As much as they don’t want to live with the responsibility of being #relationshipgoals, Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally are really just that. The couple have written a book, the supremely appropriately titled The Greatest Love Story Ever Told. On Wednesday night, Nick and Megan talked about the book in a discussion moderated by Lena Dunham at the Aratani Theater in Los Angeles.
Of their relationship, Megan asserted, “It’s one thing to be in love…but you gotta really like each other.” She added that the secret to their success is their “Two Week Rule.” Megan shared, “We’ve never been apart for more than two weeks in 18 and a half years.” Nick added that this rule is taken so seriously in the industry that “it’s the first thing they bring up” when he starts a new acting job.
Nick also shared that to have a strong and lasting relationship, there are compromises and sacrifices to be made. Nick left his carpentry shop in Los Angeles to be with Megan in New York and told the audience, “If you want to make your marriage a priority but you have [a] conundrum, one of you has to eat s—. And you can’t resent it.”
Entertainment Weekly published an excerpt from the book – which has some hilarious chapter titles, such as “I Came Out of The Womb in a Top Hat and Tap Shoes,” and “It’s Hard to Complain with a Mouthful of Puss / Couple Goals.” In the excerpt, the two talk about fighting and how it affects their life as a “perfect couple.”
Megan: It’s a new topic. Fighting! Although I don’t know what we’ll say, because we’ve never had a fight. (Laughs) In eighteen years. We’ve just been blissfully happy. Just cracking each other up. He acts like Ron, and I act like Karen . . . everything’s perfect. End of chapter.
There’s a perception of us as this perfect couple, so we’ve always been paranoid that if we get into a scrape at the grocery store, it’s going to be running on a chyron on CNN. That’s ridiculous, of course, but I’m exaggerating to make a point, the point being that people think that we have such an idyllic relationship that if we had a normal spat, like people do sometimes in public places . . .
Nick: We’re accused of being “couple goals” enough that it puts a pressure on you in the public eye—“We’re supposed to be amazing. Shit.”
Of the many couples I’ve experienced in my life, I feel like we take a lot less umbrage with each other. I took as a cautionary tale some of the relationships in my family, the older generations, that complain about each other. It goes both ways. The husbands would bitch about their wives, and the wives would hilariously bitch about their husbands. Once I got into this marriage—
Megan: Which one?
Nick: This one right here. That occurred to me—this is when I go to my friends and I say, “Christ, guess what the wife did today?” and I immediately recognized that I didn’t want to be like that.
I don’t know about you, but I love these two, and I hope there’s an audio version of this book available. I saw their show a few years ago and their chemistry is off the charts. They seem like they would be so much fun to hang out with. And, if you’re not a fan, just don’t come for Nick on Twitter, because he will shut you down better than Ron Swanson ever could.
This is a fine compliment, thank you. And actually, being decent is not really hard at all, but you do have to stick with it. https://t.co/3y0asALioc
— Nick Offerman (@Nick_Offerman) October 3, 2018
Photos: Getty, Instagram
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