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Celebs Whose Marriages Are Refreshingly Normal – Nicki Swift

This article references drug misuse and addiction.

Celebrity marriages are known for being a lot of things, but normal is not one of them. Overexposed? Yes. Quirky? Sure. Volatile? Well, we all followed the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial. And don’t get us started on the length of some celeb marriages. We could list dozens of stars who stayed married for less than a year, including Mario Lopez and Ali Landry (18 days), Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries (72 days), and Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock (122 days). Heck, at least three big celebs — Nicholas Cage, Jennifer Lopez, and Drew Barrymore — have multiple 365-days-or-less marriages under their belt. So yeah, there is often something abnormal about celebrity wedlock.

Even when they don’t end within a calendar year, celebrity matrimony is rarely holy. A decade ago, a U.K. organization called the Marriage Foundation released data on famous married couples who tied the knot between 2000 and 2012, which placed the divorce rate at a whopping 40% for our cultural superstars (and we imagine that number has only risen since). Many of the marriages that stand the test of time are either incredibly peculiar — like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, or Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli — or read more like business deals than demonstrations of true love. That is why it is so noteworthy when we hear about celebrity marriages where spouses communicate in a manner typical of couples outside of Hollyweird. Here are 30 celebrity marriages that are seemingly sturdy, and refreshingly normal.

Ashley Graham and Justin Ervin make shared goals (and vision boards)

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We can’t always advocate for marrying young, since it is sometimes a big mistake. But time has proven that certain matches are perhaps just meant to be. Model Ashley Graham met her now-husband, filmmaker Justin Ervin, at church when both of them were only 21 years old. They got married the next year, in 2010, and have been going strong ever since. But things almost ended before they began. As Graham wrote in an essay for Glamour, she was turned off when Ervin wanted to split the check on their first date. They got past it with open communication — he had his reasons! — and went steady a few months later.

The couple has three young kids — Isaac, born in 2020, and twins Malachi and Roman, born two years later — so they surely have disagreements. They have also weathered some serious issues, like Graham’s racist grandmother who initially did not want to get to know Ervin. But at the end of the day, they persist due to open communication and a lot of hard work. For instance, Graham told Bazaar Bride that the couple never goes to bed mad at each other. Setting joint objectives is also important for the duo, who like to approach goal setting in a creative way. “Every year, every two years, we’ll make a new vision board,” Graham said in a People Now interview. “Also, on our anniversaries, we kind of do, like, an analysis of where we are.”

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw make space for dates and alone time

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Many couples recognize the benefits of having designated “date nights,” but smart ones also understand the value of having alone time away from one’s partner. Take Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, who are clearly doing something right after three decades of marriage. When working and traveling together on their Soul2Soul World Tour, the couple was clear to set boundaries so that they each had their own space and time to refresh in solitude. “We both have our daily routines and we have our own dressing rooms,” Hill told People in 2018. “We each have our own space to retreat to so we do get time to ourselves.” 

The couple met in 1994, when both were in other relationships. They toured together two years later, and the sparks were so strong that they left their partners. They got engaged and married within that same year and went on to welcome three daughters together. While a lot of us don’t have the money to enjoy separate closets or the need for full-on dressing areas for each partner, this refreshing mindset is simply the touring musician’s version of having a “man cave” or a “she shed.” It is also a smart strategy — experts suggest respective alone time can benefit a marriage, which The New York Times called, “The gift of time apart.” Clearly, Hill and McGraw have set a pattern that works, given how much time they spend together — 98% of it, as McGraw told USA Today in 2022.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick don’t air their dirty laundry

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We are so used to celebrities who court media attention that it does not even phase us anymore when a star duo puts their relationship out there for all of the world to see. Be it Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott or any Kar-Jenner romance, we have gotten accustomed to knowing the inner workings of many celebrity relationships. It is interesting, then, that a lot of our favorite celebrity couples are actually incredibly private about their partnerships and home lives. This is, of course, harder to do when both partners are mega-famous. But somehow Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have managed to shield their marriage from the public eye. “The secret is, we don’t discuss it. To reporters or anybody else,” she told The Huffington Post. “… We don’t hold it up as an example and we don’t air our dirty laundry.”

Parker and Broderick have long avoided public scrutiny by limiting the amount of information they share. The couple met in 1991 and got married six years later, and they have never been about the spotlight. “Matthew and I come from a different time and place. When we were young people, all we ever wanted was to be good working actors. We didn’t think of fame or money because, honestly, money was never part of the dream,” Parker told Harpers Bazaar. “… So when our marriage came up in conversation, it wouldn’t occur to us that we were obligated to respond to allegations or gossip.” Seems almost healthy, doesn’t it?

Pink and Carey Hart had to learn to speak the same language

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Pink met her husband, former pro motorcyclist Cary Hart, in 2001, and their early years were full of ups and downs. They split in 2003, only to reunite a year later and marry two years after that. Then, in February 2008, the couple announced their separation — before the tragic death of Hart’s brother brought them back together, at which point they decided to work on things. That recommitment to each other certainly paid off, because the couple has been together since and have built a beautiful family together, welcoming their daughter Willow in June 2011, and their son Jameson in December 2016. In 2021, Pink told “Extra” that she and Hart do not see divorce as an option. “There’s no quit button. Unless we find one. Right now, we don’t have one,” she said.

Key to the couple’s commitment is their respective upbringings, as both grew up with divorced parents. “We love being a family. And we both come from families that gave up, and that’s okay,” Pink told “Extra.” “That was their journey, that was the journey we all were supposed to be on. But for us, we don’t want to do that.” The singer credits counseling sessions with helping her and Hart to get on the same page — “Learning how to speak the same language,” she added. In a 2021 Instagram post celebrating her anniversary with Hart, she wrote, “What a wild ride it’s been, once we learned how to stay in our race line.”

Boris Kodjoe is present when he’s with Nicole Ari Parker

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Busy couples rarely get to spend as much time together as they like, and so the importance of that limited couple time is amplified. This is something actor Boris Kodjoe knows, and something he keeps in mind when he is with his wife, Nicole Ari Parker. Both he and the “And Just Like That …” star have modeled, and their looks might be able to draw attention from the dead. Still, Kodjoe has said that he makes it a point to focus solely on his wife and to make sure she knows how beautiful he thinks she is. “Guys have to be more present,” he told Essence. “When the wife walks in, it should be an event. You have to look up, you have to close the computer, and you have to say, ‘Hey baby, wow!'”

Kodjoe and Parker have been married since 2005, and they have a busy life juggling their careers and two teenage children. In 2022, Kodjoe told Ebony that they swear by spontaneous kisses and surprise day trips, amongst other things. When the “Station 19” actor was featured in People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue in 2022, he detailed what a surprise date looks like. “I gave my wife a sound bath for her last birthday. I had a lounge singer in our front yard serenade her and a chef cook her a meal on the terrace,” he said, noting the constraints of the COVID-19 lockdowns. A massage, manicure, pedicure, and henna rounded out the day.

Carson Daly and his wife sleep in separate rooms

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There is nothing sexy about sleeping in a different room than your spouse, but sometimes it is a necessity. Maybe there are differing schedules, or one person is up multiple times a night — or maybe someone snores like some sort of dying creature in the wilderness. No matter the reason, a 2023 study of 2200 Americans conducted by the International Housewares Association found that one in five couples sleep in separate rooms (much to the chagrin of marriage counselors everywhere, apparently), per The New York Times. And so, how refreshingly normal is it that Carson Daly has admitted he and his wife often retire in separate quarters? It is a “stars, they’re just like us” moment that we never knew we needed.

Daly met his wife Siri Daly (Née: Pinter) when she worked on his show, “Last Call With Carson Daly,” and they married in 2015. They have four children, so neither of them is probably sleeping that well, but at least they are doing what they can to minimize the damage. They began sleeping apart — which Daly has jokingly called “sleep divorce” — when Siri was pregnant with baby number four. “She was in her third trimester, and I also have sleep apnea,” Carson told People. “She couldn’t get comfortable, so we were like a commercial you would see, kicking each other and just not sleeping.” They stuck with the plan after the baby was born, and according to a statement he made on “Today” in 2022, are still often sleeping apart.

Kit Harington got in trouble for pulling a big prank on Rose Leslie

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Kit Harington never got to show his sense of humor on “Game of Thrones,” but we caught glimpses of it when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in April 2019, and are consistently impressed with how funny he is in interviews. And while we are still waiting for Harington to star in a full-on comedy, it is nice to know that he is putting his funny bone to work at home. In fact, Harington is such a fan of practical jokes that he once pranked his wife so badly that she forbade him from ever doing it again. We can’t think of many things more normal than tormenting one’s spouse — in a loving but hilarious way, obviously.

Harington is married to Rose Leslie, who played his Wildling love interest Ygritte on “Game of Thrones.” The pair fell in love in 2011 while filming Season 2 in Iceland, and briefly broke up in 2013 before getting back on track and marrying five years later. That infamous prank Harington pulled actually occurred prior to the marriage, and while it was not bad enough for Leslie to call things off, she may have been tempted. “She pretty much told me if I ever did it again that would be it, and I think that’s marriage included,” Harington said on “The Jonathan Ross Show.” So, what did he do? Harington hid a very realistic fake head in their fridge, which Leslie unsuspectingly discovered while reaching for some Brita water on April 1. April Fools’ indeed!

Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas coordinate their schedules

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We were not entirely sold on Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas as a couple when we first heard about them. For one thing, Chopra Jonas is 10 years older than her husband, and at 25 (when they met), Jonas seemed a bit too young to settle down. Plus, the purity ring had come off and Jonas had blossomed into a full-blown sex symbol, so we assumed he would go the playboy bachelor route for a while. Chopra Jonas had the same idea when Jonas slipped into her DMs in 2016. “I didn’t give it much of a chance because I was like, ‘He’s 25 years old, he’s a rockstar. I want to get married, I want to settle down, I want to have a baby.’ I was 35 at the time,” she told “Today” years later.

But people are unpredictable, and we have been pleasantly surprised by the maturity Jonas appears to show relative to some of his peers in the music industry. In May 2018, the pair were officially dating, and by July of that year, they were engaged. They married in India five months later and quickly became one of our favorite married couples. With their thriving careers, the pressures of fame, and a young daughter at home (Malti, born January 2022), the Jonases live a chaotic life. Like many couples, they have to coordinate their schedules to maintain order — although they do it differently than most, likely with their full team of assistants.

Hugh Jackman and his wife have strict relationship rules

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Hugh Jackman is a mega zaddy, so it is a bummer for many that he is happily wedded and off the market. He has been for a long time as well, since the actor met Deborra-Lee Furness in 1995, and immediately knew he wanted to wife her up. “I knew two weeks in to meeting Deb that we were going to be together for the rest of our lives,” Jackman once said on “Today.” Still, a relationship does not last for decades without hard work and dedication, which are two things the couple has exhibited. They share two kids, Oscar and Ava, and have even gone so far as to establish strict rules to help keep their marriage healthy. This is not just normal to do, but likely something therapists would recommend for all couples.

Jackman and Furness married only 11 months after they first met on a production, which gave them plenty of time to adjust to married life before he skyrocketed to fame playing Wolverine in 2000’s “X-Men.” Those rules no doubt became even more important as things got busier, and they are all relatively common-sense directives that any couple can abide by. Per an interview that Jackman did with Irish Mirror, two of the most important ones are never spending more than two weeks apart and always being 100% honest. They don’t let tension linger, either. “Sometimes it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, but we kind of work it out before we go to sleep,” Jackman said on “Today.”

Jessie James Decker still flirts with husband Eric Decker

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Look, we could write a whole paragraph about flirting with your spouse and how it is good for a relationship, but there is no way we can do that without first acknowledging the obvious in this scenario: it is not hard to flirt with Eric Decker. The former NFLer is incredibly attractive — and if you don’t believe us, just take a look at the nude Instagram photo that Decker posted in 2020 to support his wife’s cookbook (don’t worry, everything’s covered!). So, now that we have established how easy it would be to flirt with a perfect 10, we can get into the nitty-gritty of how the equally attractive Jessie James Decker works to keep things frisky and fun.

The Deckers began their romance in 2011 after Jessie’s friend texted her about this fantastically handsome man her boyfriend rolled around with and subsequently set them up. They married in June 2013 and their reality series, “Eric & Jessie” began a few months later. Three kids and a decade later, the duo is still going strong — proof there may be something to the country singer’s strategy, which has helped them avoid the reality TV marriage curse. “Besides being super attracted to each other, I think there’s a sense of flirting with each other and still keeping that spice alive,” Jessie told People. She also said she tries to greet Eric with kisses, stating, “Little things like that go such a long way and I think sometimes women forget that.”

Courtney B. Vance once compared his marriage to a rock band

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As Ariana DeBose memorably declared during a bizarre rap at the 2023 BAFTAs, “Angela Bassett did the thing” (insert shimmy). And yes, she was talking about the actor’s role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” but we think the statement could apply to just about any aspect of the actor’s life. Graduate from Yale University? She did the thing. Hollywood career spanning nearly four decades? She did the thing. And when it comes to marriage, Bassett’s doing the thing there too. In fact, we would go so far as to argue that she has one of the most enviable marriages in Hollywood, given how long it has lasted and how private her family’s affairs have remained.

Bassett first met Courtney B. Vance when both were students at the Yale School of Drama, but they didn’t keep in touch or cross paths again until 1994. They got married three years later and welcomed twins Bronwyn and Slater at the start of 2006. Communication and understanding have been key to helping the couple go the distance, and Vance had a very interesting analogy for their marriage when People interviewed him in 2023. “It’s like a rock band, The Temptations or The Stones or The Eagles,” he said. “Initially it was about, ‘they made it,’ and then ‘what about my individual glory?’ And ‘I don’t want to get so caught up in the band and talks about going our separate ways.’ And then going, ‘You know what? We’re better together and stronger together.”

Meghan Trainor and Daryl Sabara have an open-door bathroom policy

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We know this one won’t go over well with everybody, but there is a relatability to singer Meghan Trainor’s confession that she and her husband, actor Daryl Sabara, use the bathroom in front of one another. If given the choice, we do not know many people who would choose to pee (or poop) in front of their spouse, but the fact of many marriages is that joint bathrooms sometimes necessitate it. But even then, there tends to be a function for the second person being in the bathroom — to shower, to brush their teeth, to grab something — beyond just having a kiki. But in typical celebrity fashion, there are abnormalities to this story since most of us don’t construct two side-by-side toilets to hold hands while urinating.

So, we can’t help people confused by this particular take on the open-door bathroom policy. “In our bathroom, there was one toilet, and a lot of time in the middle of the night when we’re with the baby, we’ve got to pee at the same time. So I was like, ‘Can we please have two toilets next to each other?'” Meghan said on Nicole Byer’s “Why Won’t You Date Me” podcast. It’s unknown why two adjacent bathrooms were not an option. Ryan Trainer, her brother, was also a guest on the podcast and delighted in calling Meghan and Sabra — whom she wed in 2018 – weirdos for their bathroom habits, including her penchant for going number two in front of her hubby.

Mark Consuelos had to work on his jealousy in his marriage to Kelly Ripa

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There is something so ordinary about Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa, even though they are rich, famous, and better looking than the vast majority of Americans. But it may be their relationship that makes them seem like normies since they clearly love each other and have no problem sharing — and oversharing — the details with fans. For instance, the pair have discussed their sex life so often that there are entire articles about their NSFW escapades. They clearly have an intense chemistry and an experimental, active sex life, which is a real feat after decades of married life.

Another refreshing thing about Consuelos is his jealousy, not because that is a good trait to have but because so many people struggle with the same emotion when in a relationship. In an episode of her “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast, Ripa admitted that her hubby’s jealousy was a big issue early in their marriage (the pair eloped in 1996). She even told a story about Consuelos getting mad over her flirtations with an elderly Italian waiter just a week into their marriage. In the same episode, Consuelos added, “If this is any consolation, you know you’re being crazy. The jealous person knows that this is wrong and it’s ugly, but they can’t help it … I wanted to do some work on myself and that was one of the major things that I needed to work on because it was getting in the way.”

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s marriage is rooted in friendship

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Ryan Reynolds is one of Hollywood’s most affable gents, but he had a hard time finding the right woman to sign on to a lifetime’s worth of his quirky sense of humor. He dated plenty of celebrities, including Alanis Morrissette and Kristen Johnson, before marrying Scarlett Johannson in 2007. After only two years they divorced, but the end of their marriage opened up the space for him to meet his true soulmate, Blake Lively (and don’t cry for ScarJo, who is now married to “Saturday Night Live’s” charming Colin Jost). With Lively, Reynolds found someone who was not only up for dealing with his unique sense of humor, but who matched it with their own.

Reynolds and Lively have trolled each other online so much that there are now dozens of articles chronicling the timeline of their best takedowns. These jokes are always in good spirits, and it is obvious they are doled out with love. This has made us diehard fans of the couple, who became friends after meeting on the set of “Green Latern,” but did not start dating for a year. They wed in 2012. Four years later, during an appearance on “The Jess Cagle Show” (via Elle), Lively explained about Reynolds, “In everyday life he is my friend first, and I think that’s the secret to happiness.” Reynolds has made similar statements, once telling “Extra,” “We really like each other. We really liked each other before as friends beforehand. We like each other even more so now.”

Salma Hayek’s social life is her husband

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It is really easy to think about all celebrities as super social creatures who are always on the go, galivanting from party to party. So, color us pleasantly surprised when we learned that actor Salma Hayek and her husband Francois-Henri Pinault barely have a social life outside of one another. It is not like they have no money, since Pinault is the CEO of Kering and worth literal billions (approximately 7 billion, to be precise). Plus, Hayek has always seemed like a bright light, so we suspect there are no issues making friends. It is as simple as the couple not wanting to go out and engage with others, as they prefer to spend time alone. And we love that for them.

“I married the right guy,” Hayek told reporters at a Harper’s BAZAAR event in 2017 (via People). “That is probably the most important thing. We support each other in everything we do. We want the other one to strive. Makes you happy when the other one strives. And you know what, we don’t have a very strong social life, because we really like to spend time together. So we do spend a lot of quality time together.” And there you have it, Hayek’s tips for a happy marriage should you meet your own billionaire. The two met in 2006 and within a year, they were engaged and pregnant. They have been married since February 2009 and have yet to tire of each other, despite their constant togetherness. 

Ted Danson compliments Mary Steenburgen daily

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Sitcom legend Ted Danson first met Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen at an audition in 1983, but the pair did not start dating until a decade after that. They crossed paths again when they co-starred in the movie “Pontiac Moon,” which was released in 1994, and got married a year later at a ceremony so fancy that the president was in attendance (Bill Clinton and Steenburgen go way back). Both actors have been married before (her once, him twice), which has clearly helped them learn what they need in a marriage. “[Our love] just gets more profound and deeper as we go through the blessings and joys, but also the hurdles, of life together,” Steenburgen told People in 2018. “He is my partner in the deepest sense of the word in this life.”

The way that Danson and Steenburgen talk about each other is the stuff of fairytales, but it is not just how the couple talks about each other, but also how they talk to each other that makes us love them together. Danson still pays Steenburgen at least one compliment each and every day, nearly three decades into their marriage. “He does tell me every single day of my life I’m beautiful, and I do know a lot of women live without that,” Steenburgen said in an interview with People. “And it does matter, someone just telling you that.” No wonder Steenburgen once told “CBS This Morning” that Danson had helped her shed the cynicism about love that developed after her divorce.

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz like to surprise each other

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We do not know a ton about Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s life together, as the pair are quite private, but the small snippets they have dropped in interviews paint a pretty picture. The pair first met when they were teenagers, but Keys totally had no interest in the rapper-slash-producer when she would see him at events. In her memoir, “More Myself” (via The Jasmine Brand), Keys wrote that she found Beatz’s flashiness unimpressive and a turn-off. But what a difference a couple of decades can make, because their 2008 reunion caused Keys to rethink her position. They started dating shortly after the collaboration they were working on but were barely seen together for years.

The couple’s low-key nature was perhaps due to Beatz technically being married. That became an issue when his ex, from whom he was separated, made a social media post accusing Keys of breaking up their family (which both Keys and Beatz denied, per People). Around the time his divorce was finalized in May 2010, Keys and Beatz announced they were both engaged and expecting a baby. They got married later that year and now have two kids, which can’t make spontaneity easy. And yet, they keep their marriage fresh. “[Swizz and I] like surprising each other and going on secret weekend dates,” Keys told People. “We’ve found some undiscovered gems and moments to take hikes or walks or just discover new things about life and each other. Those are my favorite times.”

Neil Patrick Harris and his husband have learned to alter their expectations

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As far as openly gay celebrities go, Neil Patrick Harris and his husband David Burtka are at the top of the marriage goals list, alongside Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi and maybe a handful of others. They have also had quite the journey since they started dating in 2004, two years before Harris publicly announced his sexuality. Their relationship was kept under wraps even then, and they did not appear together at a public event until the Emmy Awards in September 2007. Their love story has continued to weave and change as time has gone on, which is why the pair have had to learn to go with the flow. “Here’s a challenge: How do you keep redefining your relationship? I think you have to find new elements that turn you on, and not only sexually,” Harris said in a 2014 Glamour interview.

Harris and Burtka welcomed twins in 2010, marrying four years later in Italy. For them, a key piece of the puzzle is having an open and consistent flow of communication, with the spouses telling E! News that they appreciate what a therapist brings to the equation. They have also made it clear they are not afraid to fight — although adaptation seems to be at the heart of their overarching strategy. “If you are too rigid about what your expectations are and then suddenly it changes, then you have more reason to want to look elsewhere for stuff,” Harris told “ET” in 2015.

Emily Blunt and John Krasinski have a secret language

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If you have ever been in a long-term relationship, chances are that you and your partner developed some sort of shorthand to easily communicate when out in public. Maybe it’s a swift kick when they say something they shouldn’t, or a stark look when you want to make a quick exit. Or maybe you have a more developed code, like actors Emily Blunt and John Krasinski. The couple have referred to a “secret language” they have on more than one occasion, which leads us to believe that this is a real thing they have purposefully developed. And it totally makes sense, particularly when they are working together and must navigate that fine line between being spouses and professional collaborators.

Krasinski and Blunt met through a mutual friend when both were dining at a restaurant in 2008. They got married two years later, and now share two daughters, Hazel and Violet. While Blunt was nervous about working together for the first time, she quickly found that she and her hubby were a match made in collaborative heaven. “We really trust each other. We’re very honest with each other. We sort of have a shorthand and secret language that ultimately is gonna work for us,” she told E! News. Krasinski similarly explained to “Extra” that their nonverbal code was especially valuable while filming “A Quiet Place,” which features barely any spoken exchanges. “We only got to communicate through our secret language,” he said. “Without dialogue, we actually got to connect.”

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard believe in being vulnerable

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Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have never been ones to shy away from self-disclosure, even if the topic of discussion is unpleasant, intimate, or both. They are just as likely to share information about a fun family outing as they are about deeper issues affecting their marriage, such as Shepard’s addiction issues (he fell off the wagon in 2020 after 16 years sober) or the 2018 Daily Mail scoop alleging that Shepherd had cheated on Bell at the start of their romance (he claimed that the purported photographic evidence was taken two years before he and Bell started dating).

Bell and Shepard have also spoken at length about the ways that they keep their marriage healthy, putting a strong emphasis on vulnerability, facilitating an open dialogue, and attending couples therapy. These things have clearly worked well for the pair, who have been together since 2007.

Though Bell and Shepard first got engaged two years after starting out, they waited until October 2013 to walk down the aisle, standing in solidarity with their LGBTQ+ friends who, until then, could not marry in California. They share two kids and a business — the plant-based baby line Hello Bello — which makes communication especially important. Additionally, both Bell and Shepard swear by exposing their full selves, which includes acknowledging their limitations and errors. “We have a very healthy marriage and we got there by doing therapy when we needed it, and constantly doing fierce moral inventories,” Bell told People. “We both take responsibility when we are wrong.”

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Anne Hathaway and her hubby do joint digital detoxes

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Back when she was still a budding movie star, Anne Hathaway dated property developer Raffaello Follieri for four years. They were together from 2004 until 2008, which is when Follieri was arrested for fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, per People. After she lived through that nightmare, a happy ending was definitely owed to Hathaway. We cannot truly know what a celebrity marriage is like behind closed doors, but it does appear she finally found her fairytale in Adam Shulman. The two met only months after that debacle but she somehow retained her ability to trust. “He changed my ability to be in the world comfortably,” she told Elle in 2017. “… His unique and specific love has changed me.”

Hathaway married Shulman in September 2012, and he has been by her side for her rise to the top of the Hollywood food chain. The couple has two children, and they live a relatively toned-down life as far as actors are concerned. Back in 2014, Hathaway discussed the key rules of her marriage with the Daily Mail — rules that are so important to her that she laminated them and stuck the “contract” on a wall. The most interesting is the couple’s policy on digital detoxing. “We try to have a period of at least 24 hours when we’re off our phones, unplugged from technology and concentrating on being together,” she said. We have a feeling that becoming parents may have changed things, but we hope the family still detoxifies every now and then.

Julianne Moore and Bart Freundlich prioritize togetherness and laughter

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When we think about Julianne Moore, we tend to picture those tears she so expertly executes in her dramatic films, not her comedy chops. That is not to say that Moore has not appeared in comedies, but she has never been the laugh-out-loud funny type. Yet, it is laughter that she sees as the key to her marital bliss — maybe her husband makes the jokes — and who are we to argue with the legendary Julianne Moore? After all, the paparazzi still catch her walking arm-in-arm down the street with her husband, who she has been with for over a quarter of a century. “My God, I think they really have to make you laugh. If they don’t make you laugh, it’s just deadly,” Moore said in a 2020 interview for “The Drew Barrymore Show.”

Moore’s first marriage was in 1986, and though she did not get divorced until 1995, she once told The Sydney Morning Herald that she married too early and was never really into it. But she is proof that it is not always the third time that is the charm, because Moore’s second husband Bart Freundlich has been in the picture since 1996 when he directed her in “The Myth of Fingerprints.” They got married in 2003 and have two adult children, Caleb and Liv. Beyond lots of laughter, Moore has another simple piece of marriage advice. “Find somebody who’s as interested in you as you are in them,” she told People.

Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian swear by Google Calendar

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Serene Williams is one of the best female tennis players of all time, if not the best (if you believe The Bleacher Report and ESPN, which have both referred to her as the GOAT). To be at that level of athletics takes a degree of persistence, commitment, and discipline that few will ever possess. So, Williams could not just marry any old human — she had to find somebody else who understands what it is like to operate on such a high level. And as far as we are concerned, Williams chose the perfect man to settle down with when she married Alexis Ohanian in November 2017. Not only is he worth an estimated $150 million, but he’s also a smart businessman and a savvy investor.

The couple first met in Rome in 2015, in a chance encounter, and they share one child — daughter Alexis Olympia, who was born two months before their wedding. Since Ohanian co-founded Reddit, it makes sense that he would advocate for a technological solution to deal with logistical matters — enter Google Calendar. Ohanian and Williams are so devoted to the app (and so busy) that they map out their schedules at the start of each year. “I brought Google Calendar into her world so we could see each other’s schedules at any time, which would also make it easier to plan an impromptu call if we’re away from each other — a day without FaceTime is rough when you’ve been away from each other for two weeks,” Ohanian told Glamour.

Both Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar chose family over work

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There comes a point where people have to make the hard choice to create boundaries between work and home life, and that point often comes when kids enter the picture. That is what happened to Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who both slowed their careers when they became parents. For his part, Prinze told People that he did not miss the entertainment business when he left to care for his kids. “I had kids and not having a dad, it was always more important to me to be a present father,” he said. Prinze and Gellar met while filming “I Know What You Did Last Summer” in 1997 but did not start dating until 2000. They married two years later, had their daughter Charlotte in 2009, and welcomed son Rocky in 2012.

If there is anything more relatable than making personal sacrifices for the sake of family, we don’t know what it is. Although she briefly returned to television with the short-lived TV show “The Crazy Ones” in 2013, between 2012 and 2021 Gellar only really did the occasional TV guest spot. Meanwhile, Prinze focused on minimal amounts of voicework for a good five years. “I had young children, and I understand that our business is a lot of travel and a lot of hours away,” Gellar told PopSugar in 2022. “We might live in Hollywood, but nothing shoots in Hollywood anymore. I wanted that time because you never get that time back.”

Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher workout together

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As a former professional hockey player, Mike Fisher — who now co-owns an apparel brand for hunting enthusiasts, called Catchin’ Deers — is understandably devoted to fitness. But some may not know that his wife Carrie Underwood is also a huge fan of working out, to the point where she owns the fitness app, fit52. At one point, she also had her own athleisure brand sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods. And while Radar has published unsubstantiated rumors about Underwood’s efforts having a negative impact on her marital life, we take everything they say with a grain of salt (or five). Instead, we are going to focus on what we know for sure, which is that Underwood and Fisher like to spend time sweating it out together in the gym.

Underwood and Fisher married in July 2010, roughly a year and a half after they started dating (which they did entirely by phone for the first three months, due to logistics). They have two young sons, Isaiah and Jacob, and live in a rural setting in the Nashville metro area. Since millionaires don’t need a drivable Planet Fitness, their remoteness has not impacted those joint workout sessions — and Underwood loves an Instagram post detailing their gym time. For instance, in March 2020, she posted, “Doing the [fit52] workout with the hubs this morning … in hyper speed!!!” alongside a sped-up video. And way back in 2015, she posted a photo of them spinning with the caption, “The couple that slays together … stays together!”

Chrissy Teigen loves to poke fun at John Legend

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As you probably noticed when we wrote about Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, we love when famous couples troll each other on the Internet. While Reynolds and Lively do it well, there are others who are also up at the top of the heap — like Chrissy Teigen, who is at times completely ferocious when it comes to teasing her husband John Legend. She even once posted a mostly obscured photo showing part of his bum, though we presume he did not mind too much since it is still up eight years later. She again posted her hubby in the buff years later, but this time obstructed the view entirely so there was no partial glimpse of anything NSFW.  

Playful jest is common for many couples, albeit on a much smaller scale. And Teigen’s fun at her husband’s expense is hilariously honest but still full of love. Take, for instance, an image that she shared on Instagram in 2014 of her standing behind Legend, both in matching aprons, as she dabs tears away from his eyes while frying onions. “Cooking class with el sensitivo,” she wrote for the caption, thus demonstrating the perfect balance of affection with gentle ribbing.

Teigen and Legend met on the set of his music video for “Stereo” in 2006 and got married seven years later. Ever since then, Teigen has been making us laugh by posting things like, “The sexiest man alive just made me a ham sandwich” on Twitter or comparing Legend to “Arthur.”

Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick leaned on each other when crisis hit

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Marriage is never all roses and sunshine, no matter how rich and famous you are. But while celebrities deal with many of the same issues as their non-celeb counterparts, a lot of us don’t typically associate financial stress with famous actors (or at least not with a huge amount of empathy). However, there are rare times when it is hard not to feel bad for celebrities going through the wringer. 

When we learned of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick’s devastating financial loss at the hands of convicted felon Bernie Madoff, we could not help but feel for the beloved couple. “We had both been working professionally — Kev since he was seventeen and me since I was fifteen — and it was our savings, all the money we had,” Sedgwick explained in the book “What Makes a Marriage Last” (via People).

After a chance meeting when Sedgwick was a kid, the couple properly connected in 1987 when they co-starred in “Lemon Sky.” They married the next year, despite Sedgwick only being 23 at the time. Over the next 35 years, they built up stellar careers while raising two kids (one of whom, Sosie Bacon, is now an acclaimed actor themselves) and assumed they would be set for life financially. Luckily, the pair had each other to lean on when Madoff was arrested. “It didn’t challenge the marriage. In fact, the marriage was what made it easy. The money was gone, but we still had each other,” Kevin said in the book.

Chip and Joanna Gaines start each day sharing coffee

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Though they are no strangers to courting a scandal, Chip and Joanna Gaines have been able to breeze past any controversy that has come their way since breaking out with the HGTV hit “Fixer Upper.” At the end of the day, it seems like fans want to believe that the Gaineses are as wholesome as they appear on television. Whether that is true or not, they have surely made their brand of faith and family and farmhouses work for them. And while we won’t pipe in on any of Chip and Joanna’s scandals here, we stuck them on our list because of their morning routine, which is equal parts adorable and practical. “Marriage requires effort and time and talking and connecting,” Joanna told People (via Today) when explaining their morning ritual.

According to that same article, the couple starts each morning by getting up before their kids and bonding over a strong cup of coffee. Joanna said they sit at the breakfast table, so perhaps they are totally bored with their porch (you know, they must get sick of staring out at their 40 acres of land). Wherever they sip their java, the Gaineses use this time to connect, and that is a purposeful thing. “Jo and I both made a commitment pretty early on that the two of us are the most important variable,” Chip told People while noting that they could not be good parents unless they were good spouses first.

Rachael Ray and her husband are not afraid to yell

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There are some couples out there who claim to never fight, and others who say that they only have civil conversations when they disagree. For many couples, though, arguments happen and things can sometimes get heated. Not everyone will agree with her take, but we appreciate Rachael Ray’s willingness to get real about how things unfold in her marriage. Ray has said that she and her husband John Cusimano verbally duke it out when they have a fight. “When we are mad at each other we scream,” the TV personality told People. “If John is being an a**hole, I tell him, then I feel better. And John does the same thing. We share a great sense of humor which helps.”

As we said, not everyone will approve of angry displays of emotion. But for some people, screaming it out is the best way to get out their feelings and be able to steer the boat forward as a unit. The strategy obviously works for Ray, who has been married to Cusimano since 2005, when they got married in a Tuscan castle (they also renewed their vows there a decade later). The pair met at a birthday party four years before walking down the aisle, which means that Cusimano has been around since Ray’s “30 Minute Meals” days. “We love being together and not acting our age! We don’t trust quiet people,” Ray told People. It is probably a good thing they are both yellers, then.

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton garden together

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It was somewhat of a shocker when Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani first got together since we could not exactly picture the consistently glamorous fashionista digging her heels in on a ranch with a beer in hand. But since getting together with the country star, Stefani has embraced spending time on their giant Oklahoma ranch with a zeal we never saw coming from someone so iconically Californian (No Doubt famously got its start in Orange County, where Stefani was born and raised). The singers met as judges on Season 7 of “The Voice” in 2014, and when they both coincidentally divorced the following year, leaned on each other. By November 2015, they were officially an item.

Shelton and Stefani tied the knot in 2021, which officially made him a stepfather to Stefani’s three boys, with whom he is very close. And then, they started … gardening? Yes, somehow Stefani managed to take up gardening without ditching her trademark extra-long nails, and the hobby quickly became a favorite pastime for the couple. “When we do things, we go big, and we’re doing major gardening,” Stefani said on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in 2022. “… So I sent [Blake] home to figure out how to till all the land and dig a well.” Thanks to Instagram, we have plenty of photo evidence of Stefani getting down in the dirt to plant seeds, and the Daily Mail even published paparazzi photos of the singer rolling a cart of plants out of a Home Depot.