Molly Ringwald has shared the simple rules she says have kept her marriage strong for nearly 20 years. According to Parade, reporting a new interview with PEOPLE, the actress, who has been married to writer Panio Gianopoulos since 2007, put communication first. "I think the secret is to make sure that you take care of your relationship, to communicate," she said.
Ringwald, 58, said the way a couple argues matters more than whether they argue at all. According to FemaleFirst, which also reported the PEOPLE interview, she told her children: "It's not worrying about whether or not you fight, it's how you fight." The rules she and Gianopoulos follow are about respect: no contempt, no name-calling, and no turning a behaviour into an identity.
She gave a practical example of the distinction. According to Parade, she said: "You can say, 'You're acting like a blah, blah, blah right now,' but you can't say, 'You are a blah, blah, blah.'" The couple also avoid one word in arguments: "always." As she put it, "Don't say, 'You always do this,' or, 'You always do that.'"
The couple's history gives the advice its context. According to FemaleFirst, Ringwald and Gianopoulos met after talking about books through mutual friends in an online literary salon, followed by a series of email exchanges, and married in July 2007. They share three children: daughter Mathilda, 23, and fraternal twins Adele and Roman, 17. Ringwald was previously married to French writer Valéry Lameignère from 1999 to 2002.
Ringwald summed up the approach with a garden comparison. According to Parade, she said: "If you water it and fertilize it, and if you give it everything that it needs, I think if it's the right person, it flourishes." She was clear that it is work, adding: "It's all work, but hopefully it pays off." There is no new announcement attached to the interview — just a long-married couple's account of what they do differently, and why they believe small habits, kept consistently, are what last.
Image credit: Molly Ringwald by PhilipRomanoPhoto, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).