{"id":6794,"date":"2024-04-11T15:46:59","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T15:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/?p=6794"},"modified":"2024-07-11T15:02:47","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T15:02:47","slug":"michael-j-fox-says-hes-had-the-best-35-years-with-wife-tracy-pollan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2024\/04\/michael-j-fox-says-hes-had-the-best-35-years-with-wife-tracy-pollan.html","title":{"rendered":"Michael J. Fox Says He&#8217;s Had the &#8216;Best 36 Years&#8217; With Wife Tracy Pollan"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6803\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6803\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6803\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2024\/04\/michael-j-fox-tracy-pollan-credit-featureflash-photo-agency-shutterstock.jpg\" alt=\"michael j fox\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6803\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Featureflash Photo Agency\/Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After being married for 36 years to wife Tracy Pollan, Michael J. Fox knows a thing or two about the key to a successful relationship. The &#8220;Back to the Future&#8221; actor, who attended the Michael J. Fox Foundation&#8217;s Country Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson&#8217;s event with Pollan, discussed his partnership with his wife and how she&#8217;s helped him face some of the most difficult challenges this past year.<\/p>\n<p>Fox, who married Pollan in 1988, told <em>People<\/em> of his marriage, &#8220;We just make it up as we go along. It&#8217;s interesting, being married for 36 years. Yeah. I mean, the joke is you say I&#8217;ve been married 36 years, and it&#8217;s been the best 36 years of my life, so think about that one for a second.&#8221; He added, &#8220;But it&#8217;s great. It&#8217;s great having a partner and having someone who knows you in a [certain] way when everyone in the world thinks they know you. [Only] one person actually knows you.&#8221; The duo initially met in 1985 after Pollan was cast in a guest role on &#8220;Family Ties,&#8221; Fox&#8217;s popular sitcom. They wed three years later, in July 1988 and share four children.<\/p>\n<p>Fox, who has been living with Parkinson&#8217;s disease for more than 30 years, said that while this past year has brought a lot of &#8220;physical challenges,&#8221; he&#8217;s grateful for his family and team for helping him &#8220;go beyond&#8221; those challenges.\u00a0He told the outlet, &#8220;There&#8217;s been a lot of challenges. A lot of physical challenges these days have been different bits, but just that I had a lot of stuff. I had a movie, a documentary and a lot of obligations. A lot of things have been a lot of effort. And so it was a tough year, but a good year, in each of the challenges [that] came up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fmkZAV4bjvE?si=vIWmUebLAQzD0_fG\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Fox added, &#8220;With the help of family, with the help of people that I work with, I&#8217;ve been able to meet those challenges and go beyond them and do new things. And the whole thing is just keep having new experiences, whether it&#8217;s experiences that push forward, what we&#8217;re trying to do and our mission with foundation.&#8221; In November, the actor \u2013 who was first diagnosed with the progressive brain disorder in 1991 \u2013 opened up about his Parkinson&#8217;s battle. &#8220;The positivity is really sincere. I really feel it, and it&#8217;s genuine,&#8221; he told &#8220;CBS Mornings.&#8221; &#8220;But it&#8217;s hard-fought, and it&#8217;s hard-won, I should say.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can find ways to just give ourselves a break, give ourselves credit for getting through life on life&#8217;s terms. And, in order to do that, you have to stop and say, &#8216;It&#8217;s not that bad. It&#8217;s not that bad.&#8217; They say the absence of fear is faith.&#8221; After retiring from acting, Fox dedicated himself to the\u00a0Michael J. Fox Foundation,\u00a0a nonprofit he co-founded in 2000 to help find a cure. The foundation has nearly $2 billion worth of research and has led to over a dozen clinical trials and therapeutic programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After being married for 36 years to wife Tracy Pollan, Michael J. Fox knows a thing or two about the key to a successful relationship. The &#8220;Back to the Future&#8221; actor, who attended the Michael J. Fox Foundation&#8217;s Country Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson&#8217;s event with Pollan, discussed his partnership with his&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":6803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,23],"tags":[45,408,414],"class_list":["post-6794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","category-relationships","tag-happy-marriages","tag-michael-j-fox","tag-tracy-pollan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Michael J. Fox Says He&#039;s Had the &#039;Best 36 Years&#039; With Wife Tracy Pollan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After being married for 35 years to wife Tracy Pollan, Michael J. 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