If there was a marriage award, then Michael J. Fox and his wife Tracy Pollan would win it.
Not only have they been married for three decades but their marriage has survived fame, illness, and even addiction.
It’s pretty damn impressive if you ask me. And the couple has spilled their secrets on what they do to make their marriage so strong.
But let’s start with their beautiful love story. From the start, it seemed as if there was no reason that these two should come together.
Their backgrounds were radically different and it seemed as if they came from two totally different worlds.
Fox, who is now 57, was raised as an Episcopalian Army brat from Canada who dropped out of high school. It wasn’t until his 30s when he got his GED.
Conversely, Pollan was born into a prominent Jewish family in New York and studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute.
But they don’t see things as differences, they see their backgrounds as being very similar.
“Big families, middle children,” Fox told People. “Sense of humor. Both our families had that.”
But they didn’t see their path as clear and easy.
“It was us against the world,” says Pollan of her own upbringing. “That’s exactly what we’ve created.”
The two of them met when Pollan auditioned for Family Ties in 1985. She was on the show for one season and they reunited again during the film Bright Lights, Big City two years later.
Fox asked his future wife if she would join him for lunch and they began dating after that.
A year later, they were married.
They fought through trying times over and over again in their marriage and won. In 1991, Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a neurodegenerative disorder that causes tremors, stillness, and loss of motor skills.
His wife stood by him during his battle with Parkinson’s and his struggle with alcoholism.
They had a son in 1989 and twin daughters in 1995.
They had another daughter in 2001. So, his children have only really known him while he’s had Parkinson’s.
“I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for Tracy, I don’t doubt that. People picture Tracy as this paragon of stoicism, this long-suffering wife, and that’s all bullshit. This is my situation and she deals with it, and I never feel like, ‘I’m sorry you have to put up with this’ – it’s nothing like that. When I told her about the Parkinson’s I said to her, ‘Are you in for this?’ and she said, ‘I’m in for it.’ And that was it. It was still a struggle but that was a really great moment. She is so funny and she puts up with my happy idiot persona,” he told The Guardian.
Not only is she only, but he thinks she’s really really hot.
He says appreciating each other is key.
“Find the best things about you and the best things about life and celebrate them,” he says.
Pollan says that trust is something she finds important to a good marriage.
“Just give each other the benefit of the doubt. He assumes I’m doing the best I can,” she explains.
They also say that they’re really good at balancing each other out.
“His optimistic worldview about everything is just so powerful. Michael doesn’t worry about the future. I’m completely the opposite,” Pollan says.
“It leaves a lot of work for other people sometimes, because I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, don’t worry about it,” Fox explains. “It’ll be great!’ I can do that because I know she’s got it handled.”
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