Cynthia Bailey Opens Up About Her Split From Mike Hill, Shuts Down Cheating Rumors: “This is Not a Tragic Ending for Us”

Cynthia Bailey is opening up about the rumors surrounding her split from sports broadcaster Mike Hill.

This week, Bailey and Hill announced they were exiting their marriage after two years. And it seemed like as soon as she made the announcement, swarms of opinions appeared online about the root of their breakup, with many accusing Hill of not being faithful to the former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star.

But Bailey, 55, is clearing the air and letting it be known that infidelity wasn’t the reason behind the romantic departure.

“It may not seem like it when you think about divorce or a relationship ending, but this for us is not a bad thing,” said in an interview with PEOPLE on Wednesday. “This is not a tragic ending for us. This is two people who have enough love and respect for each other to be truthful about their relationship in terms of asking themselves, ‘Are we truly happy together? How do we want to move forward?’ And then who were brave enough and loved one another enough to make that choice together.”

She went more in-depth about the importance of maintaining her happiness even when in a relationship.

“The beauty of the whole situation is Mike and I, we learned from our previous relationships,” she continues. “[Peter Thomas] and I were married for almost eight years and we struggled a lot of those years; I didn’t want to wait eight years to figure out that it’s not woking or we’re not compatible as we thought we were. And Mike’s the same way.”

She says that the root of it, they were better off being friends.

“We always said we never wanted to feel like we were just in this to be in this. We didn’t want to settle for anything less than happy. And we just got to the point where, after really evaluating it, we felt like we were better suited to just be friends rather than trying to force something to work that just wasn’t working anymore,” she said PEOPLE reports.