationship with her former on-again, off-again boyfriend Dennis Shields.

In the upcoming April 3 episode of the Real Housewives of New York, Bethenny reveals that she attempted to end her relationship with Dennis a mere week before his untimely death.

“I mean, it’s really brutal. He was really someone that I went to for everything,” Bethenny reveals in her confessional. “So him being gone is just a massive void and I really can’t believe he’s gone.”

Bethenny then opens up about her grieving process with her therapist while trying to fight back tears.

“He had such a powerful force in my life and [was] such a loving person and my daughter loved him that it was this whole thing that was hard to extricate myself from,” she explains. “But I had just said though that week, I haven’t told anybody this, I had just said the Saturday before [he died], ‘I have to exit this dynamic.’ So then it was a lot on my mind about him dying right after that. I could not get off the ride and I feel guilty that the only way I got off the ride is that he’s dead.”

Dennis died of a prescription drug overdose in August 2018.

“Dennis told me, [if] we didn’t work out, he was never going to be in a relationship again. He was going to be alone for the rest of his life,” the SkinnyGirl mogul recalls in her confessional. “It was a tremendous pressure and it kept me in. I don’t know what happened that night and I will always have to live with that, for whatever that means.”

Frankel then tells her therapist, “Now I feel better, and I feel guilty that I feel better, but I feel like he would want me to feel better and I try to make decisions based on what he would want me to do.”

Bethenny previously opened up about her relationship with Dennis to co-star Dorinda Medley.

“Dennis and I went out to dinner in April and he proposed,” Bethenny revealed during the March 20th episode of RHONY. “It’s funny because he said to me, ‘Well, did you say yes?’ And I said, ‘Well, I love you, and I can’t believe you did this, but we have to talk about some conditions and some terms and how things are going to change, issues I’ve had with partnership and consistency.”

She continued: “It was all very complicated and it wasn’t what a natural engagement should be. So our engagement was on ice.”