In the country music world, it’s rare to find a marriage that is actually able to stand the test of time. That’s what makes the 54-year marriage of country music legend Dolly Parton and her husband Carl Dean so special!

In her 2020 book “Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics,” Parton opened up about the secret behind her long-lasting union. The 75 year-old icon wrote that the main secret behind her successful marriage is that she and Dean both have a great sense of humor, and they have a lot of fun together.

“We have a great sense of humor,” she wrote, according to Cheat Sheet. “We’re as funny as can be. You would absolutely roll on the floor if you saw us together.  We just do these routines all the time, without even realizing that we’re doing them. We’re both very witty and very quick. He’s really funny, and I’ve been known to be. So sometimes we just laugh so hard.”

Parton added that “laughter” has been one of the “best parts of our relationship,” going on to say that she and Dean always keep each other guessing.

“I never know what he’s going to do or say, and he never knows what I’m going to do or say,” she wrote.

On top of that, Parton said she and Dean have a lot of freedom in their relationship.

“I don’t choke him to death, saying do this or don’t do that,” she wrote. “We love our freedom.”

Though Parton is one of the most famous women in the world, she said that she and Dean have a “peaceful” life together.

“We have a lot of things in common,” she explained. “We both like to travel around. We have our little camper, and we like to get out and just sightsee. We’ll stop at a grocery store, get a few little things, and go picnicking. We’ll go to drive-through restaurants. We just like to do simple things. We don’t complicate our lives, and we don’t overthink things. We live a pretty peaceful life, actually.”

At the end of the day, Parton said that Dean is her best friend.

“I think if you can be friends, that’s a big, big part of it,” she wrote. “There’s nothing you can’t do together. Being great friends is the secret of happiness.”