After 17 years of happy marriage to Freddy Prinze Jr, Sarah Michelle Gellar has shared her secrets to long-term love. Plus, a few funny words about her husband.
In showbiz years, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. have been married a lifetime. Thanks to their 17-year marriage, the pair have cemented their place in that fascinating category of Hollywood celebrities who have managed to achieve long-term love in a world where relationships seem to come with increasingly shorter expiration dates.
If you’ve ever perused Gellar’s Instagram, where the actor frequently shares ridiculously adorable snaps of her husband and two children, then you may have wondered just how the star has achieved such a happy marriage. Now, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer star has opened up about the secrets to her long-term love.
In a new interview with US Weekly, the actor debunked the common misconception that a long-lasting relationship between two people who are “meant to be” just occurs naturally. On the contrary, Gellar points out, any relationship takes hard work.
“I think the truth of any relationship is that, whether you’re a couple, whether you’re friends, whether you’re business partners, is you have to put the work into a relationship,” she explained.
Cultivating a relationship in a society obsessed with instant gratification, novelty and distraction, Gellar went on to explain, is a challenge. But relationships don’t flourish by yielding to temptation.
“We live in a very disposable society and people don’t want to have to work,” she continued. “They want immediate reactions, they want immediate responses.
“It takes work to have a good friendship,” she continued. “You have to call and check in and dedicate that time, and most people aren’t willing to put that work in. So to have a successful relationship, whether it’s marriage, whether it’s friendship, whether it’s business, you have to put the time, if you want to see the results.”
What’s even more impressive about Gellar and Prinze Jr.’s relationship is that they’ve actually known each other for 22 years. They met while making the 1997 Halloween blockbuster I Know What You Did Last Summer, and married in 2002. They also have two children together: daughter Charlotte Grace and son Rocky James.
The pair are famously private about their relationship though, and Gellar stressed the importance of holding your personal life sacred, whether you’re living in the public eye or not.
“To keep a relationship, you have to have stuff that’s private and things that are your own and between the two of you,” she added.
It’s not the first time Gellar has shared the ways she’s managed to maintain her long-lasting marriage. In an interview with People in 2016, the actor explained that paying attention to your partner was a crucial element to building a successful relationship.
“Take the 10 minutes — put the phone down. Have a cup of coffee together. Walk the dog at the end of the night. Read a story with your kids,” she remarked. “Make the most of the time that you have. We are all pulled in so many directions, so make sure that, whichever one you are focusing on, you’re present.”
While Gellar is evidently still madly in love with Prinze Jr., she isn’t averse to poking fun at her husband. In an Instagram tribute last year, in fact, she shared some pretty funny marital words of wisdom.
“Someone told me – Marriage is like a deck of cards. In the beginning all you need is two hearts and a diamond. But years later, you wish you had a club and a spade,” she captioned alongside a sweet car park selfie with Prinze Jr.
Amen to that.
Image: Getty
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