Oprah Talks to Michael J. Fox & Tracy Pollan

Oprah: Has your relationship surpassed what you imagined it would be?

Michael: Let me put it this way—my instincts were proven out. Tracy was the right person for me, and it has been amazing.

Tracy: Michael and I had great role models. Though his father has passed away, his parents had an amazingly strong marriage, as do mine. Both weathered really tough times. For us it has been normal to stay together through difficulties. We grew up witnessing that firsthand.

Michael: Not surprisingly, what Tracy just said is a more eloquent way of putting what I was trying to say! When we married, we married—and that was it. We were in love then, as we are now, and we planned to stay married.

Oprah: I've had friends who have said, "I'll get married, and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out." You never said that?

Tracy: Never.

Oprah: How old were you when you married?

Michael: I was 27....

Tracy: And I was 28. That's funny, because now I'm younger than him. When we married, I was actually older, and then somehow that changed.

Michael: It's magical—now she's two years younger than me! The secret to the marriage is that I contribute to that deception.

Oprah: I've talked to many people who never discuss their ideas about marriage. When they take their vows and say "For better or for worse," they have no idea what "for worse" might mean.

Michael: When Chris Rock did a benefit for our foundation, he talked about the marriage vows. He said, "What do they mean when they say, 'For richer'? Of course a woman will stay with you if you're rich! The vows should ask, 'Will you stay with me if I'm sick and broke?' If the woman says yes, then you're in."

Oprah: Tracy, I read that when you first met Michael on the set of Family Ties, you weren't even attracted to him.

Tracy: It wasn't that I wasn't attracted to him—I was just dating someone else.

Michael: And it wasn't that I wasn't attracted to her—the guy she was dating was just bigger than me.

Tracy: From the beginning, I loved his sense of humor and that brain of his. He's so smart.

Michael: Before Tracy and I started seeing each other, I was this boy prince of Hollywood. I had a Mercedes and a Ferrari and a Range Rover, and I was really nuts.