Marlo Thomas - What Makes a Marriage Last : 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life

For each other.

Happy Anniversary, sweetheart.

Contents

S o there we were on the deck of the Mississippi Queen , the beautiful old paddleboat that sails the river that bears her name. Phil and I had just attended the Kentucky Derby and thought the cruise would be a fun way to end the day. Sure, it was a corny attraction targeted at tourists and the hopelessly romantic, but Phil and I had just recently started dating, so we qualified on both counts.

Wed just finished our dinner when the entertainers walked on deck. They were a small band of very old gentlemen who specialized in Dixieland musica banjo player, a pianist, and a sweet-looking little man on the clarinet. They began to play, and the crowd immediately began bopping and swaying. All three of the men were clearly having a wonderful time, but I couldnt take my eyes off that clarinetisthe was in a zone. You could see the sheer pleasure he took in making his music, submerged as he was in a personal state of bliss. I was mesmerized by him.

After a moment, Phil nudged me. Look at the clarinet player, he whispered, how happy he is.

Im already there! I whispered back. Then I took Phils hand.

It was just a passing moment, one of probably a billion that Phil and I have shared over the yearsa warm confirmation that wed both been moved by the same thing. And yet to this day, that little man and his clarinet remain a touchstone for us as the definition of a person whos truly in the moment. Whether its someone delivering a passionate speech, a bustling waitress who loves her job, or a grandfather rocking a child in his arms, one of us will nudge the other and say, Thats a real clarinet player. To us, thats the highest compliment.

Beverly Hills, California; May 21, 1980

Courtesy of Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue

This is not a huge thing, I know, but it is one more tiny connection for Phil and me, a secret code passed between two people who long ago began thinking many of the same thoughts and feeling many of the same feelings. Over a long marriage, Ive noticed, there comes an unconscious agreement between two people to tuck this little moment, or that little observation, into the cupboard of shared memories theyve collected over the years. Thats the stuff of marriage.

Marriage. Wow. I was the girl who never wanted any part of it. Thats because marriage didnt seem like a roomy enough place for meand thats putting it nicely. In fact, I always had some cheeky remark to offer on the subjectlike Marriage is like living with a jailer you have to please, or Marriage is like a vacuum cleaner: you stick it to your ear and it sucks out all your energy and ambition.

And now here I am, writing a bookwith my husbandabout marriage. Lifes funny, right? In my own defense, when I was growing up I didnt see a lot of marriages that looked like a club I wanted to be a part of. Even the couples who had stayed married for a long time made me wonder, Do they really want to? To me, many of those couples seemed to have made a bargain, and they were just good enough people to have lived up to it. Or maybe they secretly wanted to break the deal a long time ago, but were stuck with itand in it.

Others seemed basically content with one another but were they really happy? I never believed that true happiness with another human being was sustainable forever, or even till death do us part.

But then something happened. I went on a talk show in 1977 to promote a project, but when the host walked into the green room beforehand to say hithat thick white hair, those killer blue eyesit was like one of those shampoo commercials where everything suddenly goes into slow motion.

When we got on the air, things got a bit embarrassing. Here I was, this very strong feminist with all sorts of penetrating observations about equality and gender rolesand pretty much everything that came out of my mouth was a girlish giggle.

Id been on a lot of talk shows by that time, but this felt more like a first date. Phil asked me more personal questions than Id ever been asked in an interview. He dug in about the men I had dated and asked if there was someone special. He was a man on a missiona divorced man, I might add, raising four boys (his daughter lived with her mother)and I was his eager accomplice.

As I look back on it now, it was not professional, but it was honesta spontaneous, chemical reaction. People still tell us that they saw that Donahue episode and instantly knew something was going on.

They were right. Phil and I went to dinner the next night and married three years later. Our wedding day was everything we wanted it to besmall, just our families, thirty-five people, intimate and very private. It still feels like yesterday.

Over the decades, Phil and I have lived the sweeping landscape of marriage, and sometimes that landscape has had its valleys. But each obstacle we faced as a couple not only helped us find the solution to the challenge, but also strengthened the bond that had brought us together.

And then we got a call. It was May 2019, and Phil and I were about to celebrate our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary, when the phone rang. I picked up and heard the tearful voice of one of our dearest friends.

Were getting a divorce, she told me, and I nearly lost my breath. She and her husband had been married twenty-eight years. They were good friends and always good company. This earthquake in their lives shook Phil and meand 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 wonderedand, more to the point, where did we go right?

This heartbreaking event in the lives of two of our friends prompted Phil and me to talk about our 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 those promises to each other, and what exactly has kept us going year after year?

We started to wonder if there really is a secret sauce to a successful marriage. And thats how we came to create this bookone that would pull together the 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 couplesfrom newlyweds to long-married couples like us.

This was new territory for Phil and me. For years weve been asked to write about our marriage, but weve always been reluctant. Who are we to give advice? Were not experts. And its working, so why jinx it?

But were living in a very negative timea time when were lashing out more than were reaching out; a time in which we too often forget that were at our best, our strongest, when were holding the handand have the backof someone we care about.

So Phil and I broke an ironclad rule of our marriagefor the first time, everand decided to work on a project together. Talk about putting your marriage to the test!

We began by making a list of long-married couples we admired. We thought there was so much we could learn from them about the ways they have made their marriages last.

• How has marriage made them different people, and what were they willing to change in themselves to accommodate the other?
• How did they first find each other, and what do they do today to sustain that initial attraction?
• What did they learn from their own parents marriages that taught them what to door what not to doin their own marriages?
• How do they manage their fightsand whos usually the first one to broker peace?
• Has anything slowed the momentum of their marriagemoney? kids? health? career? jealousy?and how did they get the engine humming again?
• Did anything ever threaten to blow the whole thing apartand, if so, how did they come back from the brink?
• What advice might they give to younger couples starting outor the already marriedthat they wish they had known themselves when they first took their vows?