Kelly Ripa & Mark Consuelos’ Trick For Staying Together May Not Be Something You Want to Hear

For anyone who looks at Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos as the models for a perfect marriage, think again. They are here to tell us that marriage is hard, y’all, and you have to put in the work to have a successful partnership. That might seem like really basic marital advice, but the TV stars are about to celebrate their 25th year of marriage, so they are doing something right.

Ripa called marriage “a roller-coaster ride” on the Double Date with Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue podcast. She talked about the highs of a union when it gives you butterflies in your stomach while at other times, life will “sink down to the depths” and there are thoughts about splitting up. It’s hard to believe that the morning show host and the actor ever reached those lows given the NSFW comments and thirst traps they leave for each other on their Instagram pages, but it’s all true.

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Ripa explained that while all of their friends were enjoying vacations and spontaneous nights out on the town, they were busy raising babies. She said they were “often short with each other, not really kind to each other” because they weren’t “taking the time for each other.” The couple believes that their marriage could have easily gone downhill if they hadn’t “listened to each just enough.” They don’t consider it luck, but they do realize that even on those tired days, they chose to stick together.

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The Live with Kelly and Ryan personality knew that she was doing small things to bug Consuelos on purpose, like leaving the cap off of the toothpaste. She finally had to ask herself, “Are we going to have a nice marriage or are we going to be dramatic all of the time?” That lightbulb moment helped both of them shift their mindset realizing that staying married might be a harder choice on the bad days, but it was a happier choice in the long run.

“We’ve often said that if we had gotten divorced so many times over things at the time that seemed like a huge deal, we would have missed out on so much life and incredible moments and fun,” she explained to Thomas and Donahue. And what she’s saying makes a lot of sense because it’s the day-to-day aggravations in a marriage that can turn into major issues if you don’t learn how to communicate and take the time to for each other. If Ripa and Consuelos had thrown in the towel when they were younger and a little more hot-headed, they would have deprived themselves of the sweetness they have in their marriage now, especially with all of their kids leaving the nest.

For Consuelos, he summed it up with one tidy thought that we should all take to heart, “There’s no such thing as this perfect marriage, it’s the crazy stuff that you get through together that makes it all worthwhile.” So don’t look at the duo as a marriage of perfection, look at them as a constant work in progress.

Before you go, click here to see the longest celebrity marriages.

Launch Gallery: Best Photos of Kelly Ripa Through the Years — From <em>All My Children</em> to <em>Live With Kelly and Ryan</em>

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