When it aired earlier this year, new reality TV series The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives took audiences by storm. Viewers were captivated by the group of Mormon mom influencers and the drama within their circle of friends.
The crux of the drama was the fallout of a sex scandal that involved soft swinging among some of the couples. Throughout the rest of the season, there was also plenty of tension about which of the women were more “faithful” than the others, meaning who adhered to the rules of Mormonism and who was more progressive with their interpretations. One of the cast members, Layla, broke tradition by celebrating her divorce from her husband, and only recently she’s opened up about the truth behind what really went down in her relationship.
Layla Split From Her Husband Of Three Years
Layla is the youngest cast member of the friend group by far; at the time of filming, she was only 22, and now the 23-year-old is setting the record straight about her love life. In the series, Layla shared with the cameras that she didn’t grow up as a Mormon, but that she later joined the church in her teen years.
Not too long after joining the church, Layla met the person who would go on to become her husband, a man named Clayton Wessel. The two married when Layla was still extremely young, after having dated for only one year, and now, three years later, the pair are divorced.
The true reason behind their split, Layla explained to Us Weekly, was because things were an emotional rollercoaster, and she didn’t see the marriage lasting in the long-term. She noted that, during moments of conflict, Clayton often liked to threaten divorcing her, and, eventually, Layla wound up calling his bluff. She detailed this dynamic in more detail:
It was kind of a scare tactic to get me to fall back in line. He ended up being the one to call it off, but I didn’t go back.
Layla also explained that their relationship probably held out longer than it actually needed to for the sake of their children. She and Clayton share two boys together, Oliver and Maxwell, and Layla pointed out that most of her decisions surrounding her relationship were made with her kids in mind.
That is, despite feeling as though she and Clayton never had a very stable foundation, she stuck it out for a while because she felt like she owed it to her kids to “give [her] family a chance.” Ironically, however, staying with Clayton after children were added to the mix only exacerbated their issues. “It just kind of kept getting more and more toxic and we fought more than we ever were happy with each other,” she said, “It was just really bad.”
Layla Celebrated Her Divorce On The Show
Though Clayton doesn’t make an appearance throughout the season of The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives, much of Layla’s screentime revolves around her divorce. While one might expect her to seem sad about the end of her marriage, this is actually far from the case. Instead, Layla appears very happy and liberated about the split, and towards the end of the season she even throws herself a divorce party which the rest of the group members attend.
Her divorce party is “funeral-themed,” a metaphor for a past chapter of Layla’s life dying so that a new one can commence. She attends her party in an all-black outfit to lean into the concept, and her friends are all supportive of this next step in her life. It seems there were plenty of other things that Layla was happy to leave behind in the past. She admitted to her friends, for instance, that though she and Clayton had been married for years, she’d never experienced an orgasm before.
While Layla’s friends were shocked to learn this about her, Layla seemed to shrug it off, mostly looking forward to moving on with a better era of her life. At present, it seems that she actually does have a new boyfriend, and that the two allegedly connected after Layla slid in to his DMs. Though not much is known about her new beau, it has been confirmed that he is also Mormon, and Layla has teased that fans may get to know a whole lot more if The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives is picked up for a second season.
Until then, it seems that Layla is working hard to co-parent her two boys with her ex-husband. Despite trying to keep things civil, she noted that it hadn’t been all smooth-sailing, and that at times Clayton had seemed to bristle at the fact that Layla was talking about their past relationship on a reality TV show and that she was dating again.
Layla further elaborated on what Clayton’s reactions to her choices had been like:
I think with him, there comes jealousy, and he found out about my boyfriend. So hopefully one day I’m praying that we can get to a point that we’re a lot more cordial.
It seems that Clayton may not have taken kindly to hearing that Layla was throwing herself a divorce party that was going to be filmed for the show, but Layla also noted that his reaction wasn’t going to stop her from doing it anyway. While she said she didn’t agree to the show just so that she could bash her ex, she also wasn’t going to let him dictate her behavior going forward.
So what’s next for the breakout star? Layla shared that while she could eventually see herself walking down the aisle again, for now she felt like it would be best for her to date around some more—if only so that she can continue to learn more about herself first. Though this might be slightly nontraditional in the Mormon church, Layla was firm in her belief that this was what would be best for her. As of now, The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives has yet to be renewed for a new season, and all episodes are available to stream now on Hulu.