Kristin Cavallari Says She ‘Went on a Couple Dates’ with Jay Cutler After Divorce to Rekindle Their Love: It’s a ‘Trauma Bond’

Cavallari also said being with Cutler was like “marrying my dad” because she “hadn’t done the work on my relationship with my dad”

Kristin Cavallari arrives to the 2023 People’s Choice Country Awards (left); Jay Cutler at Soldier Field (right). Photo: Todd Williamson/NBC/Getty; Splash News

Kristin Cavallari isn’t shying away from the details of her marriage and eventual split from Jay Cutler.

On Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, Cavallari, who was married to Cutler, 41, from 2013 to 2020, admitted that things between the couple “were just never good” as she revealed how her troubled relationship with her father influenced her marriage.

“So, the thing is, I was repeating a pattern with my dad. And because I hadn’t done the work on my relationship with my dad — that’s what you do, you know? I ended up marrying my dad,” Cavallari, 37, said. “And so, it really forced me then to work through my s—, which is which is what I did.”

Following her 2020 divorce, Cavallari said she has “really taken the time to get my s— together” to avoid “repeating that pattern” in a future relationship.

“Things were just never good and we tried, we really did… We really did everything that we could,” she said of her marriage, which she called “toxic” because she “hadn’t done the work on myself.”

“I was a f—ing baby, I didn’t know any better,” she said, referring to the fact that she was only 23 when she first started dating the former NFL player, who was 27. “We were both young.”

Kristin Cavallari and Jay Cutler attend the Uncommon James VIP Grand Opening at Uncommon James on October 25, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. Timothy Hiatt/Getty

Cavallari also admitted that she and Cutler — who is now engaged to Samantha Robertson — “actually went on a couple dates” in the year following their divorce “trying to see” if their relationship could be rekindled.

“Because, man, it’s f—ing hard,” she said. “And then I think — unless you’ve gone through this, especially with a toxic marriage, it’s like, it has this hold on you… It’s a f—ing trauma bond. And until you can really break that, I would go back [to Cutler] a couple times and be like, ‘I know it’s not right, but, like, why am I doing it?'”

Eventually, though, Cavallari said that for the “18th millionth time was like, ‘I can’t do this,'” and she cut it off for good. “Then I really did the work.”

The Laguna Beach alum also alleged her ex-husband is a “pathological liar” as she told Bunnie XO, “There are things from my marriage that I will never know, and I’ve just sort of had to let that go. I’m over it now, and I can – that’s why I can probably talk about it so freely.”

PEOPLE has reached out to Cutler for comment.

Kristin Cavallari on ‘Watch What Happens Live’.Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty

In October, Cavallari, who shares sons Camden, 12, and Jaxon, 10, and a 9-year-old daughter, Saylor, with Cutler, said that her “heart broke” in her marriage to the Bears quarterback.

“Even though I’m the one that walked away, it was not what I wanted. It was not what I had envisioned,” she said on the Oct. 22 episode of her podcast Let’s Be Honest. “And I really tried f—ing everything I could. It’s just heartbreaking when you want something so badly but you just can’t get there. And I would say my heart was broken for years in my marriage — I mean it was.”

However, she said that she and her ex are “in the best place that we’ve been in” lately.

“It took four years. But things are really good with us now. So much so that we even sat together at one of Camden’s basketball games recently, and that makes me so happy, because honestly, I never thought that we would get there. I really didn’t.”