Kyle Cooke says Amanda Batula’s absence from the group’s night out in a new preview for Summer House Season 10, Episode 12, gave him a “rude awakening” — and made him realize, in his words, “just how effed we really are.” The episode airs Tuesday, April 21 at 8/7c on Bravo.
In the preview, Cooke says he was “for the first time in a long time, having fun” and felt “a little more light-hearted, a little like myself” because “my wife’s nowhere to be seen.” He adds that Batula being out of the picture brought home how strained things have become between them.
Cooke and Ben Waddell talk about that strain in the clip. Cooke says he “basically really felt bad the first couple of weeks,” while Waddell pushes back, telling him, “I don’t think this is your worst.” Waddell also tells him, “I’ve seen what you are going through; don’t think that I am judging you about anything.”
The exchange lands in the middle of a season that has already put Cooke and Batula’s marriage under a microscope. On the Season 10 premiere, Cooke said, “Every summer, Amanda just makes me feel like I don't exist,” while Batula said marriage, and then children, had not brought the easy happiness she once expected, adding that she didn’t think “s–t would be this hard in the first few years.”
Later in the season, Batula asked Cooke, “Where do I fit in?” and said she was trying to figure out whether he was taking “us into consideration” when making decisions. Cooke, meanwhile, said he was making money from DJ gigs while also getting Loverboy into venues that normally charge, and said he did not understand how Batula could not see things from his perspective. He also said her lack of attention to his business, debt and employees — including people with families whose benefits he pays for — left him frustrated.
That is the friction the preview captures: Cooke is laughing in the moment, but the laugh comes with an admission that his marriage has been pulling him apart all season. With Summer House back in the Hamptons for Season 10, the question is not whether the couple is arguing. It is whether either of them still sees a way to make the other feel like they belong in the same future.