Vanessa told YourTango.com in 2013 that, if she could have offered her younger self any relationship advice, it would be, “don’t take everything so seriously in love. Trust is the most important part of a relationship, closely followed by communication. I think that if you have those two things, everything else falls into place—your affection, your emotional connection.”
She added, “I have no secrets and no skeletons in my closet with my husband, and I love that. I feel comfortable and at ease with myself when I’m around him. I love the woman that I’ve become with him.”
Not that life has been all romance, cozy family tableaux and spirited Dancing With the Stars rivalries for the couple, who celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary that July.
They admitted in 2017 that they experienced a “funky time” the previous year, when they had two kids, Vanessa was pregnant with Phoenix, and Nick was on tour for eight weeks (though coming home as often as possible).
“I was like, ‘man, I really have so much respect, and love and appreciation, for single parents,'” Vanessa told PeopleTV. “You have to change everything about the way you attack the day, and everything that you would think you’re wired to be, it’s different. I need that partner, at the end of the day to just hang out with and talk to.”
But ultimately, before she met Nick, she couldn’t wait to meet a great guy, to have healthy and happy babies, “to live this life of love—and I’m there. So all that was work to get to you, to get to this, to get to now.”
