Jamie Lee Curtis said the secret to her 40-year marriage is a 'really good dose of hatred'
Jamie Lee Curtis married the filmmaker Christopher Guest in 1984, and they have two daughters.
She credits her long marriage to perseverance, patience, and "a really good dose of hatred."
Research indicates that having both positive and negative feelings about your partner is normal.
Jamie Lee Curtis said the key to her 40-year marriage with the filmmaker Christopher Guest is not to leave — even when they hate each other.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight on Sunday after winning a Creative Arts Emmy for her guest role on "The Bear," Curtis said she learned the phrase, "If you stay on the bus, the scenery will change," while overcoming alcoholism. She explained that the same is true in marriage.
"Like all of a sudden, you literally wanna hate each other. And the next day, it's a pretty sunny day, and the dog does something cute, and your child does something cute, and you look at each other, and you're like, 'Aw, gosh,' and then you're on another track," Curtis said.
The 65-year-old actor added that "perseverance, patience, gentleness, and a really good dose of hatred" are what she thinks make a marriage work.
The "Everything Everywhere All at Once" star said she was interviewed for a book about long marriages, written by the actor Marlo Thomas and the late talk-show host Phil Donahue, called "What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life."
Thomas and Donahue, who had been married for 44 years, asked Curtis what she thought the secret to a long marriage was. Curtis said she replied, "The amount you can hate each other and stay in it."
Curtis said she asked if she was the first to bring up hating her spouse, to which Thomas replied, "Mmmhmm."
"I said, well, that's the truth. You're going to hate each other," Curtis said, adding, "We're human beings."
"And so, not leaving. Not allowing that hatred to then cause you to make some choice that you're gonna regret. I think that's really the secret," she said.
Curtis wrote in an essay for People in 2022 that she opened an issue of Rolling Stone in 1984 and saw Guest in a story. She said, "I'm gonna marry that guy" — and six months later, she did. The couple went on to have two daughters, Annie, 37, and Ruby, 28.
Curtis told "Today" in 2015 that her marriage advice was not to get divorced. "It's a fascinating thing," she said. "I could write a book on marriage called 'Don't Leave.'"
The science of loving and hating your partner
Relationships aren't always rainbows and butterflies — and research has shown that's normal.
In a 2014 study published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal, researchers asked 37 participants to think about their significant other and then report their positive and negative feelings about the person. Although participants were quick to categorize positive words after seeing their partners' names, they associated negative words with them faster.
The researchers found that people don't love or hate their partners. Rather, they love and hate them.
While "hatred" can sometimes manifest as criticism, there are ways to avoid too much negativity in a relationship. Avigail Lev, a therapist in San Francisco, previously told Business Insider that couples could follow the psychologist John Gottman's "magic ratio of 5:1."
Based on the ratio, Gottman advised couples that for every negative interaction they had, they should follow up with five positive interactions. Lev said an example is giving five compliments for every criticism you give your partner.
"We don't have to decrease criticisms," Lev said. "We just add more appreciation and gratitude."
A representative for Curtis didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside business hours.
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