Ramona Singer opens up about husband's affair: 'This person was an addiction for him'

Ramona Singer has survived seven season's on Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York," but beginning in 2014, the drama in Singer's personal life rivaled that of the series. In her new book, "Life on the Ramona Coaster," she details the moment she went to her Hamptons home and found her husband there with his mistress. Singer talked to FOX411 about her lowest points and how she's moved past the demise of her marriage and come out stronger.

FOX411: You named your book “Life on the Ramona Coaster,” even though in an episode this season [cast mate] Bethenny Frankel told you not to.
Ramona Singer: She liked, I think, “Work in Progress” and that was also good but I think when you read the book, the title “Ramona Coaster” goes more with what the book is. It’s a fast read and there are highs and lows…My friends have said that it’s very riveting, you can’t put it down. You don’t want to stop reading it.

FOX411: You write in the book you found [estranged husband] Mario’s mistress with him in your Hamptons home.
Singer: I had kicked him out of the apartment and I said I need a break because I was just over-medicated and my nerves were shot … after two weeks I said ‘I want to come see you’ and he said ‘No, I don’t want to see you. I want to spend time alone.’

It was an addiction. This person was an addiction for him.

FOX411: That must have been horrifying.
Singer: I just think when anyone betrays you, it’s horrifying. What was horrifying to me was his reaction when I got [to the Hamptons house]. He just did not look like the man I had been with… Basically, I arrived at the home to work things out with him, and I had a sneaky suspicion that the other woman might be there [but] she really wasn’t the root of the problem… When he saw me, the look in his eyes was panic. He said ‘Why are you here?’ He pushed me out. It was very surreal. I was living a nightmare. This wasn’t the man I had married.

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FOX411: You two aren’t together, but you’ve gotten past that time.
Singer: I forgive him for everything. I’ve come out of it more compassionate and warm and vulnerable.

FOX411: Do you think he was jealous of your success?
Singer: I think he was resentful of my fame. I never wanted to embrace the word celebrity… [to say] that I was a celebrity, but I have to accept it. I am a celebrity around the world. I can’t even go to Europe without getting recognized.

FOX411: You write in the book that you got so depressed and overwhelmed at one point that you thought about throwing yourself in front of a subway train.
Singer: I’m kind of embarrassed to even talk about it. This was in the fall when I discovered the affair and I was trying to just hide from it and bury it under the rug… It’s a crippling feeling. I do take the subway and I remember waiting for the train and being so sad and so forlorn… and thinking I hate my life. It was a passing thought. I wasn’t really-- but it was a passing thought, but I know enough about psychology and therapy to know that it [suicidal thoughts] mean you are depressed. I had a thought that maybe I’d be better off dead than alive.

FOX411: You also say you took too many anti-depressants at one point.
Singer: I would just wake up in the morning with such high anxiety and depression and I just couldn’t face the day. I am the kind of woman who [used to] jump out of bed. I went on Lexapro and then they gave me another drug, and that drug did not react well to me and that’s when I had asked my ex-husband to leave the apartment because I needed to get my health [in check]. He saw he had pushed me too far.

FOX411: You say certain plotlines on ‘The Real Housewives of New York’ seemed pre-planned to you.
Singer: The show-- the producers don’t pre-plan anything. It’s up to us, the reality talent to figure out what our storylines are. I know the first season… I wanted a successful show, so I acted out…

[When cast-member Aviva Drescher memorably threw her prosthetic leg during a dinner party] I knew with Aviva thought she was on thin ice with Bravo because she didn’t go on any of the trips… so I think she planned that. I heard she actually wanted to even add more drama to it by having her ex-husband carry her out but he refused to do it.

FOX411: The revelations in the book about the plastic surgery and Botox you’ve had is making headlines. Why do you think people care so much?  
Singer: I think I look pretty good for my age, and I attribute a lot of it to: I work out regularly, I eat great, I get a lot of rest. And I go to a great doctor… she’s a plastic surgeon but she does other anti-aging non-surgical procedures…. My body is definitely better than it was 10 years ago.

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FOX411: Where is your love life at today?
Singer: I am casually dating. I spend a lot of time with my good friends. I have a great group of married friends and now I have new single friends that are men and women…

FOX411: And what about your relationship with your cast members. Do you see them when you aren’t filming?
Singer: I’m basically on a really good page which each and every one of them. LuAnn [de Lesseps] and I have developed this great new friendship. Carol [Radziwill], I see; Dorinda [Medley], I see; Sonja [Morgan], is away in Europe when she gets back, I’ll see her. Kristin, I don’t really see her, but Bethenny [Frankel] I will see this week. I think this season, for me, I was the gel with the group.

FOX411: What do you want readers to gain from “Life on the Ramona Coaster?”
Singer: This a book where you will get to see the full picture of who I am, all my different sides, so people who think they know me after seven years… they are really going to get to know me after reading this book.

I also think this book will be inspirational to women because I grew up in a home where I witnessed domestic abuse… many more people are victims of that than you realize and the fact that I could take what happened to me and become very successful in my career, I mean, I had about a million dollars in my bank account before I got married. If I can do it, anyone can do it. I grew up in upstate New York on a farm.

And, let’s face it, 50 percent of people go through divorce and I was willing to talk about it. I don’t think people are as willing to talk about it… and I learned you can go on with your life.

“Life on the Ramona Coaster” on bookstands now.