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Love and Marriage: Relationship ‘I Dos’ and Don’ts From Some of Your Favorite Stars
Friday, November 19th, 2021
Their off-screen romances are by and large a whole lot happier and healthier than their on-screen ones.
If you wanted tips on how to implode a relationship in three easy steps, you might turn for guidance to a soap character. If there’s one thing they’re as good at as getting into steamy affairs, it’s getting back out of them in dramatic fashion.
Doppelgängers and baby swaps not included. Well, not necessarily included, anyway.
More: Days of Our Lives stars and their partners [PHOTOS]
But if you wanted advice on how to keep love not only alive but thriving, you’d more sensibly turn your gaze in the direction of soap actors, who have an uncanny ability to build relationships that are not only structurally sound, they’re as romantic as anything a daytime scribe could pen.
“But how?” you ask. “How do they do it?”
More: Young & Restless stars and their mates [PHOTOS]
Let’s find out via the below photo gallery, why don’t we? In it, we’ve compiled tips for keeping a relationship ship-shape based on advice given to us from the stars and/or insights that we’ve managed to glean from their social-media accounts. Among the General Hospital, Young & Restless, Days of Our Lives and Bold & Beautiful actors’ suggestions are paying attention to “we” time, allowing one’s partner to grow and evolve, stopping for frequent busses, not being afraid to…
Hey, what are we doing? You don’t want to read a list of exactly the tips that you’re about to find out from the story, do you? Click on the photo gallery below, and away you go.
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
1/23
<p>It’s important for one’s better half to not only love them but understand them. Case in point: Lauralee Bell (Christine, <em>The Young and the Restless</em>) and Scott Martin, whom she married in 1997. “He gets me,” she told Soaps.com in 2021. “Which sounds so simple and almost silly, because of course you <em>expect</em> a husband and wife to ‘get’ each other, especially when they’ve been married for more than two decades. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that I’m sort of goofy, and my brain is constantly firing in a million different directions. He manages to both encourage me and keep me grounded.” We should all be so lucky!</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
2/23
<p>Since <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> heartthrob Tanner Novlan (Finn) and wife Kayla Ewell (who used to play Caitlin on the soap) are both in showbiz, they work hard, she said during an episode of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/directionally-challenged/id1434271505" target="_blank"><em>Directionally Challenged</em></a>, at “making sure that the other person knows that it’s OK that you have to go to set today and make out with another person… Tanner and I have this discussion all the time. You have to be willing to let yourself go enough to connect and sort of fall in love with your co-star. You just have to have trust that that line is never crossed.” Novlan seconded that emotion. “Trust,” he said, “is key with anything” — whether you are or your parter is an actor or not.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
3/23
<p>Married for more than 20 years to David Sanov, <em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ Alison Sweeney said during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbaBXDyVKoU" target="_blank"><em>State of Mind</em></a> podcast that the secret of their success just might be their annual “performance reviews.” “Every year on our anniversary, we give each other one thing to work on,” she explained, “and you can’t get mad about it. You can’t be defensive.” Sounds like they’ve learned how to put the “constructive” in “constructive criticism.”</p>
Image: Lisa Rose/JPI
4/23
<p>In a #TBT post on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CO0RMRHFK5S/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>, <em>General Hospital</em> Emmy winner Maurice Benard (Sonny) marveled at a couple of retro photos of himself and Paula, his wife of more than 30 years. “Time flies when you’re having fun and you’re in love,” he said. So “no matter what’s going on around you, don’t forget love and fun are very important.”</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
5/23
<p>“Whenever anybody asks me, ‘Hey, look, I’m getting married — do you have any piece of advice?’” this is what Jordi Vilasuso tells them. “Yes, find someone who you can rely on to help you and your partner get through whatever you need to get through,” the <em>Young & Restless</em> star shared with Soaps.com in 2021. “If you need to work on yourself, it’s not a bad thing. The taboo should be gone. I’m really a firm believer that therapy should be just like going to see a GP,” added Rey’s portrayer, who’s been married to wife Kaitlin since 2010.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
6/23
<p>Though <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> pot-stirrer Kimberlin Brown (Sheila) and Gary Pelzer have been married for 30+ years, “we never fight,” she told Soaps.com in 2021, “and when we do, I can count on one hand how many knock-down, drag-out arguments we’ve had. We have a mutual respect for one another and also understand each other.” On a couple’s way to that understanding, though, she suggested that “people have to learn to give and take, and choose their battles.”</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
7/23
<p>“Kiss your lover every day” is what Bill Hayes prescribes for a happy marriage. And he should know, having been wed for nearly five decades to <em>Days of Our Lives</em> leading lady Susan Seaforth Hayes — Julie to his Doug. He doesn’t just mean a casual buss stop, either. “I’m talking serious sugar. I want an ‘I love you’ kiss every morning and an ‘I love you’ kiss last thing at night.”</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
8/23
<p>If one good thing came of the pandemic for <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> vet John McCook and Laurette Spang, his wife of more than four decades, it was that they rediscovered one another, in a sense. “For an entire year, we weren’t able to go out to dinner or to the movies, which is really all that we do,” he explained to Soaps.com. “But we found out that we enjoyed being here, not being imposed on by the outside world. It was really quite lovely, frankly.”</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
9/23
<p>If you “make a promise, keep a promise,” Bill Hayes instructed fans at <a href="https://www.soapoperasecrets.com/watch" target="_blank">Soap Opera Secrets</a>. “The most important promises you ever make are about love,” added Susan Seaforth Hayes, his real-life wife since 1976 (and <em>Days of Our Lives</em> bride since ’76). “If you’re lucky, your relationship might lead to that promise that’s a wedding vow.” “I do” believe we’ve learned something from the dynamic duo, don’t you?</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI (3)
10/23
<p>No more awkward first dates or setups for Melissa Ordway, aka Abby on <em>The Young and the Restless</em>. Since she married Justin Gaston (ex-Chance) in 2012, he’s been, as she put it on social media, “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CQWZuG8gOMb/" target="_blank">my forever wedding date</a>.” Also her forever party date. Her forever family-reunion date. You name it, he’s it.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
11/23
<p>If there are secrets to a successful relationship, “No. 1 is to take care of each other and ourselves. You’ll have a happy home that way,” <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> Emmy winner Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (Steffy) told Soaps.com in 2021. She and husband Elan Ruspoli “make sure that we’re finding the time to take care of one another. Also, you don’t wind up being resentful. We start at the top of the month. We have a conversation in a neutral place where we talk about what we want and need and what we could be doing better rather than sweep it under the rug and let it build so that you explode in anger.” And they do it like clockwork. “We make sure,” she said, “the first of the month, we check in” with each other.</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
12/23
<p><em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ Hayeses also advise couples to sing together “whether you have a good voice or not, whether you can carry a tune or not,” said Julie’s portrayer. “Music is the food of love.” Dig in and come back for seconds! (Anybody else suddenly in the mood for a Christmas carol?)</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
13/23
<p>There’s a reason that Cait Fairbanks’ significant other isn’t pictured here. “I’m a really private person, but I have this very public job, which is ironic. And my boyfriend wants to stay far, far away from the spotlight, which I totally get,” the <em>Young & Restless</em> actress told Soaps.com in 2021. “We talk all the time about how I feel like I should quit acting and start a dog-adoption service and make turquoise jewelry. But at the same time, I’ve learned so much about myself through this job.” Including that she’d react way differently than Tessa did when Mariah vanished. “If my boyfriend was missing for, like, four <em>hours</em>, I’d be like, ‘Where the hell have you been?'” she admitted with a laugh. “‘Why haven’t you called me?’” </p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
14/23
<p>The couple that plays together stays together. Take it from Kimberlin Brown (<em>Bold & Beautiful</em> baddie Sheila). She and Gary Pelzer, her husband of three decades (and counting), “love doing a lot of the same things,” she told Soaps.com in 2021. “We love to ski, we love to golf… ”</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
15/23
<p>It’s not a big deal that the <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> actress and her better half don’t love <em>all</em> of the same activities. For instance, “he hates the outdoors things, unlike me, but he would never stop me from doing them with my friends.” The key? Trust. Luckily, that’s “something we’ve had all these years,” she told us. “If he wants to go and do something that I don’t want to do, I would certainly never stop him, and he’s the same with me.”</p>
Image: ABC (3)
16/23
<p><em>General Hospital</em> castmates and real-life lovebirds Laura Wright (Carly) and Wes Ramsey (Peter) might have a slight advantage where this one is concerned since they’re both actors — and on the same show, even. But the wringers through which they are put can be very different. At times, Wright told <a href="https://michaelfairmantv.com/ghs-laura-wright-and-wes-ramsey-talk-their-love-connection-the-demands-of-daytime/2018/05/24/" target="_blank">Michael Fairman TV</a> in 2018, “you really have to go, ‘Wow! It’s not about me right now. It’s about us individually as actors.’ Thank God we know the workload.”</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
17/23
<p>Perhaps we could all take a cue from Greg Rikaart (Kevin, <em>The Young and the Restless</em>), who isn’t just grateful for the loving husband that Robert Sudduth is, he marvels at the fact that as a dad to their son, Montgomery, 5 years old in 2021, he is “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CQWZuG8gOMb/" target="_blank">the best of the best</a>.” Aww.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
18/23
<p>People change. And one of the greatest gifts a partner can give the person they love is the <em>room</em> to change, to explore, to grow. That’s something <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> Emmy winner Scott Clifton (Liam) does for his missus Nikki for which she is eternally grateful — and on their fifth wedding anniversary, she said as much. “Scott, the thing I cherish the most after all this time together is the freedom you give me — both emotionally and physically — to evolve, process and self-reflect,” she <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Baetpj8gFa3/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=87e6a158-006e-4996-b33b-bffae4588dea" target="_blank">Instagrammed</a> in 2017. “Not feeling pressure to hold on to my ‘identity’ is a gift that will last a lifetime. Thanks for letting my freak flag fly!”</p>
Image: Elizabeth Goodenough/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
19/23
<p>“Dance together” is another pearl of wisdom from Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes, the eternal <em>Days of Our Lives</em> supercouple on screen and off. “And I mean dance <em>together</em>, arms around each other, touching, loving each other.”</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
20/23
<p><em>Bold & Beautiful</em> MVP Jacqueline MacInnes Wood told us that she and husband Elan Ruspoli, who have two children, “make sure to carve out time to be together, because it’s important that you have time away from the kids, to have little date nights where it’s just us. It’s good for us, and it’s good for the kids.” </p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
21/23
<p>Don’t lose sight of each other, advised Mrs. Jordi Vilasuso in November 2021, just after she and the <em>Young & Restless</em> leading man had enjoyed <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CWCROtoPIWj/" target="_blank">their first night out in ages</a>. “In the craziness of life and parenting,”she admitted, “it’s easy to let the alone time get pushed to the side, but we all know it is so so important. So let this serve as your reminder to go on a date if you haven’t recently!”</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
22/23
<p>There’s a good reason that <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> star Don Diamont (Bill) and wife Cindy Ambuehl look like honeymooners and always will: “We appreciate and support one another,” he told Soaps.com in 2021. “It’s such a simple thing, but I don’t know that everyone takes the time to do it. I feel like I’m the luckiest man on the planet, and I have since the day we met.” </p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
23/23
