Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi am Alli
Speaker 1: Wentworth And you're listening to Go ask Ali? Where this
Speaker 1: half of the season, I'm asking how do you grow
Speaker 1: a healthy relationship? In this episode, we're chatting all about
Speaker 1: that insane lifelong commitment many people make to one person marriage.
Speaker 1: And today I'm talking to an outstanding guest who has
Speaker 1: been married to the same person for several decades. How
Speaker 1: have they done it? My guest is Marlo Thomas, somebody
Speaker 1: I admire so much and love. Marlo Thomas is an actress, producer, author,
Speaker 1: and social activists, best known for starring on the sitcom
Speaker 1: That Girl and her children's franchise Free to Be You
Speaker 1: and Me, which I grew up on. She's received four Emmy's,
Speaker 1: a Golden Globe, and a Peabody Award for her work
Speaker 1: in television, and she's been inducted into the Broadcasting and
Speaker 1: Cable Hall of Fame. Thomas serves as national outreach director
Speaker 1: for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, which was founded by
Speaker 1: her father, Danny Thomas in nineteen sixty two. In night,
Speaker 1: Marlo Thomas married talk show host Phil Donahue and with that,
Speaker 1: I'm here to pick her brain. Thank you for joining
Speaker 1: me and go ask Alli Marlowe, Hi, Ali, are you
Speaker 1: gonna ask me? Am I going to ask you? We're
Speaker 1: going to ask together. Okay, Okay, I'm ready. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a marriage of minds on this podcast. So you
Speaker 1: guys have been married for forty years, very commendable. And
Speaker 1: I have been married to George for twenty years. And
Speaker 1: I do think that there is something very similar to
Speaker 1: my marriage and your marriage in that you and Phil
Speaker 1: are very different people, and George and I are very
Speaker 1: different people. And I'm sure when you first got married,
Speaker 1: everybody said, well, is not gonna last, because I know
Speaker 1: when I got married to George and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral,
Speaker 1: people were in the back road making bets on how
Speaker 1: long it was last, and it was like six months
Speaker 1: was the winning number. But look at us, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well they talked about us like, oh, she's a Hollywood
Speaker 1: kid and he's a Cleveland guy, and that, you know,
Speaker 1: that really doesn't have anything to do with it anyway.
Speaker 1: My parents, my parents were from the Midwest. My dad
Speaker 1: was from Toledo, Ohio, like one exit from Cleveland, so
Speaker 1: I was raised in that kind of middle class. You know,
Speaker 1: you work hard, and you go to Catholic Church and
Speaker 1: you know all the stuff that he did. I went
Speaker 1: to Catholic school. He went to Catholic School. Um, so
Speaker 1: a lot of our upbringing was the same. But I
Speaker 1: think what attracted us, you know, right away, was our
Speaker 1: sexual attraction, of course, but then just the fact that
Speaker 1: we we thought about things in the same way. You know,
Speaker 1: we were worried about the same things, and we we
Speaker 1: were so much alike in our love of work. You
Speaker 1: know me, let me ask you, I'm gonna we're going
Speaker 1: back to sexy. Don't go so fast. Because you went
Speaker 1: on Phil's show that's when you first met him, right right,
Speaker 1: And I was set up on a date with George,
Speaker 1: But I knew who he was, just like you knew
Speaker 1: who Phil Donahue was. And so when you went to
Speaker 1: go do the show, did you think you were going
Speaker 1: to be sexually attracted to him? No? No, no, no no.
Speaker 1: In fact, I didn't even want to do the show.
Speaker 1: It was at nine o'clock in the morning and it
Speaker 1: was one guest for one hour, and I was on
Speaker 1: a tour for a movie, and I said to my
Speaker 1: press agent. I'm just not that interesting at nine am
Speaker 1: for a whole hour. The only person I don't want
Speaker 1: to do it because you have to do it. He's
Speaker 1: the biggest thing in the Midwest. You have to do it.
Speaker 1: Because he wasn't in l A at the time. So
Speaker 1: I said, okay, okay. So I went. And when he
Speaker 1: walked in the room, I swear to god, I thought,
Speaker 1: oh my god, those blue eyes at white here. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just thought were so right away but right again.
Speaker 1: And then we went on the stage on his show
Speaker 1: and we just flirted, and I mean it was really
Speaker 1: I mean it was embarrassing. You know if you saw it.
Speaker 1: They showed it to me later and they send us
Speaker 1: a tape of it, and I just said, oh my god.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was talking about feminism and about being
Speaker 1: a strong woman, about never being married, about what I
Speaker 1: wanted out of life and all the stuff. And while
Speaker 1: I'm saying all that, I'm going, oh, feel You're hilarious,
Speaker 1: just a total moron. I mean, I just looked particulous.
Speaker 1: And we went out the next night and we became lovers.
Speaker 1: That was it. We just went went for it. It's amazing, surprising,
Speaker 1: and that I'm yeah, I'm not saying I'm not that
Speaker 1: kind of girl. It just wasn't the way I did things. Ever,
Speaker 1: I waited a while. I wanted to be sure. I
Speaker 1: wanted to see, you know, if I could trust him emotionally.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a whole lot of laws and
Speaker 1: rules about these people colde men. I was very careful,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't careful at all with Phil. He asked
Speaker 1: you out. Well, I left Chicago and I had gone
Speaker 1: to Denver for the next part of the tour, and
Speaker 1: he called me in Denver and he said I'd love
Speaker 1: to see you. And I said, well, I'm in Denver.
Speaker 1: Is Denver very far from Chicago? And he goes, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I'll come to Denver. I said great. So he came
Speaker 1: to Denver and we had to dinner, and then we
Speaker 1: took a walk and it was raining, and the studio
Speaker 1: had a limousine from me, but Phil, you know Mr Cleveland,
Speaker 1: he will not get in a lima. We had to walk.
Speaker 1: So we go. We're walking and it's raining and he
Speaker 1: gave me his coat and he's stopped and wet. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we get back to the hotel and we became lovers
Speaker 1: and The next morning, he raced to get back to
Speaker 1: Chicago to do his show at nine am, and he
Speaker 1: had lost his voice because he had been walking in
Speaker 1: the rain, I guess, and poweling. Yeah, well that too.
Speaker 1: I had to put a sock in his mouth. But
Speaker 1: but at that, you know, that was the first show
Speaker 1: that he ever did that they couldn't go on. He
Speaker 1: never had missed a show in his life. The second
Speaker 1: time he missed the show, we were in New York
Speaker 1: and he spent the night and the weekend, and then
Speaker 1: Sunday night, he didn't want to go back, so he said,
Speaker 1: I'll take the early plane in the morning. Okay, So
Speaker 1: he spent another night and the plane was late. It
Speaker 1: was whatever the hell happened, and he missed the show.
Speaker 1: And his producer, Pat McMillan, who's fabulous, she came into
Speaker 1: the office and she sent Phil, this woman is just
Speaker 1: not good for you. This isn't gonna work. And he said,
Speaker 1: I promised it will never happen again. So that was
Speaker 1: two shows in his entire twenty nine years, because of you,
Speaker 1: because of me. So anybody knows you can't rely on
Speaker 1: flying to Chicago. Flights are always canceled. He just that
Speaker 1: was the strength of wanting to be with you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: might wanted to be with him. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I didn't discourage it. I said, what a good idea.
Speaker 1: So we had an extra night, you know. And when
Speaker 1: you're really crazy about somebody and you only have a weekend,
Speaker 1: it's not enough, you know. He he lands on Friday
Speaker 1: and he leaves on Sunday. I mean, it's nothing. It's
Speaker 1: so it's so interesting, Marla, because you know, George was
Speaker 1: raised in Cleveland too, and when I met him, he
Speaker 1: was living in New York and I was living in
Speaker 1: l A. And it was the same thing. We had
Speaker 1: a long distance relationship for six months. But I do
Speaker 1: remember a few times missing important engagements because I wanted
Speaker 1: to be with them and that was all that mattered
Speaker 1: to me at the timesolutely. Yeah. And I also remember
Speaker 1: going to his bachelor pad for the first time. What
Speaker 1: was that like when you first went to Phil's apartment?
Speaker 1: But he had kids, so it was a very very
Speaker 1: different world you walked into. Well, yeah, and it was.
Speaker 1: It was terrible, really, I mean in terms of privacy.
Speaker 1: Four boys. Yeah, you know, he was living, you know,
Speaker 1: like a dad. They had they were completely trying to
Speaker 1: organize themselves. It was very sweet, and they all had
Speaker 1: their names written on their underwear. And I had never
Speaker 1: I'd never been with a man who had dad written
Speaker 1: on his un If you don't, if you don't think
Speaker 1: that stopped, you're just a bit oh wow. See I
Speaker 1: had the opposite when I when I was dating George,
Speaker 1: he had this bachelor pad in New York that was
Speaker 1: like you you you know, clapped your hands and started
Speaker 1: would start playing in the fire with light and you
Speaker 1: know it was I walked right into the web. But
Speaker 1: you famously did not want to get married. You were
Speaker 1: a feminist. You saw no reason for it. And I
Speaker 1: actually liked to joke that I have a box of
Speaker 1: engagement rings because I was always at the runaway bride.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, And yet six months into a long distance
Speaker 1: relationship with George he proposed, actually it was two months
Speaker 1: he proposed, and which was a huge leap of faith.
Speaker 1: But but I kind of knew. I just knew. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious, what changed your mind? Why why Mary fell? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, we didn't get married for three years.
Speaker 1: He proposed to me after about six months, and I said,
Speaker 1: oh no, yeah, I really am crazy for you, but
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to be married. So he backed
Speaker 1: off and we continued this very exciting, you know, three
Speaker 1: day weekend, two day weekend thing, and he just became
Speaker 1: he became essential. I mean, that was simply it. I
Speaker 1: just I could not be without him. And we broke
Speaker 1: up once for three months, obviously before we were married,
Speaker 1: because it was so I was living in l a.
Speaker 1: And he was living in Chicago, so that four hour
Speaker 1: trip was really rough. And at one point we both
Speaker 1: said to each other, after about a year and a half,
Speaker 1: maybe that this was just hot to handle in every way.
Speaker 1: He's got four kids, he's on the air every day.
Speaker 1: I was making I made about a dozen television movies
Speaker 1: that I've produced and started at that time. So I
Speaker 1: was working like a maniac and it just wasn't working.
Speaker 1: And we said, you know what, it's great, I'm crazy
Speaker 1: for you, but it's just it's it's too disruptive. He said,
Speaker 1: I can't leave my kids every weekend, and I said,
Speaker 1: I can't, like not be there for the rehearsal or
Speaker 1: the edit or the music scoring. So we broke up
Speaker 1: for three months, and it was the best thing to
Speaker 1: have done, because that's when I knew I can't, I
Speaker 1: can't live without him, and he did too. I take it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was skiing with his sons. He'd taken his four
Speaker 1: boys skiing. He was a really and still is. But
Speaker 1: he was a really good dad and he had, you know,
Speaker 1: custody of his kids. His his ex wife had their daughter,
Speaker 1: and he had the four boys. And so they were
Speaker 1: skiing somewhere and he called me at three in the morning.
Speaker 1: Thankfully I was by myself, and I picked up the
Speaker 1: phone and he said, I I never thought anybody could
Speaker 1: be this irreplaceable m hm. And I started crying and
Speaker 1: he started crying, and that that was it. He felt
Speaker 1: what I felt. Yes, it's terrible, it's a pain in
Speaker 1: the ascid all this traveling and it just completely disrupts
Speaker 1: our lives. But this is what we got. So we
Speaker 1: did it. And he said to me, I can't leave
Speaker 1: Chicago until I've got my boys out of high school,
Speaker 1: which was like another four years. And so then we
Speaker 1: bought an apartment and this apartment, actually we created this apartment.
Speaker 1: So we've been here forty years. Thirty five years. We
Speaker 1: lived in another place and then we waited and then
Speaker 1: he moved the whole show here, the whole staff, everybody,
Speaker 1: which is incredible. We put our lives together. Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's what we had to do. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: fall in love, when you really fall in love as
Speaker 1: you have, I mean, I know what you and George
Speaker 1: have and what we have. If you really fall in love,
Speaker 1: there is nobody else. It's hard to leave, but there's
Speaker 1: nobody else on the planet to this day that I
Speaker 1: want to be with. And you gotta make it work.
Speaker 1: So you make it work. I used to I used
Speaker 1: to joke to George because I was living in l A.
Speaker 1: And obviously I knew his career was was essential and
Speaker 1: that I would have to move to New York. But
Speaker 1: at one point I said, well, you know, I just
Speaker 1: bought my first house and I'm writing screenplays and I'm
Speaker 1: doing all this stuff. I said, why don't you leave
Speaker 1: ABC News as the political correspondent and do access Hollywood
Speaker 1: so we can both live and he hung up the phone.
Speaker 1: I said that to Phil, I said to him, why
Speaker 1: can't you live in l A. I mean, this place
Speaker 1: is loaded with interesting people, And he said, I don't
Speaker 1: want it interview those people. You know, I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in those people. He said, I can live in New
Speaker 1: York or Washington. There are two places that I could live.
Speaker 1: So we moved to New York and made a life here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you believe in the concept of one
Speaker 1: per person? There's that one person out there for you.
Speaker 1: I didn't used to think that at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: when I was single, I mean, there seemed to be
Speaker 1: all kinds of men that looked exciting and interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a great time. Yeah. No, because comes a
Speaker 1: time when I think, you do meet this person and
Speaker 1: that's the one you want. And I have never been
Speaker 1: tempted by another man. I mean, not that they're tempting me,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying I've never looked at another man I said,
Speaker 1: oh boy, I wish I could be with him. I've
Speaker 1: never felt that I'm completely satisfied. Yeah, I've never felt
Speaker 1: cut either. But I wonder sometimes. I wonder if sometimes
Speaker 1: maybe because I had experiences before I met George. You know,
Speaker 1: I had the French director, and I went out with
Speaker 1: the British actor and this and that, so I know
Speaker 1: what that is. So when I'm at a restaurant and
Speaker 1: I see some you know, SIMI and looking guy, I
Speaker 1: know what that is. I've been there. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: there's no fantasy that goes along with it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think that that's the good part about getting married,
Speaker 1: you know, not at two. You know, when I think
Speaker 1: of who I went out with when I was twenty
Speaker 1: two or twenty six or thirty one, even it was like, seriously,
Speaker 1: you know, but I think you need some time. You know.
Speaker 1: They say men need to sew their oaths. What's to women?
Speaker 1: I agree, you know, I agree. You need to experience
Speaker 1: it and then, and that's how you can narrow it
Speaker 1: down and say, Okay, yeah you don't you gotta test
Speaker 1: drive a bunch of cars before you buy, but you do,
Speaker 1: especially with a lifetime warranty exactly, which reminds me we're
Speaker 1: due for a tune up. There's a lot more to
Speaker 1: come after this short break. Welcome back with more go
Speaker 1: ask Alli. I actually have a friend who is going
Speaker 1: through a horrific divorce, and she said, you know what,
Speaker 1: don't ever marry anyone you wouldn't want a divorce. Which
Speaker 1: it's interesting when you think about it, like if if
Speaker 1: God forbid George and I got divorced, he would be
Speaker 1: a kind person, you know, what I mean. He wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a monster, he would be fair. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was an interesting way of twisting the idea of marriage.
Speaker 1: That's why we didn't do a prenup. You know, our
Speaker 1: business managers both were insistent that we do a prenup,
Speaker 1: and Phil and I talked about it, and we said,
Speaker 1: us like betting against ourselves. Yeah, we're going into this forever,
Speaker 1: God forbid, something happens. I trust that you'll be nice,
Speaker 1: and I trusted you'll be nice, And so we didn't
Speaker 1: and I'm glad we didn't. Again, we didn't have an
Speaker 1: escape clause. I think that's important to say. I'm putting
Speaker 1: all my chips on this. Yeah, we didn't sign a
Speaker 1: prenup because neither of us really had any money to
Speaker 1: prenup um. So George and I were so lucky to
Speaker 1: be part of book What Makes a Marriage Last, which
Speaker 1: is a wonderful collection of inspiring and cannon conversations between
Speaker 1: you and Phil and other married couples. Uh. It's just
Speaker 1: a beautiful and helpful read because each couple has their
Speaker 1: own story and their own obstacles they've overcome, and their
Speaker 1: own way of quote unquote doing it. And I want
Speaker 1: to talk about a few of those sort of universal
Speaker 1: challenges that come up in a marriage, to hear your
Speaker 1: perspective and what you've learned in the process of writing
Speaker 1: this book and what makes a marriage last. So the
Speaker 1: first one is infidelity, because you know, that's a huge
Speaker 1: marriage breaker, and it's it's and it's something that I've
Speaker 1: known people that were able to get through it, and
Speaker 1: I've known people that haven't. And did you talk to
Speaker 1: people who were able to weather that storm where somebody
Speaker 1: was unfaithful and they kept they kept the marriage going.
Speaker 1: The only person that admitted to it was Jesse Jackson,
Speaker 1: and he had a child out of marriage. And she's
Speaker 1: a firecracker, that Jackie Jackson. And she said, and she
Speaker 1: calls him reverend, as I call him reverend to remind
Speaker 1: him of who he should be. But she said, she says,
Speaker 1: I have five children, the reverend has six. Um and
Speaker 1: she said something so interesting, she said that this marriage
Speaker 1: is a test of my character. I said, forever sickness
Speaker 1: and health, and Richard poor and bad, good and bad,
Speaker 1: and and that's why I'm here and we have our marriage.
Speaker 1: And I'd say to women, stay away from him. He
Speaker 1: is already taken, so she came to Grips with it
Speaker 1: and I said, did you throw him out? She said,
Speaker 1: of course, I threw him out, but then he's not
Speaker 1: going anywhere. He came back, so they got through it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I know Phil wouldn't get through it
Speaker 1: no way. In fact, we were talking about this with
Speaker 1: Kelly Rippa and Mark and Suelos because he was very jealous.
Speaker 1: And Phil was very jealous when we first started going
Speaker 1: together and I did a movie with Chris Christofferson and
Speaker 1: he was so sexy. I mean really, I had to
Speaker 1: remind myself literally that I was married, because we made
Speaker 1: out all day in this particular love scene. And Phil
Speaker 1: was very jealous of him. And he came to the
Speaker 1: hotel where I was staying in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: filled in and I opened the door, and the minute
Speaker 1: I saw him, I said, oh, come on. So I said,
Speaker 1: come in, come and look and see what you can find.
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, no, I'll just missed you. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I know you did, dear, come in. It was like
Speaker 1: four in the morning and I had to be up
Speaker 1: in a half hour. And Kelly Ripper said to him,
Speaker 1: what would you have done Bill if Christopher Safferson had
Speaker 1: been there. He said, I would have I would have
Speaker 1: turned around and left, and I said, that's right. She said, well,
Speaker 1: my husband, that would have been police tape. I said,
Speaker 1: I know, but he would have been so brokenhearted and
Speaker 1: so disappointed. And I think that would have been my
Speaker 1: reaction to I don't think I could come back from Matt. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've talked about it with George too, because you know,
Speaker 1: I love to put scenarios in front of him, whether
Speaker 1: he likes it or not. And I used to say, okay,
Speaker 1: so you you come home from work unexpectedly I'm in
Speaker 1: bed with somebody else. And George always says, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I would quietly walk out heartbroken and that
Speaker 1: would be that like I I you know, I could
Speaker 1: not bounce back from it. Yeah, I said, well, I'd
Speaker 1: have a full, jealous, dramatic rage and I throw things
Speaker 1: out the window onto the street, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: write a book and then have a movie made about it.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't have been able to I don't think
Speaker 1: i'd be able to weather that. I really don't. It'd
Speaker 1: never be the same. Trust is Trust is hard, and
Speaker 1: you know, my hats off to couples that are able
Speaker 1: to do it. Um addiction. Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: addiction in the book. Well, Jamie Lee Curtis and Chris Guest,
Speaker 1: they've been married thirty eight years, forty seven years. Uh,
Speaker 1: she was addicted to all kinds of prescription medicine and stuff.
Speaker 1: And he didn't even about it. And then he started
Speaker 1: to notice it, and but they had to weather that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a big thing for somebody to go
Speaker 1: into the step program and all that. But he didn't
Speaker 1: even notice it at first. It's interesting. He just said
Speaker 1: that he he thought she was drinking a little bit
Speaker 1: too much, and he mentioned it once or twice, but
Speaker 1: he didn't know it was also connected to pills. And
Speaker 1: she said, I've never been a better actress. She said,
Speaker 1: addicts are really good actors, you know. She said, you
Speaker 1: just you really learned how to hide it and where
Speaker 1: to get it from. And you know, they go to
Speaker 1: people's houses and she she'd go through their medicine cabinets.
Speaker 1: She was a real addict, and and she's so gifted
Speaker 1: and smart and a writer and a good actress and
Speaker 1: all these things. Did you did you talk to people
Speaker 1: that were unable to jump that hurdle. Did they talk
Speaker 1: about previous marriages or things that didn't work out before
Speaker 1: they married that long term person? No, not because of addiction.
Speaker 1: The people that had ted dayson was married. This is
Speaker 1: his third marriage to Mary Steve Bergin, and it's been there.
Speaker 1: It's thirtieth year. It's a great marriage. They're they're adorable.
Speaker 1: But I said to him, how did you have the
Speaker 1: guts to go on to a third marriage. I mean
Speaker 1: I would have thought, okay, I I don't know how
Speaker 1: to do this. He said, well, I realized that I
Speaker 1: had to stop being a liar. I just thought that
Speaker 1: was so startling. And I said, well, what did you
Speaker 1: lie about? He said? I lied about everything. Uh, he said,
Speaker 1: I cheated, you know, I was unfaithful all the time.
Speaker 1: But I mostly lied about who I was. He said,
Speaker 1: because I had this vision that a man with a
Speaker 1: woman has to be strong and be the white knight
Speaker 1: and have all the answers and be the one that
Speaker 1: you know, can carry the burden and all that. So
Speaker 1: I pretended always that that's who I was, But I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was crumbling inside. I was a mess inside, he said.
Speaker 1: I was a hot mess most of my life. I
Speaker 1: think that would be true for a lot of people, because,
Speaker 1: you know, I think back on the relationship I had
Speaker 1: before I met George, and I was completely acting. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be whatever he wanted me to be, and
Speaker 1: so if he wanted me to be, you know, sexy
Speaker 1: actress girl who could also make a baked chicken, you know,
Speaker 1: I I tried to be whatever he wanted me to
Speaker 1: because I didn't want him to leave. And I remember
Speaker 1: when I met George, I made a very conscious decision
Speaker 1: that I was not going to play games. You know,
Speaker 1: I was not gonna I was staying with a friend
Speaker 1: in New York when we had our first date, and
Speaker 1: he asked me out for another date. And the friend
Speaker 1: that I was staying with was whispering behind me when
Speaker 1: he called and said, you know, I'd love to take
Speaker 1: you out again. And she says, tell him you're busy,
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, go away, and she said
Speaker 1: tell him that you have a date with Prince Albert
Speaker 1: of Monico. Oh my god, get out of here. And
Speaker 1: I decided I was not going to play any games.
Speaker 1: I was not going to pretend to be anybody. I
Speaker 1: wasn't because you know, I really liked him, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be a thing if he didn't genuinely
Speaker 1: like who I was, And it made all the difference
Speaker 1: in the world. I'm sure I did. No, it was
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did. I mean, you know now, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I like to talk to my
Speaker 1: girlfriends about, some of which are in your book, Mauritika
Speaker 1: Hargety and I talk a lot about how couples fight,
Speaker 1: and George and I certainly have come a long long
Speaker 1: way from when we were first married because I was
Speaker 1: a mean fighter and George was a shutdown fighter, so
Speaker 1: I would scream and yelled, he would get very quiet. Now,
Speaker 1: after twenty years, we've learned to immediately confront the issue
Speaker 1: and then deal with it in a loving way, because nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing good comes from blaming. And and now we we
Speaker 1: each have each other's handbook, like we know, we understand
Speaker 1: each other, we know what this is. But you must
Speaker 1: have talked to a lot of couples about fighting right
Speaker 1: and how they learned about themselves through fighting right, Well,
Speaker 1: you do. I mean with with me and Phil, we're
Speaker 1: kind of like you and George. Phil was the you
Speaker 1: clam up and I would chase him. I would chase
Speaker 1: him to get him to hear what I had to say,
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to hear it. The minute he
Speaker 1: knew it was a fight, he'd screaming, hell, whatever, and
Speaker 1: then he disappeared, and I would scream, mihale and follow
Speaker 1: him until I could get something to happen, some some resolution.
Speaker 1: We finally came to a place where we could. You know,
Speaker 1: well now we rarely fight, but we came to a
Speaker 1: place where he would listen and I and I realized
Speaker 1: an interesting thing. Kelly Rippa said this. She said she
Speaker 1: realized that she would fix her face so that no
Speaker 1: matter what Mark said, she would not change the expression
Speaker 1: on her face, so that she could get him to
Speaker 1: tell her what was bothering him without him thinking she
Speaker 1: was judging her. And I thought that was so great,
Speaker 1: because I think I kind of did that too. Instead
Speaker 1: of reacting, I learned to let him get it out,
Speaker 1: let him say what it is, and don't defend yourself
Speaker 1: on everything. Let him say it, and then when he
Speaker 1: got all out, he was better. But I because I
Speaker 1: would fight the minit he set something I said. I
Speaker 1: did not say that that you misunderstood that, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the hell it was, he just needs to get
Speaker 1: it out. But I One of the things that James
Speaker 1: Carville said that we now use as one of our
Speaker 1: mantras is that when they're in the middle, he and
Speaker 1: his wife Mary matt Lan, when when they're in the
Speaker 1: middle of one of those circular arguments that we all have,
Speaker 1: he says, let's just kick this can down the road,
Speaker 1: he said, And I think every good marriage has like
Speaker 1: a whole alley full of cans. And it's true. And
Speaker 1: when Phil and I get into one of those where
Speaker 1: you're going around and around, he did say one day,
Speaker 1: let's kick this can down the road. And we both
Speaker 1: started laughing, and we thought, it's so true. This is
Speaker 1: a this is something that is of no importance. You
Speaker 1: said you have no but you said you, you said
Speaker 1: you taken no, you said you know, and it just
Speaker 1: means nothing. And you can slam moll the door as
Speaker 1: you want and not talk for an hour or two.
Speaker 1: I can't stay clammed up for too long. I'm not
Speaker 1: the kind of person that cannot talk to my husband
Speaker 1: for three days. And I know people do that. We can't.
Speaker 1: I can't do that. Now we can. We We don't
Speaker 1: go to bed angry I mean, we've had a lot
Speaker 1: of sleepless nights, but we won't go to bed angry. Right,
Speaker 1: We do that too. Did you ask Mary Mattlin and
Speaker 1: James Carvill about fighting about politics? Didday early on in
Speaker 1: their marriage have to sort of take that off the agenda?
Speaker 1: It was interesting, said, politics is something we do for
Speaker 1: a living. You know, our life is about We've got kids,
Speaker 1: we have family, we have a house, we have cooking,
Speaker 1: we do all this stuff that we love. We try
Speaker 1: to stay away from politics. That's what's what we do
Speaker 1: for a living. Which is smart. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: if you can do it, yeah, I mean I don't
Speaker 1: I think it. Phil believed in somebody as awful as
Speaker 1: we've just been through. I don't know that I could
Speaker 1: have handled that, but I think I think I probably
Speaker 1: would have killed him. That's why Kelly and Conway and
Speaker 1: her husband were so fascinating to the American public as
Speaker 1: I don't know how they did. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: you know, also Cure Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, they lost
Speaker 1: all their money to Bernie made off thirty years of
Speaker 1: savings and put it all was made off, and it
Speaker 1: was suggested by her father her stepfather, and Kevin didn't
Speaker 1: blame her. I mean, they didn't go into that. They
Speaker 1: just sat down and said, okay, well let's let's face it.
Speaker 1: And they and they got stronger from it. They actually
Speaker 1: became closer to it, and they said, and they faced it.
Speaker 1: They said, look, we're not money people. That was that
Speaker 1: was our own idiocy. You know, we're not money people.
Speaker 1: Were actors and they have a terrific marriage. Well, you
Speaker 1: know what was fascinating though, when you're asking these questions,
Speaker 1: is that because they wanted to do a book to
Speaker 1: find out what's the secret sauce of a long marriage,
Speaker 1: we didn't come across people who had divorced their spouses,
Speaker 1: and they had divorced previous ones. But what we learned
Speaker 1: really is that the people who stay married, they still
Speaker 1: go through all the crap that everybody goes through, some
Speaker 1: worse than others, but they're not looking for the exit sign.
Speaker 1: That really is the difference. If you decide that this
Speaker 1: is it. You know, Cia Cedric said, there's no plan B,
Speaker 1: so no matter what happens, you and I have said, well,
Speaker 1: infidelity would be our exit sign. Maybe everybody has one.
Speaker 1: But thankfully they didn't come to it. So whether it
Speaker 1: was infidelity or losing their money, or or sickness like
Speaker 1: Michael J. Fox and Tracy and the third year of
Speaker 1: their marriage he got that diagnosis. Third year, I mean,
Speaker 1: that is a huge thing. And I I know people.
Speaker 1: I know couples who have broken up because one of
Speaker 1: them was ill and with the degenerative disease like MS
Speaker 1: and they couldn't deal with it. They're partners, they are
Speaker 1: life partners, Mike and Tracing, absolutely, and they're very much
Speaker 1: in law. And that's that's an interesting couple to bring
Speaker 1: up to because I think it was no question Mike's
Speaker 1: illness was something that they were going to fight together
Speaker 1: and they created the Michael J. Fox Foundation, And it
Speaker 1: was it was his drinking after he got the diagnosis.
Speaker 1: That's when Tracy said, are you kidding, Like, we're not
Speaker 1: doing this. We're not doing this, Like I can handle Parkinson's,
Speaker 1: but you know, the drinking is the game changer, so
Speaker 1: forget that. And that went on for like a year
Speaker 1: and a half until he got ahold of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, because I said to him, were you afraid
Speaker 1: that she'd bail out on you? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: I was afraid that I would be available, and I'm
Speaker 1: one of the things was my drinking and I had
Speaker 1: to put that together. But she's she's. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I left them in tears. I Phil wasn't with me,
Speaker 1: he had the flu, and I kept the date because
Speaker 1: they were traveling somewhere. And when I was walking home
Speaker 1: because they're just a few blocks up the street, and
Speaker 1: I started crying and I thought, I'm crying because being
Speaker 1: with them has made me love my husband more. Being
Speaker 1: with them has made me realize that this is marriage
Speaker 1: and they and they get it and I get it,
Speaker 1: and it really it was a very emotional, not because
Speaker 1: they weren't. They weren't emotional. They were just natural, normal people.
Speaker 1: But he was having trouble, the usual trouble that we see,
Speaker 1: and she was not fixing it for him, you know,
Speaker 1: she wasn't moving things for him. He was who he
Speaker 1: is and that was fine, and she ben't trying to
Speaker 1: make it look better. I just was so I thought,
Speaker 1: that's what that's what it means to really love somebody
Speaker 1: and accept all of them, you know, but that it
Speaker 1: just just really touched me. We're gonna take a short
Speaker 1: break and we'll be right back welcome back. I wonder
Speaker 1: if you think this is true. I speaking of Mike
Speaker 1: and Tracy, who are good friends of ours and we
Speaker 1: might have been traveling with them when you kept that appointment.
Speaker 1: I find that George and I gravitate towards happily married
Speaker 1: couples absolutely and are uncomfortable with people that aren't um
Speaker 1: And I can tell you I think people that are
Speaker 1: in kind of rocky marriages tend to want to be
Speaker 1: with people in rocky marriages, you know. But George and
Speaker 1: I are completely uneasy and don't feel our authentic selves
Speaker 1: if we're not with other people that are kind of
Speaker 1: from that marriage tribe. And it's really bad for you too.
Speaker 1: I mean Phil has told me that, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: will be talking and he'll be talking to this one
Speaker 1: guy who's like really putting his wife down. And Phil said,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm supposed to say, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: Marlow is really rough, But he said, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do. He said, I just you know, say
Speaker 1: something stupid like oh god, that's rough, you know. But
Speaker 1: he said, I like that I'm expected to be one
Speaker 1: of the boys to be unhappy. And the other thing
Speaker 1: is is that you do wear the energy of an
Speaker 1: unhappy couple or an unhappy person. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: with the woman who's unhappy, you're going to leave the
Speaker 1: luncheon until Jesus. I'm just down. I'm really down. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm carrying her thing with me. Also, unhappy married people
Speaker 1: zing each other. And you know me well enough to
Speaker 1: know that I'm a bit of a fixer. So like
Speaker 1: if a couple is arguing, I would say, Oh, he
Speaker 1: didn't mean it like that. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make it all work now for them. You know, you're
Speaker 1: instant therapist. Yeah, yeah, So it's it's bad for me
Speaker 1: in many ways. I'm a Vinski, as they say. I.
Speaker 1: I had the experience of when we certainly when we
Speaker 1: first moved to New York from d C, that I
Speaker 1: was asked to lunch by women I didn't know very
Speaker 1: well but that we're you know, graciously inviting me out,
Speaker 1: and they would become bitch fests about their husbands, just
Speaker 1: oh he's driving me crazy or I can't stand him,
Speaker 1: or oh I'm having an affair, and and I just
Speaker 1: I couldn't breathe. And I ended up writing a chapter
Speaker 1: in one of my books about how I felt. Boy,
Speaker 1: I'm so uninteresting. I go to these lunches. I'm not
Speaker 1: screwing the tennis pro. I I don't hate my husband.
Speaker 1: I have nothing to say. Does anybody want to talk
Speaker 1: about Syria? You know, I'm not going to bash my
Speaker 1: husband just for the sake of bashing it, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, is different from if you and I went
Speaker 1: for a walk in Central Park and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm having a problem with George. This is what
Speaker 1: it is. Can you help me fix it? This was
Speaker 1: like real husband bashing, and in a way that I
Speaker 1: couldn't stomach at all. Right, Yeah, Now, I've I've been
Speaker 1: with women who do that, but also with women who
Speaker 1: asked me to lunch and said, you know, my husband
Speaker 1: is like really screaming all the time, and what do
Speaker 1: you do? And and and sometimes also about you know,
Speaker 1: not having enough sex or something, and you say you
Speaker 1: want to help, because that's that's that's loving. Now I've
Speaker 1: I've now that we're at this age. I've lately I've
Speaker 1: been saying coconut, oil a lot and coconut. I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: I have friends that are like, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I go just coconut oil and call me in
Speaker 1: the morning. You have said that marriage is the cushion
Speaker 1: of life, and what do you mean by that? Well,
Speaker 1: you know when you get rejected, you know, and who
Speaker 1: doesn't when something doesn't go well? You know what? What
Speaker 1: brings you down in whatever way, either brings you down emotionally,
Speaker 1: whether it brings you down about your own self esteem
Speaker 1: and your own worth, whatever happens where somebody hurts you
Speaker 1: in some way. And then there's your marriage, and there's
Speaker 1: your guy who says, oh, honey, you have this and
Speaker 1: you have that. And as you know, I talk a lot,
Speaker 1: and I'm the kind of person who might say the
Speaker 1: wrong thing at a party to somebody. But if I do,
Speaker 1: if I say something and I shouldn't have said it,
Speaker 1: I think I hurt somebody's feelings or whatever. I'll come
Speaker 1: home and I'll say they said, oh god, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have said that. Why did I say that? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't whatever, And Phil will say, oh, come on,
Speaker 1: you were the most interesting person at the party. Everybody
Speaker 1: was crazy. But he won't let me go there. He
Speaker 1: won't let me feel bad and sad, and that is
Speaker 1: what I But that's a tiny thing when you lose
Speaker 1: your dad, as I did, and I was broken hearted
Speaker 1: and it was sudden and it was over like that.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the night, I thought I'd lose
Speaker 1: my mind and feel was just over me and on me,
Speaker 1: and he was he wasn't a cushion. Well that's that's
Speaker 1: a good mate. And I love it because I think
Speaker 1: George is my cushion as well. But I also wanted
Speaker 1: to instill in our marriage that you know, we're both
Speaker 1: there for you know, the difficult times, the hard times,
Speaker 1: and there will be many more in our future. And
Speaker 1: at one point in our marriage, I said to George,
Speaker 1: you know, we're there for each other. We support each other.
Speaker 1: We are the cushions, we are the blanket, all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I said, but we also get to
Speaker 1: be the celebrators, you know, I said, we have to
Speaker 1: do both. You know, George is always the person that
Speaker 1: downplays everything and I'll say, you just want a Peabody award?
Speaker 1: Can I bake you a cake? You know? And so
Speaker 1: I tried to instill that in our marriage as well,
Speaker 1: that we can be the support system but also the
Speaker 1: biggest cheerly. I think that that is the other cushion,
Speaker 1: you know, the cushion of joy and and of a
Speaker 1: party and of a horn and a funny hat and
Speaker 1: hooray for you. I completely agree, completely agree. Phil has
Speaker 1: done that for me. When I went an Emmy had
Speaker 1: this big surprise Emmy party for me. Uh. And we've
Speaker 1: given each other so many surprise birthday parties. But I
Speaker 1: am a big celebrator, you know. When I first met Phil,
Speaker 1: he said, look, I don't you know, I don't really
Speaker 1: pay attention to Valentine's staying and stuff like this. And
Speaker 1: I said, okay, but I do. So you don't have
Speaker 1: to get me anything. But I'm not going to stop
Speaker 1: being who I am, so I would always give you
Speaker 1: know whatever, I got them the jamas with hearts on it,
Speaker 1: or jockey pants and said I love you, or some
Speaker 1: dumb thing. A little by little, he started buying me
Speaker 1: a present because he was like embarrassed. I said, you
Speaker 1: don't have to give me a present. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: what I really want is one of those cards that
Speaker 1: says you're my wife, You're my life, with a little
Speaker 1: red satin heart. That's that's really all I want. And
Speaker 1: I have thousands and thousands of cards. He gets presents
Speaker 1: and flowers too, but really for me, I want to
Speaker 1: just hear it. Yeah, I want to see it. I'm
Speaker 1: the same way. George writes me a card every Valentine's
Speaker 1: Day and on my birthday, and even for our two
Speaker 1: daughters every year on their birthday, he writes like a
Speaker 1: ten page letter about the year that they had and
Speaker 1: all the great exceptional things they have. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: the words mean a lot. They really do. They really do.
Speaker 1: And I think if you let your partner know what
Speaker 1: it is you want, you know, that's what will make
Speaker 1: me happy. I don't need, you know, a jaguar. I
Speaker 1: need that, and I think then you can have it,
Speaker 1: you know. I think they will give it to you,
Speaker 1: and you will give it to them. I always say
Speaker 1: to George, you know, I don't like jewelry. I don't
Speaker 1: like fancy clothes. You know you're lucky that way. But
Speaker 1: I do love. I do love a nice love letter,
Speaker 1: h and not on tax tand written. You gotta have
Speaker 1: your guidelines. Yeah, yes, it doesn't have to be with
Speaker 1: a plume and a feather rpel do. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to end on something. My stepfather recently died and he
Speaker 1: was ninety nine years old, and he was my mother's
Speaker 1: third husband. And I went up to me and to
Speaker 1: see her, to see if she was okay, and she said,
Speaker 1: this wonderful thing to me about marriage. She said, you know,
Speaker 1: the first two husbands, she said, I didn't know who
Speaker 1: I was. I didn't know what I was feeling. You know,
Speaker 1: I did what I was, you know, supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And she said, and I met your stepfather. His name
Speaker 1: was Louie. She said, I met Louie when I was
Speaker 1: sixty two years old, and I went, oh, this is
Speaker 1: what being in love feels like. And she said, you know,
Speaker 1: I already had four kids, and I was going away
Speaker 1: with him for the weekend, for our you know, first
Speaker 1: sort of love weekend. And she said, I was sweating.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to wear. She said, it was
Speaker 1: like I was a virgin all over again. And they
Speaker 1: were married for thirty years, and she said, you know
Speaker 1: what is so amazing is that this man that I
Speaker 1: loved with all my heart, he lay next to me.
Speaker 1: He died in my arms, and right before he died,
Speaker 1: he mouthed, I love you so much. And she said,
Speaker 1: you cannot ask for the ending of a marriage to
Speaker 1: be any better than that. And she said, now I'm
Speaker 1: grieving because I miss him, but I don't grieve any
Speaker 1: things about Oh I wish I had I wish I
Speaker 1: had said this or done this, or we had this,
Speaker 1: or you know. She says, it was pure to the
Speaker 1: very end. And it just it made me feel so
Speaker 1: good because I thought going up there she was, you know,
Speaker 1: going to be a rack, and she just she was
Speaker 1: smiling and just so at ease, and it made me,
Speaker 1: it made me sort of walk away crying the way
Speaker 1: you did from Mike and Tracy. And I can only
Speaker 1: hope that George mouths I love you to me, you know,
Speaker 1: when he drifts off, so you know, and I thought,
Speaker 1: that's a marriage. That's that's a marriage. That's all right, Marlos,
Speaker 1: thank you for doing this. Was fun. It was fun.
Speaker 1: I think for centuries, philosophers, archaeologists, we've all tried to
Speaker 1: figure out what makes a marriage last. And so one
Speaker 1: of the things that I have said to friends of
Speaker 1: mine or younger friends of mine, when they say, you know,
Speaker 1: I have this issue with marriage or I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: getting married, is you have to trust your gut. Nothing
Speaker 1: else is more important than that. And it's a non
Speaker 1: verbal thing, and it's a feeling that you feel literally
Speaker 1: in your gut or in your heart. But if you
Speaker 1: find yourself engaged and you're weeping a lot, and you're
Speaker 1: finding yourself having to self medicate, that is something to
Speaker 1: listen to. And all I can tell you in my
Speaker 1: experience is I didn't care about the dress. I bought
Speaker 1: a Vera Wang dress on sale at an outlet. I
Speaker 1: didn't care about the cake. I didn't care about the band.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to marry George. And I couldn't get
Speaker 1: to the church fast enough and I couldn't run down
Speaker 1: the aisle and say I do fast enough. And if
Speaker 1: you start to get hung up in a whole bullion
Speaker 1: base of other reasons to get married, Oh my mother
Speaker 1: loves him, or oh he works in my father's company,
Speaker 1: my advice to you is listen to your gut. And
Speaker 1: every marriage is different. But there is one thing that
Speaker 1: I think it's the most helpful piece of advice I
Speaker 1: could give, and it's advice I've given friends, which is,
Speaker 1: when you go into a marriage, go into the marriage
Speaker 1: for life. Do not go in with an out, don't
Speaker 1: go in and say you know what we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Stay in the marriage, I mean stay in the marriage,
Speaker 1: work at the marriage until you have literally beaten a
Speaker 1: dead horse, and then if there's no other alternative, you leave.
Speaker 1: But go in with the philosophy and the idea of
Speaker 1: this is the person I'm going to spend the rest
Speaker 1: of my life with. Come war, pestilence, pandemic. I am
Speaker 1: with this person, and I'm going to make it work.
Speaker 1: That's it. Thank you for listening to Go ask Alli.
Speaker 1: Join me next week with my guest author, comedic actress,
Speaker 1: and television host Annabelle Gerrich. As we talked about growing
Speaker 1: a relationship with our mortality, she went in for a
Speaker 1: COVID test and found out she had stage four lung cancer.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and
Speaker 1: follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e
Speaker 1: Wentworth and on Instagram the Real Ali Wentworth And if
Speaker 1: you have any guests or topics you'd like to share,
Speaker 1: a call or text me at three to three four
Speaker 1: six three five six or email me Go ask Alli
Speaker 1: podcast at gmail dot com. Go Ask Gali is a
Speaker 1: production of Shondaland Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio. Visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.