{"id":11015,"date":"2026-08-13T13:52:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/?p=11015"},"modified":"2026-08-13T13:52:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:52:42","slug":"jerry-oconnell-credits-rebecca-romijn-with-turning-him-into-a-family-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2026\/08\/jerry-oconnell-credits-rebecca-romijn-with-turning-him-into-a-family-man.html","title":{"rendered":"Jerry O\u2019Connell Credits Rebecca Romijn With Turning Him Into a Family Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11027\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11027\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11027\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2026\/08\/Jerry-OConnell_credit-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11027\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Hutchins \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Jerry O\u2019Connell says meeting his wife, Rebecca Romijn, changed the direction of his life, turning a self-described \u201cvery immature\u201d actor into a husband and father who now considers family his greatest blessing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy wife was definitely the biggest turning point in my life,\u201d the 52-year-old actor told Fox News Digital while promoting his new movie, \u201cSummer\u2019s Last Resort,\u201d now streaming on Tubi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t believe that my wife is with me, first of all,\u201d O\u2019Connell added. \u201cThank you, honey, if you\u2019re watching this, thank you for being with me this week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Connell and Romijn first met in 2004 at the Maxim Hot 100 party and became engaged the following year. They married in July 2007 and are now parents to 17-year-old twin daughters, Charlie and Dolly.<\/p>\n<p>Looking back, O\u2019Connell admits he wasn\u2019t exactly ready for marriage and fatherhood when Romijn entered his life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMeeting my wife was one of the biggest turning points of my life. I was very immature,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then I met my wife, and my wife wanted to start a family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That forced him to think seriously about what he wanted his future to look like.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was like, \u2018It\u2019s not going to get better than this for me, so I might as well settle down,\u2019\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd I\u2019m so glad I did. We have two great kids, and we have a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Family has remained a priority throughout their nearly two decades of marriage. Romijn previously said that while their daughters were growing up, she and O\u2019Connell made sure at least one parent was always home with them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one else is ever going to raise them besides us,\u201d Romijn said.<\/p>\n<p>Now that their daughters are teenagers, O\u2019Connell says fatherhood is teaching him another lesson: how to let go.<\/p>\n<p>He recalled pushing back when one daughter wanted to quit volleyball before realizing he needed to give her room to make her own decisions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have to trust my kids \u2014 they\u2019re pretty good kids,\u201d he said. \u201cI just sort of let them find their own way. \u2026 I have to trust them. I have to stop telling them what to do. That\u2019s something that they taught me. Stop trying to control situations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His experiences raising teenage daughters also found their way into \u201cSummer\u2019s Last Resort.\u201d O\u2019Connell plays Glenn Winters, a free-spirited vice principal who begins dating a single mother while her skeptical teenage daughter tries to sabotage their relationship.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Connell joked that his daughters provided plenty of inspiration for playing an embarrassing father figure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are eternally embarrassed by me,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can\u2019t stand my presence. Everything I say is the wrong thing to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When filming scenes with young co-star Violet McGraw, O\u2019Connell said he would ask himself what he could do that might make his own daughters refuse to speak to him \u201cfor weeks at a time\u201d \u2014 and then do exactly that.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly two decades after marrying Romijn, O\u2019Connell is still giving his wife credit for helping him become the man and father he is today. What began as an unexpected turning point became the family life he says he is grateful he chose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jerry O\u2019Connell says meeting his wife, Rebecca Romijn, changed the direction of his life, turning a self-described \u201cvery immature\u201d actor into a husband and father who now considers family his greatest blessing. \u201cMy wife was definitely the biggest turning point in my life,\u201d the 52-year-old actor told Fox News Digital while promoting his new movie,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":462,"featured_media":11027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - 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