The musician and actor Rick Springfield spoke out this week to reveal that when the coronavirus lockdown began last March, a friend asked him, “What do you think there’s going to be more of during this, babies or divorces?”
This question stuck with Springfield, as he has seen many friends divorce over the past year. However, he never had any doubts himself about his relationship with Barbara Porter, his wife of 36 years.
“We really like each other,” Springfield, 71, told People Magazine. “I certainly found that out in the lockdown. We love hanging out and still have a lot of the same interests. It’s been actually probably the deepest thing for me personally, in this whole lockdown. I was lucky enough to get a good one.”
Springfield added that in lockdown, he and Porter, 58, have stayed busy by having “lots of sex.”
“That’s about it,” he said with a laugh. “We played Monopoly the other day with the guy that works at my studio and that was a trip. I haven’t done that in 40 years, and it was hilarious. We had a blast. I never had time for stuff like that before.”
As for the secret behind their marriage lasting so long, Springfield said it is “always being open to talk or talk with someone.”
“When you’ve been together that long, there are giant ups and downs,” he said. “The most important thing is you both want it. If you both want it, you’ve got to work for it and it sometimes takes a third person to help you through issues. We were lucky enough to have a couple of great people that helped us through some dark moments.”
“I’ve known couples that the wife wanted to go to therapy and the husband didn’t or vice versa,” Springfield continued. “That’s pretty much a ticket to destruction if one’s willing to work on a relationship and the other one isn’t. We’ve both always been on that same track.”
While he is staying busy with his music, Springfield is making a point to spend time with his wife this Valentine’s Day, which also happens to be his late parents’ wedding anniversary.
“We do the flowers thing,” he said. “My wife loves that romantic element of it.”
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