Dr Phil McGraw and his wife Robin have pulled back the curtain on the relationship dynamics that have helped them maintain a marriage of half a century.
They struck up their romance in 1973, when Phil was a 23-year-old whose first marriage to one Debbie Higgins McCall had just collapsed.
Meanwhile, Robin was the 19-year-old school friend of Phil’s little sister Brenda, who invited her home to get ready for a double-date plan that ultimately fizzled.
When Robin entered the McGraw household, she was greeted with a brusque: ‘Who are you?’ from Phil – but even during their ostensibly inauspicious first meeting, she was able to detect the ‘teddy bear’ lurking beneath his ‘gruff’ exterior.
They made their way down the aisle in 1976 and have remained together ever since, welcoming two sons called Jay, 46, and Jordan, 39.
Now Dr Phil, 75, has shared his tip for marital longevity, urging couples: ‘Just ask yourself, what can you do today to make their life a little better? It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but those little things add up,’ according to Us Weekly.
The Daily Mail has contacted Dr Phil’s representative for comment.
Dr Phil McGraw and his wife Robin have pulled back the curtain on the relationship dynamics that have helped them maintain a marriage of half a century; pictured 2019
They married on August 14, 1976 in Texas, the day he obtained his master’s degree in psychology and six months exactly after his Valentine’s Day proposal
‘Small behaviors accumulate to big results across time — and it means you’re not thinking about yourself. You’re thinking about your partner.’
The TV therapist, who was launched by Oprah Winfrey, added: ‘A lot of people would be well served if they got out of themselves and focused on their partner more.’
Robin has revealed she grows ‘so emotional’ at the thought of their 50th wedding anniversary, which they will officially celebrate August 14.
‘I hope I don’t cry through this entire process because it’s been it’s very, very beautiful time for us right now. I’ve talked about it almost for the last year because I do believe it’s a huge milestone and we’re really very proud of ourselves.’
‘It’s overwhelming when you talk about it,’ Dr Phil observed: ‘because I don’t feel like I’m old enough to be married 50 years. I don’t feel any different than I felt when I was 50. So how could I be married 50 years? It’s really flown by.’
When asked about the severest difficulties they withstood together, both of them cited health crises their children had when they were young.
‘Probably the scariest moment in my whole life,’ said Dr Phil: ‘was when our second son, Jordan, was 12 and he got diagnosed with a really bizarre and rare cancer in the shin of his leg. They had to do an operation and put in artificial bone…. That was probably the most scared and helpless I’ve been in the 75 years of my life.’
‘There’s nothing more challenging than to face an ordeal or a trauma with your children,’ Robin concurred. ‘When our first son was born, he was just 3 weeks old and he had to go in for surgery because his stomach was slowly growing shut…and he was not getting nourished.’
Dr Phil and Robin are pictured with their son Jay, his wife Erica Dahm and the latter couple’s daughters Avery and London at Dr Phil’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2020
Their devout Christianity proved their anchor ‘in trauma and in joy,’ Robin said, noting: ‘It’s very important to us to have our faith with us. I’ve always believed that whatever we’re going through — good or bad — it is because of God’s love. That’s part of a plan and so we question nothing.’
Phil was all of 20 when he exchanged vows in Kansas with his first wife Debbie McCall, having met her in high school when he was the star of the football team and she was the cheerleading homecoming queen.
‘I was the big football player, and she was the cheerleader. This was just the next thing to do,’ he reflected decades later in a profile for Newsweek.
The marriage was annulled after three years, and she later claimed his ‘infidelities’ had been to blame, in a 2005 interview with the Kansas City Star.
McCall alleged that during their marriage, Phil preferred that she remain a housewife rather than involve herself in his health spa, and she added that her efforts to ‘look nice’ at his behest included weight-lifting in an attempt to become more buxom.
Meanwhile, the year of the annulment, Phil’s younger sister Brenda asked her school friend Robin Jo Jameson on a double date with a pair of Air Force pilots.
‘I go to her house to go get ready, but this pilot they’ve hooked me up with gets weathered in somewhere, so I don’t have the date,’ Robin said in her new interview.
Brenda’s pilot Doug – whom she subsequently married – did arrive, so they went off to dinner, leaving Robin at the house with Brenda’s visiting older brother Phil.
Robin has revealed she grows ‘so emotional’ at the thought of their 50th wedding anniversary, which they will officially celebrate August 14; pictured 2016
‘I go to the kitchen to get a bottle of water and there sits this brother in the family room. The TV is on and I walk through, and he goes: “Who are you?”‘ she said.
‘So we didn’t really start off on a real friendly note, but he said: “Would you like to sit down and watch this movie with me?” I said yes and we’ve been together ever since.’
Dr Phil insisted he ‘didn’t say it quite that harshly,’ but Robin maintained: ‘He was very grumpy. I actually asked him: “Are you always this grumpy and rude?”‘
He asked her out the following night and she accepted, having already discerned the softer personality hidden underneath his more forbidding shell.
‘As much grief as I’m giving him about that first night we met, it was love at first sight for me. I knew right then I was going to marry this man,’ she said. ‘I knew that first night because underneath that big bear was a teddy bear. He was rough and gruff and not very friendly, but I knew he was just a teddy bear. He was really sweet.’
They married on August 14, 1976 in Texas, the day he obtained his master’s degree in psychology and six months exactly after his Valentine’s Day proposal.
They married on August 14, 1976 in Texas, the day he obtained his master’s degree in psychology and six months exactly after his Valentine’s Day proposal
‘We laugh about it now because we were very poor,’ said Robin. ‘We both grew up poor, but we created our wedding ceremony for ourselves. We have a wedding picture that we were looking at earlier and my wedding dress cost $100. I had to put it in layaway back then and pay $5 a week for it.’
Meanwhile Phil got married ‘wearing a white tuxedo and I still kick myself, like: “Why did I put him in a white tuxedo?”’ said Robin. ‘I’m thinking maybe it was because it was less expensive than renting a black one.’
She recalled: ‘We got married in the chapel of the church. We had a little reception where we had punch and cookies. But we couldn’t really afford a photographer, so we just had friends and family take the photos.’
Their honeymoon included a night at a five-bedroom country club in Juarez, Mexico – just across the border from El Paso, Texas – and a failed attempt to become contestants on The Price is Right in California.
‘Her wedding dress was $100 and $315 for her wedding ring,’ said Phil. ‘But I see people spend millions on weddings and they last a year. We spent less than $500 bucks on everything and it’s stuck for 50 years. So pretty good Return on Investment.’
