The book on marriage was written by Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas. The couple have been married for a long time. In their book, “What Makes a Marriage Last: ’40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life’.”
Marlo has been married to Phil for over 40 years, but it is most interesting that she says she didn’t want to get married when she was young.
In the book, the actress wrote about how she used to have a negative view of marriage: “Marriage is like a vacuum cleaner: you stick it to your ear, and it sucks out all your energy and ambition.”
Thomas says that being married is like living with a jailer who you have to please, and he says this more than once. Until she met Donahue, that is.
Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue met after Phil’s first marriage ended in divorce. They have been together for a long time and have a strong bond.
Phil Donahue became well-known because of his show, “The Phil Donahue Show,” which later became known as “Donahue.” It ran for 29 years and was the first show of its kind to let people in the audience take part. And Marlo Thomas was a guest on his show who completely changed the course of his life.
The book says that the couple met in Chicago in 1977. Phil had four boys with him at the time. His fifth child, a daughter, lived somewhere else with his ex-wife and her mother.
Marlo and Phil were together for three years before they got married in 1980 in a small ceremony with only 35 people.
Friends and family of Marlo were shocked by the actress’s change of heart. In their book, the couple tells a funny story about how Marlo’s friends at her bridal shower hung up quotes from the soon-to-be bride that showed how she used to feel about marriage.
In the book, Marlo’s mom was the one who was most surprised, and she kept asking Donahue, “How did you get her to do this?” during the wedding.
Even strangers were said to be shocked by the star and activist’s decision to settle down, among other feelings. While Phil was in the bathroom, a woman on the plane the couple took to Greece for their honeymoon told Marlo that she was disappointed that she had given up being independent.
In the book, Thomas is honest and says that this interaction planted a seed of doubt in her. If she spent so much of her life criticizing marriage, is it hypocritical for her to get married now? Had she let down her fans, who saw her as the epitome of freedom?
Even though they talk about the usual ups and downs in their book about their long marriage, Donahue and Thomas are still together. They say that these problems taught them something and helped them become closer.
Even before they were married, Phil had to tape his show in Chicago, and Marlo had to travel for her acting career.
Thomas’s aunt told him that the couple’s marriage wasn’t really a marriage because they didn’t live together full-time. This helped him understand that different people have different ideas about what a marriage is.
Even though Thomas and Donahue lived far apart, they made their marriage work. The most important thing is that Marlo got children when she got a husband.
In an interview with AARP in 2012, Thomas talked about what it was like to help raise Phil’s kids. She said that she knew they already had a traditional mother and that it wasn’t her job to be like that.
Marlo instead says that she became more of a friend to Phil’s kids so that she could raise them as her mother did. She keeps saying that her relationship with them is better now than it was when they got married.
In the book, Donahue makes a point of saying that Thomas did spend as much time as she could talking to his sons and trying to understand them.
Phil and Marlo think that their long marriage is due to the trust they have in each other, as well as her close relationship with his children. Marlo says, “You can trust someone when you know they always have your back.”
Even though they’ve been married for over 40 years, they still have more memories to make together.
Phil says that for a marriage to last, both people have to want it to. Marlo agrees with him and says that when she thinks about it now, she would never want to be anything other than married to her partner. She says Donohue has helped her in “every possible way.”