The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 7 Episode 14 Recap: The Importance of Family

On The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 7 Episode 14, the big day finally arrived … for Joe Giudice to head to the big house.

If you watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey online, it was hard not to get a little choked up, regardless of the Giudices’ misdeeds.

Watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 7 Episode 14 Online

Does he deserve this punishment? Oh yes.

Does it make his family less human? No.

After weeks of heated arguments over relatively trivial things with Bravo’s Garden State ladies, the nastiness was set aside this week.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 7 Episode 14 featured the run-up to Joe Giudice going to prison for the next 41 months.

That’s almost three and a half years.

Watching Teresa and her children say goodbye to Juicy Joe? Much more of an emotional experience than we expected, to be honest.

Each of the girls giving him a birthday cupcake to make up for the ones they won’t get to spend with him? If that doesn’t make you tear up …

Melissa and Joe Gorga’s youngest son Joey clinging to his uncle at his going away party will. Or Milania’s reaction to the whole thing.

Little Audriana told her older sister that if she cries, she’ll make the rest of the girls too, so she’d better keep it together for their sake.

It was almost too much to take.

New cast member Siggy Flicker probably summed it best: “You would have to be an empty shell of a person for this not to affect you.” 

Joe’s actual goodbyes with his daughters were private, and rightfully so, before we saw him get into a car and drive to prison with Tre.

“It’s crazy what this family’s been through and what we’re gonna go through,” Joe Gorga told Melissa, perhaps not choosing the best word:

“It’s like a storybook.”

One with a 41-month prison sentence for mortgage fraud. But we know what he means: You could not make up something this bizarre.

Meanwhile, Siggy took her family to the Holocaust Memorial Park, where her father Mordecai told his grandkids about how he escaped.

Dolores Catania decided to have a housewarming party now that her remodeling is finished, which was just the kind of filler it sounds like.

As for Melissa?

View Slideshow: 23 Teresa Giudice GIFs That Should Worry Her Fellow Inmates (and Everyone Else)

Melissa Gorga lectured her store manager about his confusion over social media, as she tried harder to get her business off the ground. 

Finally, Jacqueline Laurita made Dolores and Siggy hold dirty-diapered baby dolls even though pregnant daughter Ashley wasn’t there.

Good times in N.J.

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Jessa Duggar & Derick Dillard Preach About Importance of "Covenant Marriage" in El Salvador

It’s been less than two years since Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard got married, but apparently the couple has spent much of that time doling out marital advice to other couples.

The Dillards moved to El Salvador to perform missionary work not long after their son Israel was born, and now we know more about the exact nature of the work they’re doing in Central America.

It seems the couple is advising other young married or engaged folks in two different ways:

Derick gives regular sermons at their local church, and he and Jill both meet with men and women who are seeking advice or having trouble in their relationships.

The Dillards are in a “covenant marriage” – a type of union offered in three states (including their native Arkansas) that makes it very difficult to obtain a divorce.

The legal details vary from state to state, but usually, under the terms of a covenant marriage, a divorce can be obtained only if one partner commits adultery, abuse or a felony.

Generally, even in those cases, the couple must live apart for a minimum of one year before they can begin divorce proceedings.

El Salvador doesn’t offer legally distinct covenant marriages, but apparently the Dillards encourage those they’re counseling to treat their marriages like one.

Sources say Jill and Derick often remind those considering divorce that “love is unconditional” and that they’ll remain married “in the eyes of God” even if they obtain a legal divorce.

Their stance could prove problematic as Central America has an extremely high rate of domestic violence, and there are no doubt many cases in which divorce is the safest option, even if the abuse hasn’t occurred yet.

It is unknown if Jill and Derick have counseled any victims of spousal abuse, but they may have done so without being aware of it themselves.

Just one of the many reasons why it could be dangerous to preach the idea that God punishes those who seek divorces.

Watch Jill & Jessa: Counting On online for more of the Dillard family’s life in El Salvador.

View Slideshow: Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard Photos