The Heartbreaking Reason Behind Sofía Vergara And Joe Manganiello's Divorce
It's a common problem that many couples face.
DFree / Shutterstock; CanvaPro Last summer, many fans of actress Sofía Vergara were stunned and heartbroken to learn that she and her husband of seven years, Joe Manganiello, were divorcing.
Vergara recently opened up about the reasons why she and Manganiello came to the difficult decision to end their marriage.
Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello decided to end their marriage over their differences regarding having children.
In July 2023, Page Six broke the news that Vergara and Manganiello were separating after seven years of marriage. Vergara’s legal response cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for divorce.
However, in an interview published on El País in January 2024, Vergara revealed that the primary cause for the separation was because Manganiello wanted children while Vergara did not. "My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids and I didn’t want to be an old mom," she said.
Vergara believed that having children at her age would not be fair to them. "I feel it’s not fair to the baby. I respect whoever does it, but that's not for me anymore."
She noted that she's ready to be a grandmother since she has already experienced motherhood.
Her son Manolo, whom she had when she was 19 years old with her first husband, Joe Gonzalez, is 32 years old.
"I'm almost in menopause; it’s the natural way of things. When my son becomes a dad, let him bring the baby to me for a while and then I’ll give it back to him and go on with my life; that’s what I have to do,” Vergara said.
However, the 51-year-old actress is not closing the door when it comes to love. However, she has one important condition: “If love comes along, he has to come with (his own) children.”
Vergara and her ex-fiancé Nick Loeb once planned to have children before their split.
After Vergara met Loeb at a party in 2010, the two began dating and eventually got engaged in July 2012.
In May 2013, the couple decided that they wanted to start a family via invitro fertilization and froze two embryos to utilize when the time was right. Loeb signed a 2013 agreement with Vergara to create the two frozen pre-embryos at the ART Reproductive Center in Beverly Hills.
Unfortunately, they broke up in May 2014. However, in February 2016, Vergara sued Loeb after he claimed that he was authorized to have the frozen embryos implanted into a surrogate.
She also sought a court order declaring that any attempts by Loeb to bring the frozen embryos to term violated their original agreement. According to the lawsuit, the contract stated that one party cannot use the "cryopreserved material'' to create a child without the written consent of the other person.
Loeb insisted that he obtained an “enforceable separate oral agreement” with Vergara where she claimed that they would be able to use the embryos without the consent of the other party, and argued that he only signed the paper contract since he did not want to get “yelled and screamed at” by Vergara.
Fred Silberberg, Vergara's lead attorney, argued that despite what Loeb said in his deposition, he provided no evidence he was under duress when he signed the agreement with Vergara. A judge ruled in favor of Vergara in 2021, and Loeb was fined $17,000 in the battle over her frozen embryos.
Many women in their 50s prefer not to have young children.
A woman’s peak reproductive years are between her late teens and late 20s. By the time most women reach the age of 30, their fertility begins to decline despite Census Bureau statistics indicating the median birth rate in the US is age 30.
Like Vergara, many women in their 50s have already moved past the desire to have children, although it's not unheard of.
Motherhood is undoubtedly a tremendous amount of work, and some women do not wish to go through it all over again at an age where they could enjoy having grandchildren instead, and that is perfectly okay! It's all about choice and body autonomy.
We hope that Vergara finds a partner who is on the same page about having children as she is in the future.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.