Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue on 'What Makes a Marriage Last'

Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue Unveil Celebrity Secrets to a Long Happy Marriage

An intimate and surprising look at what keeps couples together

Almost a year ago, we picked up the phone and heard the tearful voice of one of our dearest friends. "We're getting a divorce,” she told us, and we nearly lost our breath. She and her husband had been married for 28 years. They were good friends and always good company. This earthquake in their lives shook us — and many of our friends, too. "What happened?” we kept asking each other. “If it happened to them, could it happen to any of us?” Where did they go wrong, we wondered, and more to the point, where did we go right? This heartbreaking event prompted the two of us to talk about our own marriage. What did we like about us as a couple? What do we still not get right? How far have we traveled since that spring day in 1980 when we made our wedding vows, and what, exactly, has kept us going year after year? Jim Wright “We often forget we're at our best when we're holding the hand — and having the back — of someone we care about.” We started to wonder if there really is a secret sauce to a successful marriage. And that's when we decided to break an ironclad rule of our marriage — for the first time ever — and work on a project together. — one that pulled together the personal stories of many devoted couples — and uncover some of the mystery of marriage in a way that could be a source of information and inspiration for other couples, from newlyweds to long-married couples like us. For nine months, we crisscrossed the country, sitting down on double dates with couples we admired who had been married 15 years or more. (We waived that requirement for the gay couples we interviewed, whose marriages were not legal nationwide until 2015.) As different as these couples’ stories are, they share a common plotline: that of two people joining hands and stepping up to the most challenging, invigorating, inspiring, infuriating, thrilling, terrifying, delightful and heavenly job on earth — making a marriage last.

How these couples stayed married so long

Gratitude, trust and occasional therapy are among the keys to success of

Joanna and Chip Gaines br

Married in 2003 He’s restless; she’s centered. He’s goofy; she’s pragmatic. Together they are guileless and completely authentic, qualities that endeared them to a vast TV audience on their home-makeover show, Fixer Upper. The two went into the house-flipping business at the start of their marriage, raising five kids along the way. “Working together isn’t for everyone,” Joanna says, “But we have been together for every high and every low. We’ve never known it any other way.” of

Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon

Married in 1988 The actors, wed 31 years with two grown children, don’t like to talk about their long marriage. As says, “My first piece of advice is not to take advice from celebrities.” Sedgwick says, “Who am I to say that what works for me works for somebody else?” They do know how to weather a storm; they lost their life savings to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. “But it didn’t challenge the marriage,” Bacon says. “In fact, the marriage made things easier. The money was gone, but we still had each other.” of

Viola Davis and Julius Tennon

Married in 2003 She’s an introvert — and an Oscar-winning actress, as well as the Emmy-winning star of the ABC legal drama How to Get Away With Murder. He’s an extrovert who strikes up conversations with strangers. “I’m the mayor of everywhere,” he says. When , also an actor, met , he was “excited about the possibility of what the relationship could be,” he says. Davis says, “The best thing I brought into my marriage is the ability to ask myself, What am I contributing to it?” of

Tracy Pollan and Michael J Fox

Married in 1988 For 28 of their 31 years of marriage, the two actors have lived with . But not for one second does that overshadow a strong marriage, four healthy kids, professional success. “If you love somebody, you deal with whatever it is they’re dealing with,” says Pollan. Fox says, “I have gratitude for my family — first and foremost, Tracy, but also our kids. They are really great — so nonjudgmental and undemanding. Tracy and I often look at them and say, ‘What a great life we have. This is beautiful, what we’ve done.’” of

David Burtka and  Neil Patrick Harris

Married in 2014 When they first met in 2003, Harris and Burtka were performing in separate musicals on Broadway. They quickly hit it off then moved to L.A., where Neil starred for nine years in the popular TV series How I Met Your Mother. Burtka wasn’t having the best time, however. “I was an actor, too, so I was feeling, ‘Hey, what about me?’” Then Burtka’s mother died. As he processed that loss, he decided on a big career change. A lifelong foodie, he enrolled at the culinary academy Le Cordon Bleu and landed a job as a chef. His first cookbook was published last year. of

Justine and John Leguizamo

Married in 2003 It takes bravery to assimilate into a country that wasn’t always welcoming, as did after immigrating to the U.S. from Colombia as a child. And it takes bravery to write and perform funny and emotionally bare one-man shows about the Latino experience. But no one speaks more articulately to John’s bravery than his most loyal fan — his wife of 16 years and the mother of their two children. Shortly after the two began seeing each other, John invited Justine’s entire family, along with his own, to his place for Thanksgiving. There were 50 guests in all — the Latin Leguizamos, from Queens, and the Jewish Maurers, of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. And John played the host fearlessly. “I started to feel like I could trust him,” Justine says. “I thought, He’s not afraid of what life has in store for us.” of

Bryan Cranston and  Robin Dearden

Married in 1989 He’s the moodier of the two, they both agree. You might expect that from the star of Breaking Bad. She’s the calm, steady influence — the one who paused her acting career to raise their daughter, Taylor Dearden, now an actress herself. But early on they disagreed on the number of kids they’d like to have. “I was one and done,” says Dearden. “He wanted more kids.” They went to therapy to resolve that question and have seen a therapist whenever either one wants to go — no questions asked. “Just the idea of being in that environment makes us feel closer,” Cranston says. “It’s like having an interpreter,” says Dearden. of

Judy and Jerry Sheindlin

Married in 1978 and 1991 Judge Judy is the most successful daytime TV personality in history. Jerry is an author, a retired New York State Supreme Court judge — and someone with the gentle sense of humor to balance Judy’s fiery wit. Each of them had been married before, and those marriages produced five children. They created a blended family, but 12 years later, their marriage reached a crossroads. Her father died and she needed Jerry to take care of her. But “he really didn’t know how to do that,” she says. They divorced, but they missed each other and starting dating, then rewed. Says Judge Judy, “I think we both had a realization that we were better as a couple than we were separately.” of

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Married in 1946 They’ve earned worldwide acclaim during their time together — their years in the White House, their global humanitarian work through the Carter Center — but when they married she was a timid teenager and he was a newly minted naval officer who soon was at sea much of the time. She took care of the household and raised their four children. “She had her life, and I had mine,” the former president says. Not until they were working together did things become more egalitarian. “We had a farm-supply business in Plains,” says Mrs. Carter. “I kept the books, so I knew more about the work than he did. He’d come to ask me my advice. Jimmy has always thought I could do anything. And so I’ve done everything. I’ve done things I never dreamed I could do.” Adapted from the book What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life, by Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue. Copyright 2020 by Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue. Reprinted by permission of HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Thomas is an actress, producer and activist; Donahue is a writer, producer and talk show pioneer.

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