{"id":419,"date":"2024-02-11T22:40:12","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T22:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/?p=419"},"modified":"2024-02-11T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T22:40:12","slug":"inside-the-love-story-of-marlo-thomas-phil-donahue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/?p=419","title":{"rendered":"Inside the love story of Marlo Thomas &#038; Phil Donahue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas literally wrote the book on marriage. In their novel, What Makes a Marriage Las: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets, the long-married couple opens up about their relationship.<br \/>\nDespite being married to Phil for over 40 years, Marlo most interestingly reveals that she grew up wanting nothing to do with marriage\u2026<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-421 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/300498282_655144052839283_4880984570596544615_n-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/300498282_655144052839283_4880984570596544615_n-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/300498282_655144052839283_4880984570596544615_n.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p><div class=\"311fe198f191a864c1efcdfa9efedfdf\" data-index=\"3\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1782571\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n\n<p>In the book, the star expressed her previously grim outlook on the institution: \u201cMarriage is like a vacuum cleaner: you stick it to your ear, and it sucks out all your energy and ambition.\u201d<br \/>\nThomas likens marriage to living with a jailer that one has to please, making her feelings very clear at various times. That is, until she met Donahue.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-422 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/306748944_795241181676487_1824083426267691694_n-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"298\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/306748944_795241181676487_1824083426267691694_n-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/306748944_795241181676487_1824083426267691694_n.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue both found each other after Phil\u2019s first marriage failed and now they have created a bond that has lasted a lifetime.<br \/>\nPhil Donahue rose to fame in the public eye with his show, \u201cThe Phil Donahue Show,\u201d which was later rebranded as just \u201cDonahue.\u201d The show ran for 29 years and was the first of its kind to feature audience participation. And there was one guest on his show that totally changed the trajectory of his life; Marlo Thomas.<\/p>\n<div class=\"g1-img-wrap mashsb-micro-wrapper\"><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-420 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/290789622_138354261998330_5351002082616528008_n-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"428\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/290789622_138354261998330_5351002082616528008_n-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/290789622_138354261998330_5351002082616528008_n.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 428px) 100vw, 428px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The couple met in Chicago in 1977, according to the book, and Phil came with four boys attached to him. His fifth child, a daughter, lived with his ex-wife and her mother elsewhere.<br \/>\nMarlo and Phil dated for three years before tying the knot in 1980 in an intimate 35-person ceremony.<br \/>\nUnsurprisingly, Marlo\u2019s friends and family were shocked by the actress\u2019s change of heart. The couple\u2019s book recounts a hilarious anecdote about friends at Marlo\u2019s bridal shower hanging quotes up from the soon-to-be-bride that expressed her previous views on marriage.<\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\"><ins class=\"adsbygoogle adsbygoogle-noablate\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-7510852512761363\" data-adsbygoogle-status=\"done\" data-ad-status=\"filled\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"aswift_4_host\" tabindex=\"0\" title=\"Advertisement\" aria-label=\"Advertisement\"><span style=\"font-size: var(--go--font-size); color: var(--go--color--text); font-family: var(--go--font-family); font-weight: var(--go--font-weight,400); letter-spacing: var(--go--letter-spacing,normal);\">According to the novel, Marlo\u2019s mom was more surprised than anyone, asking Donahue \u201cHow did you get her to do this?\u201d throughout the couple\u2019s wedding.<\/span><\/div>\n<p><\/ins><\/div>\n<p>Reportedly, even strangers expressed shock, among other emotions, about the star and social activist\u2019s decision to settle down. A woman on the plane the couple took to their honeymoon in Greece expressed disappointment to Marlo while Phil was in the bathroom, clearly bothered that she abandoned her previous independent streak.<br \/>\nThomas is honest in the book, explaining that a seed of doubt crept in at this interaction. If she spent so much of her life expressing criticism about marriage, was she now a hypocrite for getting married? Had she let down fans that saw her as a pinnacle of independence?<br \/>\nDonahue and Thomas make their marriage work to this day, despite the typical ups-and-sowns they refer to in the book when covering their lengthy marriage. They cite these issues as learning experiences that helped them to strengthen their bond.<br \/>\nEven early in their marriage, the couple spent time apart while Phil taped his show in Chicago and Marlo traveled for her own acting career.<br \/>\nThomas\u2019s aunt pointed out that the couple\u2019s marriage was not a marriage simply because the couple was not fully living together, and this helped Thomas to see that different individuals define marriage differently.<br \/>\nDespite the distance, Thomas and Donahue made their marriage work. Importantly, Marlo gained children when she gained her husband as well.<\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\"><ins class=\"adsbygoogle adsbygoogle-noablate\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-7510852512761363\" data-adsbygoogle-status=\"done\" data-ad-status=\"filled\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"aswift_5_host\" tabindex=\"0\" title=\"Advertisement\" aria-label=\"Advertisement\"><\/div>\n<p><\/ins><\/div>\n<div class=\"g1-img-wrap mashsb-micro-wrapper\"><\/div>\n<p>In a 2012 interview with AARP, Thomas reflected on what it was like to help raise Phil\u2019s children, explaining that she went into it understanding that they already had a traditional mother and that would not be her role.<br \/>\nMarlo instead explains that she became more of a friend to Phil\u2019s children in order to mirror her own mother\u2019s parenting. She continues to say that her relationship with them today is even stronger than it was at the start of the marriage.<br \/>\nIn the book, Donahue emphasizes that Thomas did in fact spend as much time as she could getting to know his sons with the conversation, attempting to understand the boys.<\/p>\n<p>Other than her strong relationship with his children, Phil and Marlo believe that their long marriage is thanks to the trust they have in each other. Marlo explains, \u201cYou build trust when you realize that this person always has your back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas literally wrote the book on marriage. In their novel, What Makes a Marriage Las: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets,&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424,"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findpath.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}