William Daniels’ wife, Bonnie Bartlett, has spoken out about their once “open marriage,” recalling that they never had set “rules” for meeting new people.
Bartlett revealed in her 2023 memoir, Middle of the Rainbow, that she and the Boy Meets World alum were in an open relationship for a few years, shortly after they married in 1951. However, while promoting her book, she told Fox News Digital that this type of marriage was “painful” and “didn’t work well.”
During a new interview with the Daily Mail, the Twins star, 96, and her husband, 99, gave additional insight into their non-monogamous romance and surviving 75 years of marriage.
“It's funny, the press will pick up on something and make more of it than it was,” Bartlett said. “There was never any discussion as to what we were going to do, but in 75 years, the two of you together, you know, it would be abnormal if you… weren't attracted occasionally to other people.
“So there have been times, yeah, both of us, on both sides, and that is in the book. It was non-spoken. Bill and I never sit down and make rules. We never sit down and talk about these things. We just don't. We just live our lives. And if he's away for a year, he's away for a year.”
Bartlett concluded: “Our lives just went on, but we never got unhinged.... We never got unhinged, but our lives did go in different directions occasionally.”
Daniels reflected on his 75 years of marriage, saying, “I wouldn't be with anyone else in my life than this woman sitting next to me.”
In Middle of the Rainbow, Bartlett confessed that she looked for a “kinder and gentler man” during the early years of her marriage and had an affair that lasted a few months.
She wrote that Daniels also had an affair with a female TV producer in the early Seventies, which left Bartlett “devastated” and made her realize that she could no longer be in an open relationship.
During her interview with Fox News Digital in 2023, the St. Elsewhere star reflected on her decision to be in a non-monogamous marriage, explaining: “It was a time when people were doing that. It was at a time in New York when there was a lot of sex and a lot of people doing all kinds of things, you know — very free.”
“But I don’t know if there was a lack of commitment a little bit, and that’s not good. So there was a lot of pain connected with any transgression, with any extramarital thing.”
During a 2023 interview with People, she revealed what helped her and Daniels overcome the challenges in their relationship.
“Hollywood was really the saving grace for our marriage because once we got to Hollywood and we were here and living like a normal family and having weekends at home with our kids and doing things, it was [a] totally different story,” she explained. “Nobody wanted anything more than that.”
After tying the knot in the Fifties, Bartlett and Daniels welcomed two sons: Michael, 62, and Robert, 60.
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