Now she gets it! Back in 2013, Real Housewives of New Jersey star Melissa Gorga wrote a relationship advice book called Love Italian Style: The Secrets of My Hot and Happy Marriage, in which she gave women advice on treating their husband “like a king, so he’ll treat you like a queen.” But if you talked to Melissa today, she’d tell you her views on marriage have “crazily changed,” according to Entertainment Tonight, to the point where she revealed she and husband, Joe Gorga, have even “[hit] a moment” where she understood why couples get divorced.

The Gorgas have been doing RHONJ a long time, and until recently, Melissa didn’t think it would affect her and Joe’s marriage in the same way it did for other women in the Bravo franchise. “I’ve been on the show for eight years,” she told ET. “I was [always] like, ‘We’re good, we got this. I don’t know what everybody else’s problem is, all these Housewives are getting divorces’… and then I’m like, ‘Oh, I get this. OK, we’re hitting a moment.'” Good to know things get rocky for everyone, even a couple that seems as in love as these two do.

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But Melissa’s views really have changed since writing her book, and it doesn’t seem like Joe loves it. “Like, I can’t believe it,” she told ET about how she doesn’t really vibe with the things she wrote in her book. “I’ll probably go back and read the book and go, ‘Yeah, no.’ And that’s a true fact. It’s one of the things that, I’m being very honest, I struggle a lot with Joe over that.”

Considering Melissa wrote her book from the point of view of a typical Italian wife, it makes sense that her views would change as she continued to grow as a woman in the public eye, and as an entrepreneur. “I was so stuck in and being a traditional Italian girl, being stuck in like, ‘No, that’s what I want to do. I want to be a mom who cooks and cleans, and my husband will provide for me and that’s what every lucky girl gets in life, and that’s what I got,” she revealed about her marriage with Joe.

Now, with her clothing line Envy, and her continued work as a singer and television personality, it’s all about keeping things equal for the couple. “I need [him] to respect my work, even though I’m gonna be in glam for two hours. It’s also part of my work. For him, it’s a struggle to understand. He’s like, ‘Your work is fun,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m working’… Just because his work is in construction, it’s not as fun, I would say, as my work. So we go back and forth on that and just the roles in the house,” she explained. Clearly, the changes in their relationship have had them working on things, especially in the midst of doing the whole reality show thing.

melissa gorga joe gorga
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But for those of us who love Melissa and Joe as a couple, there isn’t anything to worry about. “We’re fighting really hard and I think at the end of the day you really have to have the true love for one another because if you don’t, you’re not gonna get through this,” she revealed to ET. “[He] and I truly do love one another, and we’re gonna fight for [our] love, our kids.” True love truly is the key.

We’re glad these two plan to keep working on things, because we love where this RHONJ star’s head is at!