HGTV stars Ben and Erin Napier have been married for 16 years, and, every so often, Erin experiences a little jealousy.
The couple spoke with Us Weekly, and Erin explained that she didn’t like that someone “who looks too much like a supermodel” was messaging Ben about working with them.
Erin said she trusts Ben “110%,” but lets her imagination run wild sometimes, like when she happened to find her husband taking a mid-afternoon shower.
Ben had spilled something “all over” himself, as it turned out, and while not “accusatory,” she recalled, “I just wanted to let [him] know how creative my mind is.”
He added she was self-aware at the same time, saying, “Before she even called, she was like, ‘This is silly. Why am I thinking this?’”
The 41-year-old said it all “goes hand in hand with communication. How you break trust [is when someone feels forced to say], ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’”
The Napiers say “communication is a key element in a happy marriage,” and miscommunications are rare.
“We’re together all the time. I hear everything that he hears. I’m standing with him when he hears it,” Erin said.
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The “Home Town Takeover” hosts also acknowledge that people can take their conversations out of context due to editing.
“What they don’t realize is that a little 30-second snippet of us talking was taken from a 30-minute conversation,” Ben told the outlet.
Erin added, “We’ve been together longer than we’ve been apart. We learned how to communicate together. It’s effortless now.”
They also said working together takes real effort.
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“Some people say, ‘Oh, I could never work with my spouse.’ But it may be that you’ve never actually tried,” Ben said. “If you go to your parents’ house, and you’re only there for a couple days, you tend to start getting on each other’s nerves. But if you’re together for an extended period, you move beyond that, and you get into this groove together.”
At home, they exchange gestures, like daily love notes Ben leaves his wife.
“They don’t say anything profound,” Erin said. “[Just] things like, ‘I’m so thankful that it’s you and me, and that this is what our life is,’ or, ‘Thank you for being mine, and I’ll always do my best for you every day.’”
Their daughters, Helen and Mae, have picked up on the gesture. Ben says Helen now leaves him notes all the time.
“The girls are going to be ruined,” Erin joked. “They’re never going to find a husband who treats them as good as he does. Good luck to them.”
