Nick and Vanessa Lachey have spoken candidly about their relationship and how therapy was beneficial to them, acknowledging how they used to go through each other’s phones.
In Netflix’s news dating series The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, hosts Vanessa and Nick introduced six different couples who faced an ultimatum in their relationships, as one person was ready to get married while the other was not.
The couples did an eight week experiment where they dated other people, lived with someone else for three weeks, as part of a “trial marriage,” and then moved back in with their original partner for another three weeks. At the end of the experience, contestants decided if they wanted to marry their original partner or walk away from them forever.
During the reunion special, which was the last episode of the season, Vanessa reflected on how one of the contestants, April Marie, went through her boyfriend Jake Cunningham’s phone when he was asleep. Although Vanessa said that she had conflicting thoughts about Marie’s actions, the 41-year-old actor confessed that she had done the same thing herself with Nick’s phone.
“I have mixed feelings about that,” she said. “There was a time in my life when I did it.”
Nick spoke up and asked his wife: “Wait, wait?” However, Vanessa then called him out, noting that the 48-year-old singer has previously gone through her phone, as well.
“You did it too,” she continued. “I’m actually really surprised you figured out my password. That was a good one.”
Vanessa acknowledged that she and Nick were seeing a “therapist,” at the time, who told them that if they were to continue looking at each other’s devices, they “shouldn’t be together”.
“I remember we went to a therapist, and she was like, ‘If y’all are going through each other’s phones, then you shouldn’t be together,” Vanessa added. “I was like, ‘You’re right. I need to trust this man and he needs to trust me.’”
The former Total Request Live host and 98 Degrees singer started dating shortly after Nick split from his ex-wife Jessica Simpson, as their divorce was finalised in 2006. According to Vanessa, Nick’s “very public” divorce and marriage was “very hard” on their relationship.
“He was literally in a very public marriage and a very public divorce, and I had to go through all that s***,” she explained, on the sixth episode of The Ultimatum. “Very publicly. And it was very hard for us.”
But, the model said that once she and her now-husband found a way to“let it go,” it allowed them to be “truly committed to each other”.
“It wasn’t until the moment that he was like: ‘I’m gonna let it go,’ and I said: ‘I’m gonna let it go,’ and we truly committed to each other,” she continued. “We literally fell deeper and harder than we ever could.”
The couple, who got married in 2011, are parents to three children: Camden, nine, Brooklyn, seven, and Phoenix, five.
Along with The Ultimatum, they are the hosts of another popular reality dating show, Love Is Blind.
You can steam the first season of The Ultimatum on Netflix.
