Over the past 50 years, countless celebrity couples have opened their hearts and given ESSENCE a peek inside their stories. We’ve captured great advice from them on what it takes to fall and stay in love. Here are 25 priceless gems we’ll hold on to forever. You’re gonna want to take notes!
“Stedman is a great comfort to me. He is my security, but not the way most people think about security. He brings me a sense of emotional security. I feel warm and comfortable and safe with him. I feel protected because I know that he has my best interests at heart. Stedman is an honorable man. That’s the most important thing about him.”
"The reason we’ve been so successful in our relationship is our understanding of commitment and hard work. NO ONE CAN STEP IN AND FILL THE OTHER’S SHOES FOR EITHER OF US.”
"My husband is my teammate. IF WE ARE GOING TO WIN THIS GAME TOGETHER, he has to be strong and he has to be okay with me being strong. I do not want a weak player on my team, nor does he.”
“Believe it or not, we haven’t looked back. In order to survive, you have to look into the future. You can’t look back or you’ll destroy it. That would tear it apart.”
“If we hug each other for 20 seconds, there’s something hormonal that connects us. We do those hugs even when we’re mad at each other. And, girl, sometimes those 20-second hugs feel like 20 years. But it works.”
“Guys have to be more present. When the wife walks in, it should be an event. You have to look up, you have to close the computer and you have to say, ‘Hey, baby. Wow!’”
“We keep things simple in our relationship. I look at her as my friend and I don’t take that for granted. You find those things that bring you together and you do them. Sometimes they’re going to be with [our son] Titan, sometimes they’re going to be without him.”
“He gets Toya. That’s what I’ve always wanted. I’d say, ‘God, whoever you have for me, I want him to see me. I want him to see my heart. I want him to see me crystal clear in his eyes the way You see me in Yours.’ He sees me, and there’s no better feeling.”
“It’s about knowing when you have to be responsible for your own happiness. And you have to know what triggers set your partner off. If you know, for example, your husband doesn’t like you to leave the house without saying bye, don’t do it.”
“I have a strong sense of family. It has to do with how I was raised. I firmly believe kids deserve and need two parents. It’s easy to have an argument or a disagreement that escalates to a point where you say to yourself, I can’t be with these folks anymore. I’m sure LaTanya and I have both been there. But what brings us back is Zoe. There is this little person who has nothing to do with the beef that we have and who the two of us have to consider.”
"I’M HIS SUPPORT SYSTEM with whatever he needs. If he needs someone to listen to him. If he needs to talk or if he says, ‘Hey, babe, I’m tired. Can I take a nap?’ I will say, ‘Yeah, baby. Take a nap,’ and keep the kids occupied. It’s a part of the role that I play as the mother of his kids and being his wife. The balance that I create in our house is for his success.”
“I love being a wife and a mother. Am I incomplete if I don’t have it? No. But I love that feeling. I love the unity of family.”
"I believe in family and the beauty of two people committing to spend their lives together. WE TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING. To me, to both of us, that’s the foundation you need for love to flourish and reach its highest place.”
“It’s a calling, it’s a duty and it’s great. [Being a married man] is an honor and I think sometimes we look at marriage in a selfish lens like, ‘What can it do for me?’ versus if I’m called to it, ‘What am I supposed to do for it and for her?’ So I love being a husband.”
“I think I realized with Gillian that there was a path of least resistance I always should have taken. You’re lucky to have friends who don’t require much labor because your chemistry just works. That’s a blessing, and you don’t get too many of those. I realized that’s what I had with her.”
“I like to believe I’m a really good friend to my wife. I think friendship is important. I see her as my queen. There’s a level of respect. We’ve always built our relationship on the principles and standards that work for her and me. We take the best of things from other people we’ve seen, family and friends. But at the end of the day, it’s what works for us.”
“You come together and you fight together. We just took it one step at a time, which is the only way we could get through it.”
"When you PRIORITIZE CHILDREN over yourself, your brand and your career, wants, needs, hurts, desires, you always win.”
“Joy has been key for us. I want people to know that a happy marriage is tangible. It’s reachable to have this. If both parties want it, it can happen for you.”
“Communication is the center of everything. You have to listen, talk, ask questions. Because love is almost incommunicable. So for me and Jada, our number one focus is communication. Not money, not being famous, not even family, because communication is the key to all of that.”
“We’ve closed all the exit doors. There’s no ramp, no laundry chute, no doggy door. We are in it, and we’re gonna ride this till the wheels fall off. I think that’s the glue that keeps us going.”
“Ry was way more versed in the art of arguments than I was, and she had to school me along the way. There’s something difficult, you talk about it; you argue. You may disagree, but then you reach a mutual conclusion. If we’re not good with each other before we go out into public, then we’ve gotta argue it out first.”
“Having a relationship is kind of like birthing a baby. It’s one of the greatest things you’ll do, but, damn, it hurts. People have bumps in the road because they think something has gone wrong, so they figure they’ll just find someone else to figure it out with. Only, they didn’t figure it out, and they didn’t learn anything; they didn’t fix it. If you just spend the same amount of time working it out with the person you’re with, it’s easier, better for you and cheaper.”
“There were about 28 different core values that I [wrote down], and Faith lined up with all of them. A lot of times people fall in love and it’s just emotional. But they find out later on that they don’t like each other. I like her and all the small details. [Our relationship] didn’t feel like work.”
“[God] took us all the way around the block, halfway around the world and we got back to each other. I mean, there’s not two days that go by when one of us doesn’t look at the other and say, ‘Man, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life.’”
