Chynna Phillips and Billy Baldwin are getting candid about their unconventional marriage.
“These last three weeks have been brutal,” Baldwin, 63, told Phillips, 58 in a Friday, November 6, YouTube vlog. “The last two days have been amazing. We’ve had epiphanies and breakthroughs and such touchy moments, and it’s been so great to experience this with you.”
Phillips and Baldwin, who share three children, have been married since 1995. While they briefly separated in 2010, Phillips ultimately withdrew her divorce petition amid the couple’s reconciliation.
“These past three weeks have literally been the happiest three weeks of my marriage in the past 20 years,” she said. “As painful as these three weeks have been, it will all have been worth it if we can really stick to this new marriage concept. … [A] born-again marriage.”
The Wilson Phillips singer and the actor have recently been residing in separate homes.
“I never imagined Billy and I would be in the situation we’re currently in,” Phillips wrote via Instagram on Saturday, November 7. “Living separately, but adjacent. It’s super confusing and yes … complicated.”
Amid their new arrangement, Phillips and Baldwin have been communicating more due in part to therapy breakthrough.
“We went to therapy years ago and he said the same thing. He called it the ‘one thing,’” Baldwin said in a second YouTube video shared on Saturday. “He’s like, ‘How are you not being fed? How do you need to be fed? How are you not getting in the relationship? I don’t want a long list. I want one thing.’ And he goes, ‘You give Chynna what she needs. You give Billy what he’s asking for. You don’t even have to be particularly good at it. You just have to try.’”
The actor added, “It’s so simple, yet it’s pretty difficult. It’s pretty challenging. It’s pretty elusive to be able to do that consistently. … When you’re together 17, 20, 30 years, it becomes more challenging [because] you’ve got kids and you’ve got jobs and you got bills to pay, like your life gets spread out to you.”
Baldwin has since discovered that his wife’s love language is “gentle, healing, loving communication.”
“Not always possible 100 percent of the time,” he acknowledged. “I’m speaking in very general terms, but I think God played this cruel language where he wired women to want … emotional intimacy that leads to physical intimacy. I act that way emotionally towards my wife and I give her exactly everything she wants, literally moments like 48 hours after we’ve been together physically. I think I want the physical intimacy that leads to the emotional intimacy that she’s looking for.”
