Michael Douglas: Keeping Marriage Hot

Michael Douglas answers the questions we’d all like to ask – like how does his 65-year-old body keep a smoking-hot marriage going with much younger wife Catherine Zeta-Jones – in a recent interview in AARP magazine.

And not surprisingly, like many men his age, he relies on a little male enhancement.

On Catherine: “God bless her that she likes older guys. And some wonderful enhancements have happened in the last few years—Viagra, Cialis—that can make us all feel younger.”

Pick Up Line That Almost Blew It

He talks frankly with interviewer Jim Jerome about how he almost blew his first meeting with Catherine, when he opened with a leaden pick-up line.

“I want to father your children,” he said.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she responded calmly. “It’s nice to know it’s all true. Good night.” And she was gone.

Smitten, he persevered with roses and romance and the rest as they say is history. His second time round chance at marriage and children is something he never expected.

Family Most Important

“My career was the most important thing in my life, followed by marriage and children,” he confesses. “And it’s completely reversed now. I never anticipated starting a family and the joy of raising kids at my age.”

Early on, the couple came to terms with the 25-year age gap between them: “Catherine is an old soul,” Douglas says.

Still, there were complications. Douglas’s future in-laws-David, a retired confectioner, and Patricia, both now 62—were three years younger than the groom.

“I wasn’t quite the son-in-law they’d envisioned. I do like to wind up Catherine’s father and call him Pops.”

Hands-On Dad

Just finished filming Wall Street 2, Douglas is playing “house husband” while Zeta-Jones comes home at midnight and sleeps in late with her starring role in the Broadway musical A Little Night Music.

He is waking before 6:00 to help get the kids off to school. “I love to be the first face they see,” he says. “It’s a selfish pleasure. It’s a very special time, the mornings.”

Zeta-Jones says that Douglas thrives on his at-home role: “Michael tells me that [new fatherhood] keeps him agile. He’s a terrific, extremely hands-on father.”

Staying Fit at 60

Douglas stays fit and energized by hiking, diving, and taking family skiing trips near his Quebec farm. But he admits that age has its limitations, in particular when he goes to the gym. “It used to be you got that 30-minute cardio workout and that great sense of euphoria. Now you finish and go, ‘Phew, I’m glad that’s over.’

These days, the Douglases’ social life often amounts to hanging out with the kids or catching up with friends at a local restaurant. “You’ve got these few years of unequivocal love when Mom and Dad can do no wrong. So we’re a tight family unit.”

Different from Dad Kirk

It’s a different domestic scene from the one Douglas grew up in. His father, Kirk, according to Michael, didn’t handle parenting well. “I was the product of a divorced family,” he recalls. “My dad was always torn; he was working really hard and would want to see us. But then, with all his Kirk Douglas passion, he’d try to be a father for a week, a summer, whatever. It was tough.

“I think it’s easier for me to be a good father. I’m not so concerned about my career,” Douglas continues. “I like to be home a lot more now.”

Natural Enhancement

If like Michael you’d benefit from a boost to your sex life, but prefer herbal to pharmaceutical products, there’s plenty to choose from.  For more information see  http://www.herbaligniteusa.com.

Secrets of Lasting Love

We’re fascinated by age gap romances – the relationships where one partner is old enough to be the other’s parent – and there are plenty of high profile couples who seem to be doing just fine.

Think Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher (she is 15 years older); newly engaged Harrison Ford (66) and Calista Flockhart, (44) or Tom Cruise (47) and Katie Holmes (30).

And what about Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who share not just a marriage but the same September 25 birthday – it’s just it is 25 years apart.

These Hollywood matches are all beating the odds, according to new research on the secrets of lasting marriages conducted by the Australian National University.

Divorce More Likely If Wife Older

Analysis of 2500 Australian couples over six years shows the chances of getting divorced double if there is more than an eight year difference in age (if the man is older) or more than two years (if it is the woman who is the older).

And while marrying someone of similar educational, social and religious status helps your chances of avoiding divorce, these factors don’t matter as much as age.

Marriages in which the husband was nine or more years older than the wife, or two or more years younger, had a separation rate of 17 per cent compared to about 10 per cent for their more age-compatible peers.

It also helps if the husband is over 25 when you marry, and if neither of you have children before getting married. Having a similar attitude to wanting children or another child is important, also.

Not Rich, Not Poor Best

Being comfortably off helps in the cause of marital stability, but not if you are very well off – the richest 25 per cent have a higher risk of separation. Being poor, unemployed and feeling financially stressed, is a deadly trifecta for marriage stability. About 20 per cent of those unemployed at the start of the survey later separated compared to 10 per cent of those who had a job.

And another thing the demographers advise: don’t marry a smoker if you are a non-smoker. It is definitely a romance killer. Two smokers, however, will get along fine.