In the world of Hollywood, it’s rare to see a marriage truly stand the test of time, which is exactly what makes the 40 year marriage of “That Girl” actress Marlo Thomas and talk show host Phil Donahue so rare.
Thomas and Donahue just spent nine months interviewing other celebrity couples for their new book “What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life.” Couples interviewed for the book include Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Chip and Joanna Gaines, Ron and Cheryl Howard, and many more! In the lead-up to the book’s release, Thomas and Donahue opened up to Fox News about their own marriage, and what they had to say about it is warming the hearts of fans everywhere.
When asked via email why they have rarely spoken publicly about their relationship in the four decades they have been together, Thomas and Donahue had this to say:
Because we’re both in show business, and when you’re in show business, your private life is anything but private. The way we saw it, we were very lucky that our paths crossed when they did, and that we’d made the decision to spend the rest of our days together. That was — and remains — sacred ground to us, and we wanted to protect it. This book is actually our first project together, ever. Talk about putting your marriage to the test! And to our surprise, we wound up talking about our own relationship a lot as we interviewed these other couples about theirs.
The couple was then asked what the secret to their long-lasting union has been:
“The secret to any successful marriage is that there is no single secret,” they said. “There are a million of them. That’s why the book turned out better than we ever imagined it would. Each and every one of the couples we interviewed possesses their own unique narrative and have forged their own unique path to happiness. As for our secret, you’ll get pretty good glimpses of it in the book — but one thing for sure is that, once we decided to commit to each other, we also decided that no matter how tough things might get, we would never look for an escape route.”
That’s not to say that there have not been some bumps in the road along the way.
“Phil and I broke up for three months before we got married,” Thomas explained. “We were arguing a lot. We were working and living in different cities, and all of the compromises we were making to accommodate two full and different lives made things so difficult. And on top of that, Phil had the added pressure of raising his four sons alone. Both of us just finally said, ‘We can’t do this — not to ourselves and not to each other.’ So we broke up.”
“Phil started dating and I got back together with an old boyfriend, but I was miserable,” she added. “All I thought about was Phil. Then I got a call in the middle of the night, and it was Phil. He said, ‘I never thought anybody could be this irreplaceable.’ We were married 12 weeks later.”
Finally, the couple was asked what advice they would give to modern newlyweds:
To keep at it. As Kyra [Sedgwick] told us, you don’t go into marriage with a Plan B. “No matter what,” she said, “we want to work it out.” We heard that time and again from many couples. Elsa Walsh told us, “It’s so much easier to work on being married, and staying married than it is to work on getting divorced.” And that’s true. It takes a lot of effort to get out of a relationship, but if you put that effort back into the relationship, everything is so much more satisfying. Jamie Lee Curtis actually said it best: “What’s the secret to staying married? Don’t leave.”
We could all learn a lot from Thomas and Donahue’s marriage, and we should all be so lucky to have what they have!
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