Teen Mom star Cheyenne Floyd talks a good game. Because the Los Angeles-based mom of two has discovered that open, honest and frequent conversation is the secret to maintaining a strong coparenting relationship with ex Cory Wharton.
When it comes to raising 6-year-old daughter Ryder, she, husband Zach Davis, Cory and his girlfriend Taylor Selfridge "do a good job at communicating," Floyd told E! News in an exclusive interview ahead of the July 19 premiere of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter. "The four of us will get together and have coparent check ins and run different topics by each other or different issues that have come up and say, 'How do you guys handle in your house versus how we handled in our house?'"
Their strategy turns parenting into a team sport, she continued, where they're "going back and forth with, 'Okay, well, I like that idea. Maybe we handled it a little differently.'"
Basically, they talk the talk.
"We all talk a lot," she said. "We have to. The kids are still so young, that we're still trying to figure out how we want to parent them, what our parenting styles are. And it evolves and it changes."
And, admittedly, it's sometimes not the best.
"There's a lot of times where we think we're killing it, we're doing the greatest job and then reality slaps you in the face," she said of the hard moments, "and it's like, I didn't handle that correctly."
Take, for instance, her tendency to let petty slights and grievances pile up. "I've blown up a few times at Cory and he's looking at me like, 'Are you kidding?'" she admitted. "And it's a lot of apologizing."
At times, she continued, "Zach's had to tell me I'm in the wrong before and I just don't like hearing that I'm wrong." But she's working on it, all right? Noted Cheyenne, "I'm growing."
Her romance with Zach is flourishing as well.
Set to celebrate their first wedding anniversary on Sept. 29, she and Zach, who share 2-year-old son Ace, are technically newlyweds, but their years-long on-and-off romance has already been battle-tested.
"I think we just have a really strong foundation," she said. "And we have a strong village that wants us to succeed and be successful in our marriage and in our parenting."
But even more important than having built-in phone-a-friends whenever they need advice (both she and Zach tend to turn to her father), the couple—who moved into a new L.A. spread last years—just really enjoy being around each other.
"The other day, I looked at my mom and I said, 'I really like him like, I really do,'" Cheyenne recalled. "And I feel like that's the best part. We were friends before and a huge part of our relationship is our friendship."
Or, as she put it when reflecting on their first year of marriage, "We're still married, our house hasn't burned down. So I think we're doing great."
Teen Mom: The Next Chapter premieres with back-to-back episodes on Wednesday, July 19 at 8 p.m. on MTV.