After jetting off to Georgia for Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition, Melissa Gorga instantly clocked some things that would never fly in her Garden State home.
As part of the social experiment, the perfectionist mom from The Real Housewives of New Jersey first stepped outside her comfort zone and adopted swap counterpart Michelle Clark’s more free-flowing lifestyle, including lax rules for her three children (Sean Jr., 8, Phoenix, 7, and Maverick, 3), as well as a an emphasis on quality family time over household cleaning and organization.
After helping prepare a vegan meal for the kids — while she begrudgingly joined swap husband Sean Clark in a juice cleanse — Melissa encountered one of the experience’s biggest challenges: going to bed with dirty dishes still in the kitchen sink.
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Though Sean insisted they could just clean up later, Melissa still asked, “Really? Are you sure? I’m in sensory overload.”
As the RHONJ ‘Wife further declared to a producer, “Oh my god, this is my nightmare. I am in a different world right now. Like, we’re just gonna go to bed and leave that all in the sink right now? None of what goes on in this house goes on in mine.”
Melissa Gorga reflects on her Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition experience
Melissa noted that she joined Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition to learn “to just let some things go,” after husband Joe Gorga said that her rigidity in their Franklin Lakes, N.J. home was “too much” to handle, at times. Post-filming, she opened up about the experience and what she learned in the process in an exclusive interview with The Daily Dish.
Referring to the Clark kids as “the sweetest, most polite, amazing children,” the real-life mom to Antonia, 20, Gino, 18, and Joey Gorga, 15, said she “couldn’t have gotten luckier” to be paired with the East Point, Georgia-based family. That’s at least partly because seeing Sean’s hands-on approach to fatherhood taught Melissa a valuable parenting lesson.
“Everything was a learning experience,” she elaborated. “I’m like, wow, I spent a lot of time with my kids, but I don’t make everything a learning experience when it really could be. … So, I think just with motherhood, it gave me a lot of insight.”
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Though she still keeps her house “spotless,” nowadays, Melissa “for sure” channels her swap husband when faced with parenting challenges. She added, “When something happens with my children, I think, like, ‘What would Sean do? What would Sean have a conversation about right now?'”
Having introduced more structure and organization into the Clark family’s highly intertwined lives on the show, Melissa, in turn, also hoped that she taught Sean and Michelle a thing or two about the importance of taking some alone time amid their daily “grind” as well.
“Divide and conquer does work,” she remarked. “And you can think a little bit when you have some time on your own and you’re not together 24/7.”
Where Melissa Gorga stands with her Wife Swap family now
Even after filming wrapped, Melissa said she stayed in touch with the Clark family — and is still in close contact with them today.
“I talk to them all the time,” she revealed. “They’re an amazing family. They’re trying to come out to New Jersey to hang out with us. They’re originally from New York, so when they come to visit their family, we’re going to see them.”
After Melissa stepped in to finish off the couple’s 10-day cleanse — and Michelle whipped up some healthy beverages for the Gorgas back in Jersey — on Wife Swap‘s Oct. 28 episode, the Clarks even shipped her an appropriate gift.
As Melissa further shared, “They sent me the most amazing juicer recently.”
As you await more Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition episodes, take a closer look inside Melissa’s life as a mom today.
