Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor rekindling their 17 year romance has restored our faith in love

Lockdown was a strange time, for everyone. The world was at the mercy of a virus we knew very little about and all we could do was stay home to try to prevent its spread. Distancing ourselves from friends and family was unquestionably difficult, but such global upheaval taught us a valuable lesson in the importance of really cherishing the ones we love while we still can. 

There are few “good” things to have come out of that period, but learning to prioritise the relationships in our lives – both romantic and otherwise – is definitely one of them… and I’m sure Ben Stiller would agree as it’s actually what prompted him and his wife Christine Taylor to get back together.

Telling Esquire that he “sees the world differently now”, the actor has had a pretty rough go of it lately. In 2014, he underwent treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer. In 2015, his mother, Anne Meara, passed away after having a serious stroke at the age of 85. The following year, Zoolander 2 came out and flopped spectacularly. That was “not a great experience” in Stiller’s own words. In 2017, he separated from his wife of 17 years. Two years later, his beloved father, Jerry, died. 

That’s not to say he hadn’t had a “pretty amazing run” up until that point, because he had… but the few years of getting “the crap pounded out of him” took their toll. As Esquire puts it: “His career, his marriage, his parents, his own mortality – the underpinnings of his whole life cracked, and nothing seemed clear at all anymore… then the pandemic happened.”

But the tide turned and things actually started to improve for Stiller who – along with Taylor – decided that it would be best for him to move back into the family home, as it would be the only way he would be able to see his two children during those early months of lockdown. “Then, over the course of time, it evolved,” he admitted. 

“We were separated and got back together and we’re happy about that. It’s been really wonderful for all of us. Unexpected, and one of the things that came out of the pandemic,” he continued. Then explaining the kind of realisation that’s needed to make a marriage work, he “draws a quirky, funny, Stillerian analogy”, comparing it to horse riding. 

“A few years ago, I realised I don’t like horseback riding. If there’s an opportunity to go horseback riding, I’m probably not going to do it. Now, I like horses! I think they’re beautiful. I like petting them. I like watching people ride horses, I like watching my kids ride horses. I just don’t really love riding horses. And once you know that, it just saves a lot of energy. 

“So, yeah, I think we have a respect for the ways that we’re similar and the ways we’re different. And I think accepting that, you can really appreciate someone more because you’re not trying to get them to change for you. Once you accept that, you save a lot of energy. ‘This is something that works for me; this is something that doesn’t work for me.’ If you have that trust level with your partner, you know that me saying ‘I don’t like doing that thing’ is not me saying ‘I don’t like you.’”

Stiller and Taylor aren’t the first to consciously recouple either… dare we say Bennifer started a trend when they reunited after 17 years apart last summer?