Nia Sanchez and Danny Booko are talking about making it through their first season on The Valley.
The pair, who have been deemed “couple goals” by fans of the show, spoke with PEOPLE exclusively at the VIP Launch of Jeremy Scott X Cybex Car about how they are keeping their relationship strong as they open up their lives to the public. With the “reality show curse” of divorces following reality stars, Sanchez and Booko say they are mindful of the toll filming can take on them.
“I think that we’ve always said that we’re going to continue to check in with each other, and our relationship is most important — way more than a show,” Sanchez shares. “So as long as we feel solid, we’ll move forward.”
The former Miss USA continues: “And if we feel like, ‘Oh, we need to make sure we’re solid, we’re not there yet,’ then we’re not going to move forward and we’ll just take care of our relationship first. Always.”
Casey Durkin/Bravo
When it comes to the rules the parents-of-three follow to maintain a healthy relationship, Sanchez says Booko, an actor, taught her how to keep an open line of communication, even though “it’s not easy sometimes.”
“Daniel actually really started us off with great communication and that was something that I actually had to learn,” Sanchez explains. “And I feel like in some relationships that’s the opposite. But Daniel grew up in a home with wonderful communication, so we kind of established that early on, but we’ve also done therapy over the years, premarital counseling, so we’ve learned more techniques that help us have healthy communication.”
Booko adds that the pair’s motto is “Don’t let the sun go down in your anger.” He says they don’t often let conflict linger.
“We like to address things and work through it in a healthy manner and have love and respect for each other and hear each other’s point of views and do it that way,” he says.
Felix Kunze/Gizelle Hernandez/Bravo
With the change that reality TV brought into their lives, Sanchez says it will be nice to have “a little bit of a break” before filming resumes later this summer. They even teased the drama to come.
“Look, season 2 is going to be a lot of shots fired and a lot of bombs dropping I feel like — especially with a couple of the couples,” Booko reveals.
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For now, Sanchez and Booko are continuing to put one another first.
“[We’re] always protecting each other, wanting to be on a united front and be intentional on making sure both are feeling loved and respected and speaking each other’s love languages,” Booko says.