‘Marriage is like a vacuum cleaner: you stick it to your ear, and it sucks out all your energy and ambition,’ the celebrity said in the book, expressing her former pessimistic view of the institution.

Thomas expresses her sentiments often, comparing marriage to being a prisoner that one must appease. Until she met Donahue, that is.

After Phil Donahue’s first marriage ended in divorce, they both found Marlo Thomas, and the two have since developed a lifelong connection.

The ‘Phil Donahue Show,’ which was later known simply as ‘Donahue’ was the vehicle through which Phil Donahue first gained notoriety with the general public.

The program featured audience participation for the first time and ran for 29 years. Marlo Thomas was one of the guests on his show who completely altered the course of his life.

According to the book, the pair first met in Chicago in 1977, and Phil brought four youngsters with him. A daughter, his fifth kid, resided somewhere else with his ex-wife and her mother.

Prior to getting married in 1980 in front of a small wedding party of 35 guests, Marlo and Phil dated for three years.

Unsurprisingly, the actress’s change of heart startled Marlo’s friends and family. In the couple’s book, a comical incident is told about Marlo’s bridal shower, where guests hung comments from the future bride that revealed her former opinions on marriage.

The novel claims that Marlo’s mother was the most shocked and questioned Donahue throughout the ceremony, “How did you persuade her to do this?”.

According to reports, even complete strangers expressed disbelief, among other feelings, at the celebrity and social activist’s choice to get married.

While Phil was in the restroom on the plane the couple took to their honeymoon in Greece, a woman expressed dissatisfaction to Marlo, evidently upset that she had given up her former independent spirit.

In the book, Thomas is forthright and admits that a seed of uncertainty was planted during this exchange. Was she now a hypocrite for getting married if she had spent so much of her life criticizing marriage? Had she disappointed those who looked up to her as the epitome of independence?

Donahue and Thomas are able to keep their marriage together despite the frequent ups and downs they detail in the book when talking about their lengthy union. They describe these issues as teaching opportunities that strengthened their bond.

The couple had to spend time apart even in their early marriage while Marlo traveled for her acting career and Phil taped his show in Chicago.

Thomas was able to understand how different people define marriage when his aunt said that the couple’s union was illegitimate because they weren’t fully cohabitating.

Despite their separation, Thomas and Donahue were able to keep their marriage together. Importantly, when Marlo got married, she also had kids.

Phil and Marlo think their lengthy marriage is due to their faith in one another, in addition to her close relationship with his children. You develop trust when you know that someone always has your back, Marlo says.

They still have more memories to create after having been married for more than 40 years.

Phil continues by saying that for a marriage to endure, both partners must want it to. Marlo agrees with him and adds that she would never want to be anything other than wedded to her boyfriend. Donohue has helped her in ‘every manner possible,’ according to her, she says.