<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Departing from its usual fare of Housewives, fashionistas, and Gallery Girls&amp;#x27; antics, Bravo&amp;#x27;s latest show, Newlyweds: The First Year (which premieres tonight!), is a very real, very honest inside peek at the lives of four recently wed couples as they experience the ups and downs of their first year together. Curious to see how filming the show might affect a marriage that&amp;#x27;s already trying to find its feet, I sat down with one of the shows&amp;#x27; couples, Kim and Alaska, to talk relationships, reality shows, and more. Check out their heartfelt (and honest!) advice for surviving that first year: How did you two meet? Kim: We were on the dance floor of our favorite nightclub. Alaska: We would run across each other and end up dancing with each other at least five or six times, but no communication afterward. Did you know each other&amp;amp;#8217;s names? Kim: No, I loved it because he never tried to approach me. Back then, we weren&amp;amp;#8217;t really attracted to each other. It was just a familiar face that we knew. We found out later on that we had mutual friends, so I was like, &amp;amp;#8216;OK, I can let him in a little.&amp;amp;#8217; Alaska: That&amp;amp;#8217;s how we actually met&amp;amp;#8212;breakfast after the club. We went to our favorite breakfast spot with two friends. Once I got there, I was like, &amp;amp;#8216;Oh! We know each other, but we don&amp;amp;#8217;t because we dance with each other but don&amp;amp;#8217;t talk to each other.&amp;amp;#8217; We ended up hanging out every single day for nine months straight. It was a crew of six or seven of us. Then one day I figured out, &amp;amp;#8216;I think I like her,&amp;amp;#8217; and I kissed her, and she kissed me back. Kim: And the rest is history. How long did you date until you got married? Kim: Five years, and we didn&amp;amp;#8217;t live together. Alaska: Old-school but modern. Did you want to date a long time before getting married, or did it just happen that way? Kim: It just happened. Alaska: The first time I asked her out, and I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t sure. Kim: That was so weird. How do you take it back? He asked me out, and then he said, &amp;amp;#8216;All right, take-backs! I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t really say that!&amp;amp;#8217; Alaska: I think I panicked and freaked out. I was young. Why finally get married? Alaska: I thought, I think I&amp;amp;#8217;m ready for this next step. I think the fact that she didn&amp;amp;#8217;t force it or pressure it made it easier. I&amp;amp;#8217;m the type of person that if you try to force me to do something, I just won&amp;amp;#8217;t do it. She&amp;amp;#8217;s lucky I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t propose to her earlier. I&amp;amp;#8217;ll just say that. Kim: But it&amp;amp;#8217;s great now! It was perfect timing for our careers, our family, everything. So, tell me about the first year. What are we going to see on the show Alaska: You see ups and downs. You&amp;amp;#8217;re going to see me a little annoyed, slightly jerky but still compassionate and loving. Right, babe? Kim: Yes. You&amp;amp;#8217;re going to see me trying to convince him to do&amp;amp;#133; Alaska: Everything. Kim: Is it everything? You didn&amp;amp;#8217;t live together before, so was that a struggle? Kim: It was a lot of adjusting. I like to take showers with him, so I&amp;amp;#8217;d be like, &amp;amp;#8216;I want to be married. That&amp;amp;#8217;s going to be our time,&amp;amp;#8217; and Alaska&amp;amp;#8217;s like, &amp;amp;#8216;No, we&amp;amp;#8217;re not taking showers together!&amp;amp;#8217; You&amp;amp;#8217;ll see that. If that&amp;amp;#8217;s your biggest struggle&amp;amp;#8212;not showering together&amp;amp;#8212;that&amp;amp;#8217;s not that bad. Alaska: It&amp;amp;#8217;s not that bad. You married a good one. Kim: We travel a lot. He travels a lot, so the time that I had with him, I just wanted all of him. Alaska: To see her reaction when I was leaving...for some reason I never really saw it when we were dating, when we were without the cameras. The cameras gave me a chance to really see how she was affected by it, and that really clicked for me big time. What did you learn? Alaska: Pick your battles. If it&amp;amp;#8217;s not worth it, don&amp;amp;#8217;t get into it. Kim: Everything doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t happen overnight. I think that was my biggest thing. I want to see results, results, results. It took time to adjust, to set a plan, and to be OK with riding the journey. Alaska: And don&amp;amp;#8217;t argue over text. Kim: Oh, yeah. Things can go so wrong. When you call them or text them, and they say, &amp;amp;#8216;No, I sent an email.&amp;amp;#8217; OK, but you still didn&amp;amp;#8217;t physically talk to them. So many things can be lost in translation. Especially if you&amp;#x27;re doing long-distance. Kim: It was really hard because we dated for five years, and we were together every day. Then we get married, and he&amp;amp;#8217;s never with me. And then, you&amp;amp;#8217;ve got your family and friends saying, &amp;amp;#8216;That&amp;amp;#8217;s not normal.&amp;amp;#8217; Everybody has their idea of what marriage should be. Alaska: You have to shut people off. There are some people we don&amp;amp;#8217;t listen to anymore. Kim: Too much noise. So what advice did you listen to? Alaska: From her father. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think he&amp;amp;#8217;s ever been wrong with the advice he&amp;amp;#8217;s given us, and he&amp;amp;#8217;s unbiased even though Kim&amp;#x27;s the apple of his eye. Kim: &amp;amp;#8216;I&amp;amp;#8217;m on the side of right.&amp;amp;#8217; That&amp;amp;#8217;s his motto. &amp;amp;#8216;Kim, you&amp;amp;#8217;re buggin&amp;amp;#8217;. I&amp;amp;#8217;m with him. He needs to have NFL Sundays.&amp;amp;#8217; Alaska: That&amp;amp;#8217;s the best advice he gave us. I definitely deserve NFL Sundays and not to do a thing on Sundays. Kim: And that I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have to cook every day! That&amp;amp;#8217;s great advice. Alaska: Oh, he said that? One flaw in the rule. [Laughs] So, where do you guys see yourselves in five years? Alaska: In five years, we will definitely still be married to each other. Have a kid&amp;amp;#8212;just one. Kim: I want more eventually. Alaska: Two, right? Two kids. Sounds like you both have similar values. Kim: That&amp;amp;#8217;s why we survive. Alaska: You&amp;amp;#8217;ll see that we&amp;amp;#8217;re not perfect through the show. We just want to let people know that we&amp;amp;#8217;re not perfect, but we decide to work through everything we believe in and we stand on, which is the basis for everything we do&amp;amp;#8212;from work, our relationship, religion, anything. You believe in it, you stand on it, and you commit to it, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s what we definitely believe in. No matter what comes our way, we&amp;amp;#8217;re going to&amp;amp;#133; Kim: Move past it. Were there moments when you felt the cameras ever interfered, or made problems worse? Alaska: The cameras haven&amp;amp;#8217;t made any problems worse. It forced me to adjust who I was as a person because you get a chance to see yourself. I needed to adjust and change. My attitude sometimes, maybe I was a little too jerky that day. It didn&amp;amp;#8217;t make me lose all my jerky qualities, but I want to balance it out a little bit, you know? Kim: Overall, it was good. They were like a fly on the wall. That&amp;amp;#8217;s what I love about it. It wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t scripted. It was very self-directed. They took cues based off our conversations, our interviews. Nothing was like, &amp;amp;#8216;We kind of want to make it seem like&amp;amp;#133;&amp;amp;#8217; I&amp;amp;#8217;m comfortable with what&amp;amp;#8217;s put out there. Even with the editing&amp;amp;#8212;at the end of the day, it was how I felt. Alaska: It was honest. Kim: Even when they were like, &amp;amp;#8216;Is there anything that you said that might&amp;amp;#8217;ve upset Alaska?&amp;amp;#8217; Absolutely not. We&amp;amp;#8217;re very transparent. If it&amp;amp;#8217;s on the show, we probably spoke about before the show anyway. It&amp;amp;#8217;s something we resolved going through the show. We have no issues. We&amp;amp;#8217;re not nervous. Tune in to the premiere tonight at 10/9C on Bravo! Photo: Courtesy of Bravo "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2013/05/kim-and-alaska-from-newlyweds>