Summer House Season 8 presented Kyle Cooke and Amanda Batula as a couple at odds about their next step together. The Loverboy founder is still functioning at full octane, wanting to work hard and party harder. Meanwhile, Amanda wants to move to the suburbs and slow down a bit.
The couple used to work together, with Amanda taking the role of Creative and Branding Director in 2018 after leaving her former job. But five years later, the Summer House star reconsidered her role at Loverboy, and what effect it had on their marriage.
Both parties were taking work issues “personally”
“I’ve taken a slight step back for the sake of our relationship,” Amanda exclusively told Us Weekly in a recent interview.
“I think that we were at a place where I would be frustrated about something happening on my end, and he would take it very personally,” the Summer House star explained. “Or he’d complain about something that I approved, and I made a decision on, and I would take it personally. So it wasn’t great for our relationship.”
Indeed, viewers will recall how much the couple have been fighting in Season 8. Kyle admitted to wanting to be in better “lock-step” with his wife during a recent episode.
After making several important decisions, Amanda is “still very much involved” with Loverboy without having the hassle of an “everyday capacity.”
Amanda thinks “this seems to be working”
The space has been beneficial for the reality TV stars. And it was a long time coming, as Amanda was even speaking about stepping back from Loverboy in the summer of 2023 when Summer House Season 8 was filmed.
“I think we needed a little bit of that separation for now,” she added. “If we had our relationship issues and we had our work issues, then it was a lot. So this seems to be working for us right now.”
Amanda slowly started to remove herself from her responsibilities after BravoCon in November of 2023.
“I was like, ‘I need some downtime,’” she explained. “And then [I] just never fully submerged myself back into work. I kind of did my meetings and did the jobs I was supposed to do, but sort of slowly step back and he’s like, ‘Are you not joining these meetings?’ I was like, ‘No.’”
“I don’t want us to end up resenting each other because of a job. You know what I mean?” Amanda added. “I’m the type of person that works to live, not lives to work, so I would hate for this beautiful thing that we’re building to be the reason that we potentially separated or fell out.”
The hope is that now the couple “can focus” on their relationship. Amanda hopes to “maybe get back to a place where I’m more involved again.”
Catch Summer House Thursdays at 9/8c on Bravo.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK AMANDA STEPPING BACK FROM LOVERBOY WAS THE RIGHT CHOICE? HOW DO YOU THINK IT WILL AFFECT THEIR RELATIONSHIP?
